“Purported Cloths of Jesus Apart from the Turin Shroud” is an article written by Joesph Marino, a familiar guest of this blog and podcast, focusing on understanding the types of linens that could have been buried with Jesus. While arguing that more than one cloth could be authentic, several different types are mentioned in the Bible, such as othonia and sindon. Marino states that “many people are familiar with the Turin Shroud, believed by many to be the sindon (in the original Greek) mentioned in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and part of the othonia mentioned by John.”
What are sindon and othonia?
Marino explains othinia to be more of a term than a cloth itself. He states, “Othonia is thought by many scholars to be the generic plural form for grave-clothes of unspecified material, though presumably linen. Jews were buried in multiple clothes”. While he describes sindon to “describe what Joseph of Arimathea had used to bury Jesus.”
But what are the hurdles of differentiating the cloths?
Marino describes the main challenges in two bullet points:
1) “The fact that some Christian believers uncritically accept many claims of authentic relics…”
2) “There have always been many fake relics in circulation, especially in the Middle Ages.”
The main theme of these challenges is the amount of clothes that could be authentic; people rarely question or bring a concern about which could be the right one(s). However, Marino brings a list of clothes that could answer these questions.
Here is a list of more clothes he lists:
1.) Cap of Cathors
2.) Cloth of Cadouin
3.) Holy Coat of Trier
4.) Shroud of Besancon
5.) Sudarium of Oviedo
6.) Tunic of Agenteuil
7.) Veil of Manopello
8.) Veil of Veronica
What is his conclusion?
He concludes the article by stating: “I believe that both the Shroud and the Sudarium are authentic, based on abundant evidence. The latter does not contain an image and has not been studied as much as the Shroud, but many scientists and researchers have studied both cloths and believe them to have covered the same man.” Now what do you think?
Find Out More
To learn more about the topic, check out the full article here or to learn more about Joesph Marino’s work click here.
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