Many believe the Shroud of Turin to be a burial cloth used to wrap Jesus’ dead body, bearing His physical image supernaturally imparted at His resurrection. What do the Scriptures and the Lord say about this? They are not silent.
A woman named Tamara wrote to us claiming the “Shroud of Turin” was the authentic burial cloth of the Lord:
“The Shroud of Turin is authentic and the image is that of the real Jesus. The original Carbon 14 data was an error, and the scientists have now admitted the test was done incorrectly. The sample that was tested contained cotton and linen, and should have contained only linen. The cotton contaminated the linen causing the cloth to date to a younger age than it should have. Scientists have finally admitted the error.”
Reply to the claim:
Many are led astray by this phony relic, while those who believe may be strengthened in the faith of Christ by knowing the godly principles that refute the shroud’s claim to authenticity. We will give you a few indisputable reasons why the shroud is a fraud:
1) The Lord’s body was prepared with linen strips and a head cloth, not a single shroud covering the whole body, which then could have possibly received the purported image transfer at the time of reviving:
“And stooping to look in, he saw the linen strips lying there; however he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and entered into the tomb; and he saw the linen strips lying there, and the facecloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen strips, but apart from them, having been rolled up in one place” (John 20:5-7 EMTV).
2) God never meant for the proof of Christ’s resurrection to be provided to an unbelieving world by physical proofs.
“Then He said to Thomas, ‘Bring your finger here, and see My hands; and bring your hand here, and put it into My side. Be not unbelieving, but believing.’ And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’ And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His Name” (John 20:27-31 EMTV).
These things were written so that you might believe, but fantastic relics like the shroud and the “holy grail” were never provided so that you might believe.
3) Where God did provide physical proof, it was to those who believed.
The Lord appeared to Thomas who was a believer struggling in his faith, but He never appeared to the multitudes that didn’t have faith. If physical demonstrations were the way to convince men of the resurrection, then certainly He would and should have done that. And if He would and should do that, why would He limit Himself to a shroud over all these centuries?
Can you imagine? The Lord, after His resurrection, appears to the Pharisees – scene: The Lord walks through the wall of Caiaphas’ bedroom, “Hi there Caiaphas, yes, it’s Me, and yes, it’s true, I am the LORD and I raised Myself from the dead after you had Me crucified. But you won’t be seeing Me anymore, because you don’t believe. You can see My burial shroud instead ….” And out He goes the same way He came.
Ridiculous yes, even blasphemous, but that’s your confidence in the shroud talking, not reality. Consider these words of the Lord, which have been in effect since He spoke them:
John 4:21-24 MKJV
(21) Jesus said to her, Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you shall neither worship the Father in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem.
(22) You worship what you do not know, we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
(23) But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him.
(24) God is a spirit, and they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.
4) The Law of God forbids the making of images for the purpose of worship:
“You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth” (Exodus 20:4 BBE).
And what is the “Shroud of Turin” to millions, if not an object of worship (and never was otherwise)?
But where the Israelites illicitly worshipped an object that even God had ordained, the brazen serpent on a pole, He had it removed and destroyed.
“He [Hezekiah] removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent which Moses had made; for until those days the sons of Israel burned incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4 MKJV).
5) The shroud depicts the Lord with long hair, but here’s what the Word of God says about that:
“Does not nature itself teach you, that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:14 EMTV)
Would the Lord appear contrary to the nature He created that reflects Him and all His attributes?
So there you have five solid proofs of the fakery you have fallen for, Tamara. We are here to point you to the One Who was purportedly in that fake relic, for you to leave behind all Catholic superstition and religious hooey, which is no less dead than the Jews congregating at the “wailing wall” to solicit God’s attention, and hoping to raise a third temple as if that would bring Him back.
The message for all of you: The LORD is already here!
Paul
Tamara wrote back and here is our reply to the content of her letter:
Hi Tamara,
You write: “When I was sitting in my college cafeteria back in the late 70’s, late in the week and just prior to the Easter weekend, I looked up to the sky and said ‘Jesus there are so many pictures and paintings of you around the world. What do you really look like?’ I then turned my head from the window and at that exact moment there was a large black and white picture on the back of a book a male student across from me was reading. I knew the face on the back of the book. It was like not seeing you biological father for decades and then suddenly seeing his face in a photograph. I knew the man whose image was on the back of that book. I asked the student ‘what book are you reading?,’ and he said, ‘The Shroud of Turin.’ I went to the library and took out the book and read it almost without stopping. After this many things started happening and I started having visions and hearing voices. I then started having flashbacks and dreams to the time of Jesus. I saw most of the things written in the New Testament, including Jesus dying on the cross, and wiping the blood from his face with my handkerchief. I also saw many things that were not included in the 4 Gospels. All my flashbacks were of the same man whose image is on the Shroud of Turin.”
