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The blood on the Shroud is an entirely separate matter and not created by the same act as the images. The blood suggests that the man in the images was crowned with thorns, whipped, beaten, crucified, and speared in the side. Researchers have found the blood flow to be natural and in the 1300's a forger would not know how to do this. It is in keeping with the Jewish burial customs that the man was not washed. Trail of Blood Holds the Key to Shroud of Turin, Physician Says," is an article in Providence Journal-Bulletin. This article states that Jewish burial customs, "specifically forbade washing when the man suffered a violent death and lost at least 'an egg and a half' of blood in the process, since the 'mingled blood' would have rendered his body ritually unclean" (422). The blood also testifies to the authenticity of the Shroud. Scavone wrote, "The bloodstains are eloquent silent witnesses that the Turin Shroud may be very ancient and not an artist's forgery of the fourteenth century. This is so since Roman crucifixion was no longer practiced after about 330 AD" (27).

The earliest references to the Shroud are found in the Bible. Written shortly after the death of Christ, it was therefore closest to that event. In the Gospel of St. John it is written:

Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple out ran Peter and reached the tomb first: and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb: he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. (20:3-7)

Dr. Gilbert R. Lavoie, during the last two decades, has practiced both internal medicine and occupational medicine in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts. "Levoie notes that the scripture goes on to say that neither disciple was aware at that point that Jesus had risen from the dead. If that were the case, he says, it's legitimate to ask what it was that John 'saw' that made him 'believe" ("Trail" 422). Certainly the Shroud does meet all the requirements of the Biblical accounts.

After Biblical accounts, there is no mention of the Shroud until 330 AD. Walsh wrote, "Regarding this time of silence, believers in the cloth's authenticity point out, with good logic, that the relic would have certainly been hidden away during the persecutions of the first three centuries" (44).

Many references are made of the Shroud before the 1300's. However, experts can not agree that it was the same shroud. Other shrouds have survived, even older ones than the Shroud of Turin. However, the Shroud of Turin is the only shroud with these images. Mention is made of the Shroud being in Jerusalem at a monastery beside the Jordan in 570 AD. The Shroud was sighted again by St. Braulion in the year of 670 AD, still in Jerusalem (Walsh 44).

In succeeding centuries, other men spoke of a shroud: Venerable Bede, St. Willabald, St. John Damascene, the Emperor Baldwin. The 'Song of the Voyage of Charlemagne to Jerusalem' mentions the shroud Jesus wore 'when he was laid and stretched in the tomb.' A letter of Peter the Deacon, to Constantinople, a letter of William of Tyre - all refer specifically to 'a shroud of Christ.' Yet each of these antique texts - fewer than twenty in all-must forever remain isolated, like pinpoints of uncertain light in a long corridor of darkness. They cannot be connected with each other. (Walsh 45)