Chronology of the Shroud of Turin

The Gospel Narratives

• Around 3:00 PM, Friday, Nisan 14 (Jewish calendar) on April 3, 33 CE (Western calendar), Jesus was crucified: see Matthew 27; Mark 15; Luke 23; John 19. 

• A lunar eclipse was visible from 6:22 to 7:11 pm, local time. See Joel 2:31; Acts 2:16-22. [CE 2017; CE 2018; Bennett 2001, 138-139]

• Before sunset on Friday, April 3, 33, Jesus is enshrouded along with aloes and myrrh and placed in a borrowed tomb. (John 19:39-40)

• On AD 33, Sunday, April 5, Jesus is reported alive after death. [Matthew 28; Mark 16; John 20] Peter and John go inside the tomb and observe “the cloths”. Peter “marveled at what happened”. John “saw and believed”.

• Surely for the early Christians the Shroud would have been the primary object treasured, revered, and safely secured from destruction by any of the various enemies.

• Unfortunately, no documented continuous chain of custody exists for the Shroud before about 1350, but evidence of it exists through the centuries. See §History

 

 Narratives for the early history of the Shroud: AD 33 – 1201

Many historical narratives describe a holy acheiropoietos image of Jesus (meaning “not made with hands”; that is, not painted). [Antonacci 2000, p 189] Was this the extant Shroud of Turin? The various narratives cover different timeframes over nine centuries, are not consistent, and describe various events, but many descriptions are consistent with the Turin Shroud. Because of differing locales and the gaps of centuries between the major narratives, the Shroud likely was moved to different locations (Jerusalem, Antioch, Edessa, Anatolia, and Constantinople) for various reasons: safety from invading Muslims, theological disputes, military threats, or changes in political patronage. Over distances and centuries, the relocations would engender localized narratives with diverse sets of dates, claims, and agendas. Ian Wilson [2010] and Stephen Jones [2016] provide very detailed chronologies of documented references to the Shroud and to related history. The following is a very abbreviated account (or several conflicting accounts) of the early history of an image of Jesus and of the known history of the Shroud of Turin—likely skewed, self-serving legends of the same actual object.

• Surely, each narrative describes the Shroud, even if through third-hand hearsay. It seems unlikely to me considering other facts in this compendium of evidence that any narratives were fabricated from scratch, but they likely were embellished with inaccurate details biased sometimes by local agendas. 

• Despite inconsistency between historical narratives, they strongly suggest the real existence of Jesus’ burial garment since the first century. Many descriptions match characteristics of the Shroud. The narratives generally end with the object they describe in Constantinople by 944. [Fanti 2015,54-57; Antonacci 2000,133-146; Antonacci 2015, 213]

• Further complicating the history are other relics, such as the Besançon shroud, which had a painted frontal image only, was only eight feet long, was a stylized caricature, but does display some Shroud-like characteristics presumably derived from the Shroud. (Vignon 1902, 73)

• A number of extant artwork renderings of Jesus, known to be made as early as the sixth century remarkably correlate with most of the 15 geometrical details of the Shroud identified by Paul Vignon [1970], a French Professor of Biology. (See the section §Artwork in this compendium.) Among the artwork is the Christ Enthroned mosaic (6th century) in the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Revenna, Italy.