Alpha Omega

Many people believe that science is exact but it is not. Science deals with probabilities. For example, the probability for the theory that man evolved from an ape-like pedigree being true is very high. In order to increase the probability to 100% the anthropologists would have to find every species between ape and man.

Second, some probabilities are higher than others. For example, the probability that an asteroid struck the earth and caused the Mesozoic Extinctions is about 95%, while the probability that man is a descendant of the Australopithecines instead of being a cousin of them is only about 50%.

Third, when a scientist develops a hypothesis it is tested and retested until it is either proved to be false or accepted by the scientific community as a true theory. A theory has a high probability of being true. Even then it is still tested for flaws and modifications. It is important to note that all scientific theories are probabilities. It is only when something has a high probability of being true does the scientific community accept it as fact.

Finally, although there are a number of theories that have probabilities in the 90 percentile range, it is rare to find a theory that is 100%. Such usually become scientific laws.

With these thoughts in mind one comes to the objective, scientific evidence that points to the exclusive divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

From the gospel of St. Luke there is a similar account of the empty sepulcher of Jesus Christ.

The “napkin” that was set apart and wrapped up in one place mentioned in verse seven of the gospel of St. John is the Shroud of Turin, Italy or, as it was one time called, the Mandylion of Edessa.

Many people give the above scriptural passages a different interpretation. They claim that the Shroud of Turin cannot be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ because it is not mentioned in the gospels. They point out that when St. Jerome translated the above passage from the gospel of St. John into Latin he used the word sudarium, which means handkerchief or napkin, not shroud or burial cloth. They further claim that it cannot be dated any earlier than 1357, the year it was first publicly exhibited by Jeanne de Vergy, the widow of Geoffrey I de Charny, its owner in the Middle Ages.

However, these people are not interpreting the above passages correctly. First of all, the root meaning for sudarium is sweat cloth, from the Greek soudarion. Also, St. John, writing in Greek, used the word epi, which also means “over,” when referring to the “napkin that had been about His head.” St. John was trying to describe the method in which he enshrouded Jesus in the burial cloth and what he saw upon returning to the grave.

Secondly, when St. John refers to the other cloths he used the word othonia. This is the plural form and means strips of cloths in general. Here St. John was trying to distinguish the sweat cloth from the linen bands that were probably used to bind the chin of Jesus.

Finally, St. John was not ignorant of the Synoptic Gospels, nor of what has become known as the Apocrypha Gospels. Throughout his gospel he excludes much of that which they reveal, and he divulges much of that which they do not mention. For example, he knew what St. Luke described. When translating what St. Luke wrote, St. Jerome used the Latin sindone to describe the wrapping of Jesus in His burial cloth (23:53) and then linteamine to describe the other cloths used to bind Jesus (24:12).

What St. John was trying to do in his gospel was to give all those who would come after him more information about the soudarion. He was trying to describe something that not even twentieth century science can fully explain, namely, a cloth with the face and body of our Lord “imprinted” on it.

Because of his lack of knowledge, St. John did not know what other word to use except sweat cloth. He knew that he had buried a sweaty, bloody, dead man the day before the Sabbath. Then upon returning to the tomb the day following the Sabbath, he had only the blood and the image of this man’s body on the cloth in which the man was buried.

St. John wrote in his gospel:

Obviously, St. John remembered that Jesus had said that He would rise from the dead (Jn.2:18-22; 11:25). Upon seeing the empty tomb and the burial cloth with the image of Jesus on it, he came to the conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead. He believed that at the Resurrection of Jesus, His burial cloth had some how become a sweat cloth with His image on it.

Indeed, when one takes into consideration St. John’s lack of knowledge about how the image got on the cloth — to be just one must take such into consideration — then soudarion is the one word with which he could best describe the Shroud.

Many people ask why, if the Shroud is the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ, do the gospels not mention anything about our Lord’s face and body being imprinted on it? Why and how did St. John fail to mention this important information? Surely, they claim, if the Shroud is authentic, then this Relic of relics, this greatest Treasure of all Christianity, would be mentioned in the gospels.

In order to answer this one must return to the chess analogy. In this game there is a move, called castling, whereby a player, in the beginning of the game, moves his king near to the edge of the playing board and places his castle in front of the king. The king is then protected behind a wall of pawns with a castle firmly secured in front of it.

The purpose of the move is to remove the defenseless king from the center of the board, where it can be harassed and “captured” by the enemy, and place it near the side of the board, where it is safe from harm until, toward the end of the game and many of the enemy’s pieces have been removed from the conflict, it can safely venture out into the field of battle to help its remaining pieces win the game.

A similar situation may be applied to the Mandylion’s early history. Our Lord knew in His infinite wisdom, that the Shroud, in the hands of a fledgling Christianity opposed by a powerful Roman Empire and prejudiced beliefs about burial cloths and graven images, was in effect a defenseless King able to be “captured” and destroyed.