Moses, when essentially asking to see what God “really looked like” (“I beseech You, let me see Your glory”), received this answer:
Exodus 33:19-20 MKJV
(19) And He said, I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the Name of the LORD before you. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.
(20) And He said, You cannot see My face. For there no man can see Me and live.
You didn’t know what you were asking for, Tamara, or why you were asking for it. To ask to see God in truth is to ask to see His glory. But you weren’t asking for that. You were asking for something carnal to satisfy your lusts, your natural curiosity to see and know the Lord after the flesh, which is neither good nor glorious. In fact, you opened the door to devils and strong delusion, swiftly being convinced of a lie by their demonic influence. That’s what you describe happening to you after what followed your request to see what the Lord looked like in the flesh.
The Lord didn’t hear and answer you, though the devils did, and found in you an open vessel they could fill with their mischievous deception.
What you have been seeing isn’t the face of Jesus Christ, either in the Spirit as He now is, which is what counts, or even as He was in the days of His flesh, which doesn’t count.
Regarding His present status, you obviously didn’t see what John describes in Revelation:
Revelation 1:13-18 MKJV
(13) And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven lampstands I saw One like the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and tied around the breast with a golden band.
(14) His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And His eyes were like a flame of fire.
(15) And His feet were like burnished brass having been fired in a furnace. And His voice was like the sound of many waters.
(16) And He had seven stars in His right hand, and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. And His face was like the sun shining in its strength.
(17) And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying to me, Do not fear, I am the First and the Last,
(18) and the Living One, and I became dead, and behold, I am alive for ever and ever, Amen. And I have the keys of hell and of death.
Victor also saw the Lord in glory, described in Victor’s First Three Dreams from the Lord. Again, this isn’t what you saw.
Regarding the days of His flesh, we have already proved from the Scriptures that Jesus didn’t have long hair, as the shroud blasphemously depicts Him.
Another proof against the shroud is that the Jewish believers who treated the Lord’s body for burial wouldn’t have buried Him a bloody mess in fresh linens, leaving stains all over the burial cloths.
We know that blood begins coagulating at death, when the circulation ceases. That means for those preparing the body for burial, it would remain clean after they washed the blood away for the special treatment that followed:
“And Nicodemus also came, who at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus and wound it with linens with the spices, as is the custom of the Jews to bury” (John 19:39-40 MKJV).
And we see here that the linen used on the body was wound, which wouldn’t be the case for a large single cloth, particularly something like the shroud with its depiction of a continuous image.
Also, we see here that Jesus was prepared according to the custom of the Jews, which was also the case with Lazarus:
“And he who had died came out, bound hand and foot with sheets, and his face was bound with a cloth. Jesus said to them, Untie him and let him go!” (John 11:44 MKJV)
This description of Lazarus is consistent with that of the Lord. There isn’t a single sheet wrapped over a body like a tortilla, but of cloth that is more like a bandage, wound around the body, with a separate cloth for the head. This once again exposes the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo as having nothing to do with the Lord. They are fakes used by unscrupulous religious fakes who exercise power over the ignorant and idolatrous masses by using superstitious articles as part of an arsenal of subjugation. It is voodoo in the Name of Christ.
In Luke’s account, we are provided with a second witness and hear the same thing about “linen strips” as opposed to a “shroud,” with another very important point of note:
Luke 24:1-12 EMTV
(1) And on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.
(2) But they found the stone having been rolled away from the tomb.
(3) And going in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
(4) And it happened, as they were greatly perplexed about this, that behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.
(5) Then, as they became afraid and bowed their faces to the ground, they said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?
(6) He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee,
(7) saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ ”
(8) And they remembered His words.
(9) And returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.
(10) It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the rest with them, who told these things to the apostles.
(11) And their words seemed like nonsense before them, and they disbelieved them.
(12) But Peter rose up and ran to the tomb; and stooping down, he saw the linen strips lying by themselves; and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened.
Why do you, Tamara, seek the dead among the living? You aren’t really seeking the Lord, you are proclaiming another, a phony dead-corpse image Jesus, which speaks falsehoods from the dead to you. Whatever you have heard of and from your alleged Christ is laced with lies. You are spreading a false gospel from the pits of Hell, even if you don’t speak a word. Your personage is permeated with spiritual pollution. You need repentance and cleansing by blood and fire.
It’s no wonder that the Shroud of Turin is a prime promotional product of the idolatrous Catholic Church, polluter of Heaven and earth with her blasphemies.
But those who will come and serve the true Lord Jesus are commanded not to know Him according to the flesh, as is the case with your devilish relics:
“Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16 EMTV).
