Shroud part 2. What if...?

Let's assume the shroud is 100% authentic, and apply the Axe of Reason.

1. Contrary to Jewish custom, the body was not washed or prepared. It was wrapped while the blood was still wet. It was not wrapped in traditional winding cloths but one extremely long piece of linen. No face cloth was applied.
This actually contradicts the account in John's gospel, where the body was washed and wrapped with spices. It also contradicts accounts where the cloths were folded after the resurrection, the face cloth separate. The contemporaneous body that was discovered in 2009 was buried exactly as described in the bible. What was this cloth? It wasn't a traditional shroud, and the image curiously fills it.

2. One of the apostles entered the tomb at some point after the resurrection and removed the cloths to preserve them. The greatest relic of all time and proof of the resurrection.
When did they go and get it? No-one else would have taken it. No other mention of the cloth appears in the bible AT ALL. Why? Surely this would have been mentioned, venerated, used. In fact it entirely disappears for over a thousand years. But at the time this shroud appeared, there were about 40 other shrouds in circulation.

3. Contrary to the rabbinical laws Jesus wore his hair long with a long beard. He was unusually tall. The height difference in the back and front images can be explained...
He would have been subject to constant mockery and censure for his womanly hair. Judas would not have had to identify him in the garden, as he would have been instantly recognisable. Why would Paul have written what he did - he MUST have seen the shroud, surely. And he did know the apostles who...must have had short hair too. I think Paul would have had a problem with any image of Christ, it being a craven image and technically against the law of Moses. Maybe that's why it was hidden...but the Gentiles didn't have a problem with images, statues and the like...

4. The Bishop of Troyes lied when he wrote to the pope. He could not verify that the shroud was a fake, and wanted to stop the veneration for his own reasons.
Why would he do this? Encouraging people to venerate the relic would do nothing other than increase devotion and bring money into the church. Not to mention lying to the pope - he wasn't declared antipope at that point.

Even without the scientific analysis, it just doesn't make sense.




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