The Last Hour of Jesus Christ: A Case Study from Recent New Insights on the Turin Shroud

A paper 1 has recently been published that has presented new insights regarding the blood coming from the Turin Shroud (TS) and that has posed new interpretations on the possible physical state of the person who had that blood. In this communication the author offers a first interpretative cue on the sufferings undergone by Jesus Christ especially during His last hour on the cross that can subsequently be developed by any experts in the field interested in the subject. But first let’s try to clarify very briefly some statements that could raise some doubts in the reader. The TS is a handmade 3:1 twill linen cloth, 4.4 m long and 1.1 m wide, on which the front and back images of a human body are permanently and mysteriously imprinted. According to the current Catholic Christian tradition, the TS is the burial cloth in which Jesus Christ was wrapped before being placed in a tomb in Palestine about 2000 years ago and the author is convinced of this1. There is evidence that the TS was in Palestine in the first century A.D., and then taken to Edessa (present-day Sanliurfa in Turkey). The congruence between the TS face with that of Christ on Byzantine coins is further evidence that the TS was seen during the Byzantine empire from the seventh century.