And why would God exalt and memorialize the shell that is meant to be discarded?
1 Corinthians 15:35-50 MKJV
(35) But someone will say, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?
(36) Foolish one! What you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
(37) And what you sow, you do not sow the body that is going to be, but a bare grain (perhaps of wheat or of some of the rest).
(38) And God gives it a body as it has pleased Him, and to each of the seeds its own body.
(39) All flesh is not the same flesh; but one kind of flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another of fish, and another of birds.
(40) There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the glory of the heavenly is truly different, and that of the earthly different;
(41) one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.
(42) So also the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption;
(43) it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
(44) it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
(45) And so it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul,” the last Adam was a life-giving Spirit.
(46) But not the spiritual first, but the natural; afterward the spiritual.
(47) The first man was out of earth, earthy; the second Man was the Lord from Heaven.
(48) Such the earthy man, such also the earthy ones. And such the heavenly Man, such also the heavenly ones.
(49) And according as we bore the image of the earthy man, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
(50) And I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.
And don’t give us the spurious argument that the shroud is supposed to convince unbelievers that the Lord has risen. Philip saw the Living Christ, and not the mutilated image of the old. Only the Living can appear to man and move his spirit, but men and devils, in all their deceitfulness, concoct dead appearances to appeal to the flesh. They do so because they reject God; they want nothing to do with Him, in vain worshipping Him with their lips while their hearts are far from Him.
Unbelievers are convinced only when they meet the risen Lord by faith, as occurred with Saul of Tarsus. And faith is not of sight, even if seeing apparently miraculous things. But make no mistake here, the shroud and its companions are frauds all the way.
You could also ask yourself who possessed the shroud after Christ raised Himself from the dead. And if it had such powers as to bring to faith, why is there no Biblical or extrabiblical record of its being passed around and publicized far and wide? Yet the Scriptures speak of passing handkerchiefs anointed by the apostles to bring healings. Why not the shroud?
But you won’t let go of your corrupt image of the flesh, a token of your false god, by our words alone. That will only happen by the judgments of God that follow our words:
“For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many” (Isaiah 66:16 KJV).
Paul Cohen and Victor Hafichuk
Tamara then sent us alleged descriptions of Jesus in the flesh, along with objections to things we wrote about the shroud (her specific quotes provided in the text of Victor’s reply):
Tamara, Victor here,
Concerning the Lord’s appearance on earth, you sent us: Physical Description of Jesus – Essenes, Essene Teachings and …
“There appeared in these our days a man, of the Jewish Nation, of great virtue, named Yeshua [Jesus], who is yet living among us, and of the Gentiles is accepted for a Prophet of truth, but His own disciples call Him the Son of God- He raiseth the dead and cureth all manner of diseases. A man of stature somewhat tall, and comely, with very reverent countenance, such as the beholders may both love and fear, his hair of (the colour of) the chestnut, full ripe, plain to His ears, whence downwards it is more orient and curling and wavering about His shoulders. In the midst of His head is a seam or partition in His hair, after the manner of the Nazarenes. His forehead plain and very delicate; His face without spot or wrinkle, beautified with a lovely red; His nose and mouth so formed as nothing can be reprehended; His beard thickish, in colour like His hair, not very long, but forked; His look innocent and mature; His eyes grey, clear, and quick- In reproving hypocrisy He is terrible; in admonishing, courteous and fair spoken; pleasant in conversation, mixed with gravity. It cannot be remembered that any have seen Him Laugh, but many have seen Him Weep. In proportion of body, most excellent; His hands and arms delicate to behold. In speaking, very temperate, modest, and wise. A man, for His singular beauty, surpassing the children of men.”
However, by the Spirit, Isaiah says this of the coming Messiah:
“For He comes up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; He has no form nor majesty that we should see Him, nor an appearance that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as it were a hiding of faces from Him, He being despised, and we esteemed Him not” (Isaiah 53:2-3 MKJV).
How does the report you send us compare to Isaiah’s, and whose report shall we believe, the alleged one you offer of a Roman pagan, or Isaiah’s?
While Isaiah says nothing about long hair, Paul did:
“Does not even nature itself teach you that if man has long hair, it is a shame to him?” (1 Corinthians 11:14 MKJV).
“How long is long,” you ask? Long enough for a man to possibly appear as, and be mistaken for, a woman, barring other features.
Concerning the crucifixion evening’s handling of the body, John says, “And Nicodemus also came, who at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus and wound it with linens with the spices, as is the custom of the Jews to bury” (John 19:39-40 MKJV).
But you say, “There was no time to prepare the body as it was too close to sundown. I was shown this in a vision.”
Shall we believe John, or you and your vision?
You ask, “And how do you explain Mark 27:59 And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a CLEAN LINEN CLOTH.”
