It was clearly used on a man who was executed by crucifixion, and the image it bears is incredibly intriguing in terms of its physical characteristics. Roman Catholic Christians consider the Shroud to be a holy relic, but Protestant Christians are divided in their conclusions on whether the cloth is the actual burial wrap of Jesus Christ. ( Click here for stunning close-up photos.) What struck me most powerfully when I first saw the photos was the man’s posture-he appears to be in the process of sitting up. With painstaking efforts, the latex and silicone sculpture (adorned with real human hair) reveals every wound, the bodily dimensions based upon 3D data (5’10” and 165 lbs), and the nuances of the physical positioning of the crucified man. The grand finale of the exhibition is breathtaking even in photos-a “hyperrealistic sculpture” of the Mystery Man. This includes the chemical analyses and imaging that have been carried out over the last several decades. Next comes a room dedicated to the forensic studies of the cloth. The third room, “A Shroud Appears,” documents the earliest historical references to the Shroud and follows its journey over the last six centuries. The second room, “Historical Context: His Condemnation and Death,” breaks down what we know about the final days of Jesus’ life and the days that followed his crucifixion. The first of the exhibit rooms is entitled “Jesus of Nazareth” and it explores his representation in Christianity over the past two millennia. The Mystery Man Exhibition is the culmination of the last fifteen years of progress that has been made in Shroud studies. Many aren’t aware that ongoing scholarship, now tremendously enhanced by improvements in imaging technology, have only heightened the interest and enthusiasm of Shroud researchers and other experts convinced of the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. Under-informed skeptics, often armed with outdated information (such as the now-discredited carbon-14 data from 1988), view the Shroud as a historical curiosity at best, a skilled forgery at worst. I’ve had a fascination with the Shroud of Turin since childhood, but it was during my grad school studies that I was introduced to the scholarship pertaining to the provenance, chemical analyses, and imaging of the relic that some believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Initially housed in the Cathedral of Salamanca but now in the Guadix Cathedral in Granada, the multimedia, 6,400-square-foot exhibition has been described as “an unprecedented immersive experience to discover the Man in the Holy Shroud.” I’d been unaware of this project until a few weeks ago, when I was preparing a lecture on Christ’s resurrection and stumbled across an article announcing the exhibition’s grand opening. In the fall of 2022, The Mystery Man Exhibition opened in Spain. Melissa Cain Travis | Easter Roundtable APR 7 Prism : Insight & Inspiration (Christ in the Old Testament).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |