Saint Peter's Bones

[Randy Carson]

I don't know enough about St. Peter's bones to opine.  But anyone who bothers to look at the proportions of the body depicted on the shroud of Turin knows it's a fake.  No real person has those proportions, but art made at the time it first surfaced did.  Surely if Jesus were monstrously out of proportion to the extent of being a freak of nature, someone would have mentioned it?  It's not even as if it's a genetic defect commonly found or recognized it's not.  No one has those proportions.  It's as if the shroud first came to light ten or fifteen years ago in Japan and had the huge eyes and bodily proportions of anime cartoons.

Oh---- Welcome back Randy.

You have raised this objection on more than one occasion...what proportions do you find to be problematic, Jenny?

I have a 35" sleeve, and I can position my hands as shown on the shroud WITHOUT dislocating my shoulders as would have happened to Jesus during the hours he spent on the cross.

Do you have medical evidence to suggest that the body is somehow out of proportion? If so, who did the research?

In an exhaustive article on the shroud, archaeologist William Meacham cited 12 studies confirming the physiological accuracy of the Shroud. Meacham wrote:

"Scientific scrutiny of the Shroud image began in 1900 at the Sorbonne. Under the direction of Yves Delage, professor of comparative anatomy, a study was undertaken of the physiology and pathology of the apparent body imprint and of the possible manner of its formation. The image was found to be anatomically flawless down to minor details: the characteristic features of rigor mortis, wounds, and blood flows provided conclusive evidence to the anatomists that the image was formed by direct or indirect contact with a corpse, not painted onto the cloth or scorched thereon by a hot statue (two of the current theories). On this point all medical opinion since the time of Delage has been unanimous (notably Hynek 1936; Vignon 1939; Moedder 1949; Caselli 1950; La Cava 1953; Sava 1957; Judica-Cordiglia 1961; Barbet 1963 ; Bucklin 1970; Willis, in Wilson 1978; Cameron 1978; Zugibe, in Murphy 1981). This line of evidence is of great importance in the question of authenticity and is briefly reviewed below.

"The body was that of an adult male, nude, with beard, mustache, and long hair falling to the shoulders and drawn at the back into a pigtail. Height is estimated at between 5 ft. 9 in. and 5 ft. 11 in. (175-180 cm), weight at 165-180 lb. (75-81 kg), and age at 30 to 45 years. Carleton Coon (quoted in Wilcox 1977:133) describes the man as "of a physical type found in modern times among Sephardic Jews and noble Arabs." Curto (quoted in Sox 1981:70, 131), however, describes the physiognomy as more Iranian than Semitic. The body is well proportioned and muscular, with no observable defects."

Source:

The Authentication of the Turin Shroud:
An Issue in Archaeological Epistemology
by William Meacham - Archaeologist
CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY - Vol. 24 - N° 3 - (June 1983)
Published by the University of Chicago Press
Copyright 1983 by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.