No problem. The Greek word “sindon” (G4616, Strong’s) is translated “linen” or “linen cloth” by various translators. There is no indication it is one sheet or a wrap, except for two witnesses from the Scriptures, the verses Paul already gave you (John 19:39-40), which speak of the Lord’s body being wound, and the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, after which Jesus commanded that Lazarus be loosed from being bound, a binding, by the way, in which he could still walk, and therefore not likely a sheet that would bind limbs with body.
And Lazarus also had a separate napkin for the head, as did Jesus. So we have two witnesses to testify of something unlike a single, wide-sheeted shroud covering body, limbs and head all in one.
You write, “Paul, I respect you as a person, but Jesus has shown me everything in a vision and so I humbly must disagree with the account you’ve outlined. I’ve been allowed to see Jesus changing water to wine, the house where it was done, the raising of Lazarus, the woman at the well, cahnging water to wine, the clearing of the temple, riding into Jerusalem on a white donkey, His death on the cross, and most of the other things outlined. He has also allowed me to see some things that were not even included in Scripture. He has also shown me things in the Old Testament, concerning the Holy Spirit being a woman.”
Paul gave his account from the Scriptures, while you give yours from your visions. Whom shall we believe, Tamara Latham and her spirit, or the Gospelers and the Holy Spirit Who inspired them?
As to your claim of the Holy Spirit being a woman, the Bible refers to the Holy Spirit as a “He”:
“Therefore take heed to yourselves, and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God which He has purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28 MKJV).
Shall we believe you or the Scriptures by Luke as inspired by the Holy Spirit when he wrote the Book of Acts?
Yes, that’s right – according to God’s Word, the Holy Spirit is the Lord Jesus Christ – male all the way. In fact, you said it yourself, therefore in all contradiction:
“…the Holy Ghost is the resurrected Jesus.” More on this later.
To answer from the Scriptures questions about how three were manifested though God is One, and much more, read Jesus Christ Is God and The Asininity of the Trinity.
In all of creation, male impregnates female. Matthew writes, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was this way (for His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph) before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18 MKJV).
The Scriptures teach that Mary was the mother. Was she impregnated by another mother, called the Holy Spirit, which you say is a woman? Did Jesus not have a Father then, but two mothers, according to you?
It is written: “And as he thought upon these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take to you Mary as your wife. For that in her is fathered [conceived] of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:20 MKJV).
Did you say, “mothered,” Tamara? What sort of spirit is it that speaks to you? Is it the same that inspired the writing of the Scriptures? It doesn’t appear so, does it?
In argument, you rely on your visions, a false gospel, and are ignorant of original language word usage (both Hebrew and Greek) in translation. You say, “So, I am left to surmise the Holy Spirit is a woman and the Holy Ghost is the resurrected Jesus. The translations from Greek, Latin and Hebrew use the same word for Spirit and Ghost, so there would have been no way to distinguish between the two, whereas we are able to do this with the English language (spirit referring to something like the soul and ghost referring to something like an apparition).”
“Surmise” is right, but not “know”:
“He [she] is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof comes envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings…” (1 Timothy 6:4 KJV).
According to the Scriptures, there is a difference between soul and spirit, contrary to your surmisings:
“For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul [Strong’s G5590 – psuche] and spirit [Strong’s G4151 – pneuma], and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12 MKJV).
“And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you, and may your whole spirit [pneuma] and soul [psuche] and body be preserved blamelessly at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 MKJV).
At any time that the word, “Ghost” is used for the Holy Spirit, it is the Greek, “pneuma,” (Strong’s G4151) and when the word, “Spirit” is used for the Holy Spirit, it is the same word, “pneuma.”
So while God tells us by the Bible that there is no difference between “Ghost” and “Spirit,” Tamara tells us otherwise. Shall we believe the Holy Spirit/Ghost, Who inspired men to write the Scriptures, or your spirit, which contradicts the Scriptures, though you suppose to refer to them as an authoritative source of information?
Either the Scriptures are true or false. You can’t have it both ways, using them where they suit your devilish imaginations, and disregarding them when they don’t support your foolish notions.
Furthermore, how did Jesus refer to the Holy Spirit, as feminine or masculine?
“But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit Whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said to you” (John 14:26 MKJV).
Tamara, you are either a liar, deluded in your imaginations, or demon-possessed, but you certainly have no truth in you. It is another Jesus and not the Lord Jesus Christ that appears to you. You need to repent of your blasphemous lies.
Instead of believing the Living Lord Jesus Christ, you believe a forbidden image of Him, a hoax created by liars to deceive the simple and foolish. It is witchcraft. Repent of your evil imaginations and self-glorification.
Victor Hafichuk