Turin Shroud: Proof or Doom for Christianity?

The Turin Shroud is a well known relic of unknown origins that bears an image of a man, who appears to have been tortured and crucified. It remains to this day a subject of heated controversy as to whether it is indeed the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. It seems that if the Shroud is genuine, it adds credibility to the Gospel story, which is basically our only historical source on Jesus.

Despite a radiocarbon test that dated the cloth to the Middle Ages, there are researchers, and especially Christians, who express their doubts about those results, and not without reason. But life can play weird games and sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. What no Shroud defender suspects is that if the Shroud is genuine, it could spell doom for Christianity. Why is that?

That is because according to late Texas researcher Rob Solarion the cloth did indeed cover the body of Christ after the crucifixion. But not the Christ of the New Testament. It was the true, historical Christ, who was none other than the Greek-Cappadocian sage APOLLONIUS OF TYANA!

Apollonius was born approximately in 4 BC and he was said to be a divine man, moral teacher, religious reformer, healer, prophet, and miracle worker. Sounds familiar? Yes it does, and that is why Raymond Bernard declared emphatically that Jesus was a myth based on Apollonius. Yet there was a crucial difference between the two. Apollonius lived for about 100 years and traveled throughout the known world, while Jesus lived only 33 years in Palestine.

Rob Solarion puts two and two together and proposes a revolutionary theory: The man on the Shroud is actually Apollonius of Tyana and so the story of Jesus is actually a missing chapter of his life! Ιncidentally, that supports the theory that Jesus did not die on the cross, something hinted in the Gospels too. Is this possible?

First, if we take a look at the chronology of the life of Apollonius we notice that there is a gap of almost 20 years in his life, between the years 23-43 AD. That is exactly the period that covers the ministry of Jesus. What happened during all those years?

Back to the Shroud. It’s an old saying that you should not judge a book by its cover, but every rule has an exception and here we have an outstanding one at least. A perfect match with the shroud face.

This is the Solarion comparison between the Shroud and the Apollonius bust. The similarities are indeed striking (notice especially the mysterious scar on the left eyebrow of the bust – there is something similar on the Shroud). To verify this, I compared the two and this is what I got:

It is pretty clear. Now let’s take a look at the individual features of the face on the cloth. Holgen Kersten in The Jesus Conspiracy lists the following (p. 152):

1. A horizontal stripe on the forehead
2. The U-form or three-sided «square» on the forehead
3. A V-shape at the bridge of the nose
4. A second V-shape inside feature number 2
5. A raised right eyebrow
6. An accentuated left cheek
7. An accentuated right cheek
8. An enlarged left nostril
9. An accentuated line between nose and upper lip
10. A heavy line under the lower lip
11. A hairless area between lip and beard
12. The fork to the beard
13. A horizontal stripe across the throat
14. Heavily accentuated, owlish eyes
15. Two loose strands of hair falling from the apex of the forehead

To the left is Kersten’s diagram with the above features. To the right there are 12 of the 15 features that also appear on the Apollonius bust. Coincidence?

And that is not all. In the Life of Apollonius there is a most enigmatic passage. As Vespasian was preparing for the siege of Jerusalem, Apollonius was in Alexandria. Vespasian asked to see him, but Apollonius:

«declined to enter a country which its inhabitants polluted both by what they did and by what they suffered, which was the reason why Vespasian came in person to Egypt.»

What could be the reason for this refusal? What did Apollonius mean when he said that the inhabitants had polluted the country (that he supposedly never visited) by what they did? Could this be related to the crucifixion of 40 years ago?

If that is the case, then everything fits very well. The origin of the Jesus images, the lack of historical evidence for his existence and all the other problems that religious scholars have faced for decades or centuries, are finally answered. And of course there is always the irony: the burial cloth of Jesus Christ turns out to be the burial cloth of Christianity as we know it.

REMARK: There is another important mystery with Christianity. The so-called St Paul. A super apostle who appeared out of nowhere and, despite never having met Jesus, overshadowed his disciples, travelling throughout the entire Roman Empire preaching the Gospel and founding churches. And yet like Jesus, he is unknown to history. Doesn’t make much sense. Unless of course his real name was Apollonius of Tyana.

