Jesus died from fatal bleeding, after dislocating his shoulder carrying the cross to his own crucifixion, a retired neurologist has claimed.
The Bible details how Jesus fell while carrying the cross, before his side was later pierced by a Roman soldier’s spear, causing ‘
According to pious legend, St Bernard of Clairvaux asked Jesus which was the greatest unrecorded suffering of his Passion.
Jesus replied: ‘I had on my shoulder, while I bore my cross on the way of sorrows, a grievous wound that was more painful than the others and which is not recorded by men.’
Scholars agree that Jesus most likely dislocated his right shoulder when he fell, carrying the cross.
However, doctor-turned-priest Patrick Pullicino believes that he may have ultimately been killed by complexities linked to this wound.
Pullicino also believes he can explain why, as told in the Gospel of John, ‘blood and water’ poured from Christ’s crucified body.
The Rev. Prof Pullicino, based in London, has written a scientific paper about his theory and published it in the Catholic Medical Quarterly.
He analysed work carried out by forensic and medical experts on the Shroud of Turin, also known as the Holy Shroud, within which Jesus was wrapped after the crucifixion.
For centuries, people have argued about the authenticity of the shroud, which has been preserved since 1578 in the royal chapel of the cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Turin, Italy.
One of the most controversial relics in the Christian world, it bears the faint image of a man whose body appears to have nail wounds to the wrists and feet.
Some believe it to be a physical link to Jesus of Nazareth. For others, however, it is nothing more than an elaborate forgery.
In 1988, radiocarbon tests on samples of the shroud dated the cloth to the Middle Ages, between 1260 and 1390, but more recent studies in the 2010s dispute this claim, and instead argue that the linen sheet dates from the time of Jesus.
Looking at the faint imprint on the shroud, which appears to show a figure bearing the wounds of crucifixion, Rev Prof Pullicino said the position of the man’s dislocated shoulder was significant.
He said it was pulled so far out of its socket that the right hand stretches 4 inches (10cm) lower than the left.
When stretched out for crucifixion like this, Rev Prof Pullicino believes it would cause the subclavian artery – a pair of large arteries in the thorax that supply blood to the head, neck, shoulder and arms – to rupture.
