The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [60]
Looking closely at what appeared to be two streams of blood flow on the left forearm, Castle judged both streams of blood had come from the same puncture wound in the wrist. He estimated that the arms would have been extended at about a 65-degree angle with the horizontal to cause the blood to flow in the pattern he was observing on the forearms. The blood flows appeared to extend from the wrist to the elbow, which would have been consistent with the outstretching of the arm in crucifixion. Castle was beginning to have no doubt that in the Shroud he was looking at the image of a crucified man.
Whoever forged the Shroud in medieval times had to have a remarkable understanding of human anatomy and the mechanics of crucifixion to have produced an image that would stand up to current medical analysis confirmed by twenty-first-century technology.
“Again, we don’t know exactly what the cross that Christ died upon looked like,” Middagh said. “Typically the vertical beam of the cross stood permanently implanted at the place of execution. The victim often carried the crossbeam to the place of crucifixion, with the crossbeam carried on the shoulders, behind the nape of the neck, like a yoke. The Roman executioners pulled back the condemned man’s arms to hook them over the crossbeam to hold and balance it. At the place of crucifixion, the victim was nailed to the crossbeam at the wrists, or the arms were bound and tied to the crossbeam. The Roman executioners then used forked poles and maybe a pulley to lift the crossbeam up to where it could be slotted into a notch at the top of the vertical beam to form the cross. Depending on how deep the notch was cut, the crossbeam might have been flush with the vertical beam, like the cross-stroke on the letter T, or maybe it fit into a deeper slot, forming the traditional four-point cross we see in most religious paintings from the Renaissance period until today.”
Castle listened, with his mind translating what he was hearing into medical detail. With the massive trauma the arms of a crucified man suffered from bearing the weight of his body, especially as the horizontal beam of the cross was lifted to the vertical beam, there was no doubt nails had to be placed through the wrist. Otherwise, the crucified man could fall off the crossbeam as it was being elevated to the vertical beam of the cross. If the crucified man were to stay on the cross any length of time, the arms would end up supporting his weight, so the wrists had to be pinned to the crossbeam firmly enough so as to not come loose. Had the Shroud of Turin demonstrated anything different, it could be disqualified immediately as an artist’s rendering. Whether Father Bartholomew appreciated the medical facts of crucifixion or whether he was merely manifesting what his subconscious recorded from the Shroud, Castle did not know. But Father Bartholomew’s stigmata were also in his wrists, not the palms of his hands.
Looking closely at the projected image, Castle clearly recognized what appeared to be the scourge marks he saw manifested on Bartholomew yesterday. Looking at the photographs of the Shroud that Morelli had shown him from the Vatican, Castle had not focused on the scourge wounds, although those were obviously apparent in the body above and below the crossed arms, once you began looking for them. “Are those the scourge wounds that appear to cover the body?” Castle asked Middagh.
“Yes,” Middagh said. “Let me show you a close-up image of the scourge wounds suffered by the man in the Shroud.”
Middagh projected onto the screen a dorsal image showing the scourge wounds on the shoulders and back of the body.
“As you can see, the man in the Shroud shows signs of an extensive beating from a whip. The scourge wounds are especially heavy on the