Traces of Aramaic on Shroud of Turin
Published: July 29, 2009
As Pope Benedict confirmed
his intention to visit the Shroud of Turin next year, French scientist
Thierry Castex has revealed that he has found traces of Aramaic on the
Shroud.
Pope Benedict confirmed his intention to visit the Shroud of Turin
when it goes on public display in Turin's cathedral April 10-May 23,
2010, Catholic News Service reports.
Cardinal Severino Poletto
of Turin, papal custodian of the Shroud of Turin, visited the pope on
July 26 in Les Combes, Italy, where the pope was spending part of his
vacation. The Alpine village is about 137 kilometres from Turin.
The cardinal gave the
pope the latest news concerning preparations for next year's public
exposition of the shroud and the pope "confirmed his intention to go to
Turin for the occasion," said the Vatican spokesman, Fr Federico
Lombardi, in a written statement on July 27.
A recent study by French
scientist Thierry Castex has revealed that on the shroud are traces of
words in Aramaic spelled with Hebrew letters.
A Vatican researcher,
Barbara Frale, told Vatican Radio on July 26 that her own studies
suggest the letters on the shroud were written more than 1,800 years
ago.
She said that in 1978 a
Latin professor in Milan noticed Aramaic writing on the shroud and in
1989 scholars discovered Hebrew characters that probably were portions
of the phrase "The king of the Jews."
Castex's recent discovery
of the word "found" with another word next to it, which still has to be
deciphered, "together may mean 'because found' or 'we found'," she
said.
What is interesting, she
said, is that it recalls a passage in the Gospel of St Luke, "We found
this man misleading our people," which was what several Jewish leaders
told Pontius Pilate when they asked him to condemn Jesus.
She said it would not be
unusual for something to be written on a burial cloth in order to
indicate the identity of the deceased.