The agonizing crucifixion of Jesus from the Bible details how he endured severe beatings, punctures and nails driven into his hands and feet.
Christians believe those wounds were miraculously imprinted on the burial shroud after Jesus was resurrected from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, scorched into the fibers by a burst of energy when he came back to life.
Now, a new analysis of the Shroud of Turin – also known as the Holy Shroud – claims to have uncovered evidence that the crucifixion may be historically accurate.
An engineer from the University of Padua in Italy used modern technology to reanalyze samples taken from the cloth in the 1970s, finding tiny blood particles showing signs of organ failure, trauma, disease and radiation.
Materials that were typical in ancient Jerusalem were also said to be discovered, suggesting that the shroud may have originated in the region and not in Europe where many skeptics think it was created as a medieval forgery.
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Independent experts dismissed the findings, however, saying blood could have contaminated the cloth at any point in the past 700 years.
The Shroud of Turin is a 14-foot-long piece of linen featuring a faint image of the front and back of a man who Christians believe to be Jesus.
The cloth was first presented to the public in the 1350s, when it was exhibited in small collegiate church in Lirey, a village in northern France. Some believe it to be a Medieval fake.
It was not until 1978 when the first physical samples were removed from the cloth, done using adhesive tape to carefully lift particles from the front fibers and a vacuum to collect dust from the back.
But, back then, the results were inconclusive about whether or not blood had been present in the samples.
Now, University of Padua professor Giulio Fanti has placed those samples under modern-day microscopes capable of highlighting details down to the size of individual particles.
His study was published in Archives of Hematology Case Reports and Reviews, which peer-reviewed his research.
The reanalyzed particles showed the presence of hemoglobin, which is a key component of blood, and also two different types of blood that Fanti labeled Type A and Type B.
Fanti says this suggests the cloth was used on someone with bloody injuries, rather than forged using ink, dye, paint or other techniques.
Traces of creatine were also identified in the shroud sample, which is released into the blood stream when a person undergoes muscle breakdown or some type of trauma.
Your body produces creatine from amino acids in your liver, kidneys, and pancreas. It is also present in foods.
The body releases the chemical into the bloodstream when cells in the brain, heart or skeletal muscles are damaged.
The expert found another type of blood that was shed while Jesus was still alive. It also contained signs of radiation, which Christians believe was released when Jesus rose from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ
‘The high percentage of creatinine found in [the sticky tape samples], may be explained, especially during Jesus’ last hour before dying on the cross, by a reduced blood flow to the kidneys also caused by hypovolemia and by severe dehydration,’ the study reads.
Fanti claimed that his findings align with John 19:28 that states ‘Jesus said, I thirst.’
The samples also featured signs the person whose blood allegedly stained the shroud had suffered from uremic syndrome which occurs when the kidneys are unable to eliminate waste products.
While the condition typically happens from kidney disease, it can also be brought on by blunt trauma to the organ, which Fanti believes may have occurred when Jesus was whipped.
John 12:1 reads, ‘Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.’
‘I would refer to Type A blood as that which came out of the corpse and therefore postmortem blood; it consists of microcytes which indicate the respiratory suffering of Jesus on the cross,’ Fanti, a Christian who has been studying the shroud for 25 years, told DailyMail.com.
While the testing cannot prove whose blood litters the cloth, a new recent study claimed to find evidence that the shroud dates back 2,000 years.
This new finding came in stark contrast to a 1988 study which found the shroud to be a fake, after researchers determined it had been produced between 1260 and 1390 AD.
