The Rev. Patrick Pullicino, once a consultant neurologist in the UK, carefully studied the marks of the body of Jesus Christ, allegedly left by him on the Shroud of Turin, and based on this developed a new theory of his death. According to a London professor who wrote a scientific article about this in the Catholic Medical Quarterly, Jesus died not from the crucifixion itself, but from fatal bleeding caused by a dislocated shoulder while carrying a heavy cross, writes The Telegraph.
The Bible tells that Jesus fell along the way, carrying the cross to his crucifixion on Golgotha. In addition, at the end of the crucifixion, a Roman soldier pierced the side of Jesus with a spear, which caused blood and water to spurt out. Pullicino drew attention to the fact that the shoulder of the deceased, imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, that is, on a linen fabric with a negative image of a person, which, according to some researchers, depicts Jesus of Nazareth and is his burial shroud, moved out of the articular bag so much that his right hand is 10 cm below the left.
Pullicino claims that such a serious shoulder injury, which the shroud reflected, inevitably led to a rupture of the subclavian artery – a large paired artery located in the chest and supplying blood not only to it, but also to the entire upper shoulder girdle, as well as the head and neck. All this should lead to profuse internal bleeding, collapse of the circulatory system and ultimately death.
Such a serious dislocation of the shoulder of Jesus, most likely, was the result of the fact that during one of the falls, his arm was tightly clamped by a T-shaped cross. As a result of the subsequent rupture of the aorta, about three liters of blood poured into the cavity between the chest and lung, which explains why Jesus bled profusely when the centurion pierced his side with a spear.
“The transfer of the weight of the crucified body to the arms probably caused further stretching of the right subclavian artery with each breath. This caused it to slide along the surface of the rib in its lower part, all the while being subjected to friction, until in the end, after three hours of crucifixion, the walls of the artery were worn out and weakened to such an extent that it simply burst, followed by profuse bleeding, ”writes Pullicino.
As for the “water” that poured out of Jesus, according to the reverend professor, it was a translucent cerebrospinal fluid that leaked into the upper lungs of the crucified. Another argument in favor of the new theory is the well-known assertion from the Bible that Jesus’ legs remained intact, although they were usually broken at the end by those who were crucified, in order to thereby hasten death. When the Roman soldier wanted to do this with Jesus, it turned out that the one being crucified had already died, so his legs remained intact.
However, the authenticity of the shroud, on which Pullicino’s conclusions are based, is not generally accepted. It is only known that it has been kept in Turin since 1578, and in the 1980s was subjected to radiocarbon analysis, which showed that this artifact was probably made in the late Middle Ages, between 1260 and 1390. This claim has been disputed by some later studies, which have re-dated the Shroud of Turin to the time of Jesus Christ.