 

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UPDATE: Stephen Jones of the Shroud of Turin blog, after hesitating, decided to reply to this post (see the comments section). He didn’t do very well but I have to applaud him for at least trying. Let’s have a look:

 

According to Wikipedia, "... the Roman historian Cassius Dio (c. 155 – c. 235 AD) writes that Apollonius was in his 40s or 50s in the 90s AD, from which the scholar, Maria Dzielska gives a birth year of about 40 AD." That's 10 years after Jesus' death in AD 30!

 

Actually Cassius Dio writes only that Apollonius flourished under Domitian. But his statement is not supported by any evidence. For the correct chronology see the work by Sir Flinders Petrie.

 

Under "Comparisons with Jesus" Wikipedia states that, "In the late 3rd century Porphyry, an anti-Christian Neoplatonic philosopher, claimed in his treatise _Against the Christians_ that the miracles of Jesus were not unique, and mentioned Apollonius as a non-Christian who had accomplished similar achievements." So Porphyry, knew that Apollonius was not Jesus.

Calling Porphyry as a witness is not a good idea at all. His critique was so devastating that his books were burned. No wonder, as he declared emphatically that the Gospel writers did not write history but simply invented the stories about Jesus. For Porphyry the Gospel Jesus never existed. He probably didn’t look into the matter any further.

 

The man on the Shroud is dead.

 

The question is WHO is the man on the Shroud, either alive or dead. The question of Resurrection or Survival is secondary.

 

As for your "The similarities are indeed striking (notice especially the mysterious scar on the left eyebrow of the [Apollonius'] bust – there is something similar on the Shroud)" they are nothing like each other. On the Shroud it's a reversed 3 blood-flow.

 

Nobody said anything about any number 3 blood flow. The scar is this:

 

Crown of Thorns anyone?

 

Your, "To the left is Kersten’s diagram with the above features. To the right there are 12 of the 15 features that also appear on the Apollonius bust. Coincidence?" is an exercise in self-delusion. The two faces, Kersten & Gruber's sketch of the Shroud face and the bust of Apollonius of Tyana again are nothing like each other! 

 

They WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE Mr Jones. You either miss or pretend to miss the point. Kersten’s sketch is just a sketch. It’s purpose is not to look like someone but to illustrate some features. And we can see that they correspond with certain features on the bust. You do the exact same thing with the Pray Codex to show the correspondences with the Shroud. And the Codex is just a drawing which is nowhere as accurate as a bust. Needless to say, if the bust belonged to Jesus you would thunder it as the ultimate proof.

 

Your "There is another important mystery with Christianity. The so-called St Paul. A super apostle who appeared out of nowhere and, despite never having met Jesus, overshadowed his disciples, travelling throughout the entire Roman Empire preaching the Gospel and founding churches. And yet like Jesus, he is unknown to history. Doesn’t make much sense. Unless of course his real name was Apollonius of Tyana" is even more deluded. You are claiming, in effect, that Paul was Jesus!

 

This has already been proposed by Lena Einhorn. Have a look.

 

But Paul was a real, historical person. As Saul of Tarsus he was commissioned by the Jewish High Priest to persecute the early Christians, e.g. Acts 9:1-2: 

 

There never was a Saul of Tarsus, student of Gamaliel. It’s a totally made up identity. See The Fabricated Paul for details. The name Paul or Paulus was simply the name by which Apollonius was known in Rome.

So you can now add me to your, "I have sent this to many Christians and as expected they kept silent. Only Barrie Schwortz and Stephen Jones of the Shroud of Turin blog replied. Schwortz found it interesting but he still believes it's Jesus. Jones said that it was a typical conspiracy theory, ignoring the mountain of evidence against the theory, while emphasizing the molehill of evidence for it!

 

It was more like, Jones acted like a typical apologist, running to Wikipedia to make up for his ignorance, while missing repeatedly the point without ever actually refuting anything. Perhaps he should have kept silent like his fellow Christians. But anyway, let’s thank him again for standing up, even for a while.