Doubting Thomas’s outlook is not the only one — and that’s gospel

The festivals are scattered throughout the year like promises, sometimes transactionally: You deprive yourself of goodies during Advent or Lent and then the Church lets you off the leash at Christmas and Easter.

Midwinter and early spring festivals existed before Christianity hung a story on each — but what a story it was, in each case.

Christmas was the legend of a frightened young pregnant girl, a kindly inn-keeper, a star in the sky, and three wise men following it.

Easter had the stone rolling back and the glad tidings of a risen Christ. 

Not to mention the crucial intervention of one of the Apostles, Thomas, who wasn’t having any of those glad tidings until he experienced what would today be described as scientific proof.

The 21st century probably approves more of Doubting Thomas than did others, down through the years, who paid attention to what the gospel writer John said about the episode. Having insisted on seeing, if not poking about in, the wounds proving the now-living man was who he said he was, Thomas was satisfied.

Then, according to to the Gospel of St John: “Jesus saith unto him: ‘Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’”

Caravaggio’s painting of Doubting Thomas is pretty disgusting, not to mention unhygienic, with the apostle poking his index finger into the wound in the side of Jesus to prove to himself that it’s real. The man whose body is being so invaded has laid a gentle hand on the forearm of the finger-poker, allowing viewers of the painting to go: “See the wound of the nail in his hand from the crucifixion?”

The wound is where generations of Christians expect the wound to be — right in the middle of the back of the hand. 

Except that it couldn’t have been there. Nail two hands through their palms to the cross pieces, hoist the cross upright, leave the man there, and he will fight to breathe. Literally. He will try to raise himself up to give his ribcage room to expand and, if he does, will put his entire body weight on the nails in his hands. Which, in turn, will cause the nails to tear through the tendons between the fingers so that he would fall away. It couldn’t, in other words, have been done the way tradition suggests it was done.

That alternative view surfaced first and most forcefully when a photographer created negative images of the Shroud of Turin which allowed viewers to see more than was visually possible for visitors to the shrine of the shroud. The negatives showed a man stilled in death after self-evident suffering, his hands meeting at his groin.

The negatives, closely examined, didn’t show the nail wounds where they should have been, but much higher, as if the nails had been driven through the bones of the victim’s crossed wrists.

Those convinced of the authenticity of the linen shroud as being the cloth laid under and over Christ in his tomb were encouraged by the absence of obvious wounds in the centre of the dead man’s hands, seeing it as proof that the shroud was some kind of holy photograph, preserved over two millennia.

If it was just a medieval forgery, as sceptics argued, why didn’t the medieval forger put the wounds where he or she would have expected them to be?

The Shroud of Turin is always relevant at Easter.

The shroud draws [people] to the tormented face and body of Jesus,” said Pope Francis after he’d seen it, “and, at the same time, directs [people] toward the face of every suffering and unjustly persecuted person.”

That’s not to say His Holiness believes the stretch of burned and torn cloth is actually that which surrounded the body of Christ from Good Friday until Easter Sunday.

The Catholic Church tiptoes around the Shroud, fascinated by its almost hidden image, respectful of modern scientific tests which suggest it goes no further back in history than the 15th century, during which century, goes the theory, some genius artist (unknown at the time) came up with a method of painting (unknown at the time) to create an image of beauty and sadness while remaining anonymous and never claiming the work as their own. 

The Church also pays attention to critiques suggesting that the right arm in the image is longer than it should be, with the implication that the artist elongated it for modesty purposes.

The latest nicely-timed input to this story has been written by a former consultant neurologist who, on his retirement from medicine, became a priest.

Fr Patrick Pullicino noticed something about the right arm and shoulder, and has published a paper proposing that the shoulder was dislocated, the arm moved so far out of the socket that it looks longer, whereas in fact it is the same length as the other but starts lower down because of the dislocation.

That dislocation, he suggests, writing — in highly technical terms — in a Catholic medical publication, would match the account in the gospels of Jesus falling under the weight of the crucifix, which would have been considerable.

Fr Pullicino points to abrasions on the back of the Shroud figure and suggests they indicate that the cross-carrier had to shift the instrument of executions from his right shoulder to his left after the dislocation made it impossible to carry it on that side.

However, Fr Pullicino goes further in his postmortem analysis, maintaining that being crucified while suffering a dislocated shoulder (quite apart from the exquisite extra pain that would have inflicted) would have abraded and finally ruptured the man’s subclavian artery. That, in turn, would have led to internal bleeding, which would have been the immediate cause of death and would also explain why blood and water issued from the dead man’s side when a Roman soldier drove the tip of his lance into the hanging man’s body.

Pullicino’ s proposition resonates instantly with people who always believed in the Shroud — and is instantly dismissed by those who always regarded it as a beautifully-executed fake. 

But it speaks to others, too. To collapsed Catholics who may believe this man existed and was crucified, without believing that he was God. To people fascinated by the scientific argument presented, in offputtingly scientific terms, by the former neurologist. 

And to unbelievers who apprehend the importance of myth, of legend, and of art, who are unpersuaded of any prophetic link but reminded, nonetheless, of the agony inflicted on a human being, many centuries ago, who claimed to be more than a man.