Thus, our Lord inspired His children to remove the Mandylion from the mainstream of Christianity, both in the written word and from public display, so that it would not be captured and destroyed. Therefore, it is barely mentioned in the gospels and, before 1357, it was rarely seen by the public.

What mention of it there is in the Apocrypha Gospels seems to support the conjectural history of the cloth. For example, the Gospel of the Hebrews says that “the Lord had given the sindon to the high priest’s slave.” Even though this gospel is among the apocrypha it implies, at the very least, that the Mandylion of Edessa was in existence. It also implies that the risen Jesus Christ probably helped the Apostles decide what to do with it in order to protect it.

When one considers that it is highly doubtful that the Apostles would have failed to question the risen Jesus Christ about His burial cloth during the forty days after His Resurrction, (Act.1:3) one has a very simple solution to this enigma.

Thus, by combining together the Acts of the Apostles, the gospel of St. John, (21:25) the gospel of the Hebrews and the King Abgar Legend — whereby the burial cloth was folded in four and then sent to this Edessian king as a face cloth — one has every reason to believe that our Lord probably told the Apostles what to do with the Mandylion of Edessa. They presented the Shroud as a face cloth in order to overcome prejudice beliefs about burial cloths.

Eventually the Veronica legend developed. The name Veronica is from the Latin word vera, meaning true, and the Greek word icon, meaning image. When developing the legend the two words were combined to form the name, which means true image.

This is not to insinuate that our Lord inspired His children to propagate a myth or to lie, only that He probably told the Apostles to present the cloth showing only the face in order to overcome prejudice beliefs.

Finally, examination has found crease marks in the Shroud in the exact places where sindonologist Ian Wilson conjectures it was folded in four in order to reveal only the face of our Lord. This matches the Greek word tetradiplon used in the Acts of Thaddaei to describe the towel with which Jesus “wiped” His face.

Returning to castling in the chess analogy, only after it was safe to display this Holy Treasure did God inspire His children to bring it into the forefront of Christianity. Therefore, there is the Shroud’s “hidden” history, described eloquently by Ian Wilson in the book The Shroud of Turin, and there is the known history of this Love Letter to all mankind. This, along with a shred of faith, should be enough to give one a rather vivid and somewhat complete history of the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

Although the Shroud does depict a Jewish man, who was crucified in the exact manner in which our Lord was crucified, such by itself is not proof that the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ is the Word incarnate. Nor does taking all the above information into consideration proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the exclusive divinity of Jesus Christ. Such only raises the probability ever so slightly of the Shroud being His burial cloth.

Not only that, the preceding is not scientific nor is it objective. The above information is a subjective interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.

One may thus rightly ask: Where is the objective, scientific evidence for the exclusive divinity of Jesus Christ? However, proof for the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin being the burial cloth of Jesus Christ and for His exclusive divinity can be found on the Shroud itself.

First of all, the cloth is similar to a photographic negative. Which is to say that the face and body of Jesus Christ are imprinted on the cloth in the same way in which an image is imprinted on an ordinary film negative. That is, the image on the cloth is reversed in light and shade. One should note that the blood stains, having been put on the cloth by direct contact before the image was put there, are clearly positive. That is, they are not light and shade reversed as is the image.

This reversal effect on the Shroud can be seen in the photographs of the June 1980, issue of National Geographic. By comparing ordinary photographic negatives and photographic prints (or positives) with photographic negatives and positives of the Shroud of Turin one can see the difference. A normal photographic negative has a mask like effect. There is no harmonious appearance in the image. It is the print that has the clear picture.

However, the Shroud is just the opposite. It is the photographic negative that has the harmonious appearance, while the positive has the masking effect of an ordinary negative. Although the photographic print shows the Shroud as it appears to the naked eye — with a mist like appearance — when the lights and shades are reversed by a photographic negative an altogether clearer picture emerges. The image is more lifelike.

This information, discovered by Secondo Pia (1855 - 1941) in 1898, by itself says very little. But when one considers the fact that in order to imprint the image onto the cloth, while preserving the delicate expression on the face and other minute details, its creator had to know something about photography, then the Shroud of Turin reveals an abundance of information.

This is because no one living prior to the year 1357 knew anything about photography and therefore could not have transferred the image onto the Shroud in such a manner that it would end up similar to a photographic negative of the face and body of Jesus Christ. Since no one before 1357 knew anything about photography and the Shroud is in effect a photographic negative, then this is substantial evidence verifying its authenticity. For only God could have created it.

The second body of information verifying the authenticity of the Shroud can be found in the anatomy of the man and in the blood stains on the cloth.

In what appears to be a contradiction of the gospels, the man in the Shroud was crucified through his wrists. However, several medical doctors, after expirmenting with cadavers, have discovered that if a victim is crucified through the palms of the hands, then such will not support the weight of the body. But they also discovered that if the victim is crucified through the area near where the wrist joins the hand, such will support the weight of the body.

This is an anatomical fact not known since crucifixion was outlawed by the Emperor Constantine in the 4^th century and is in agreement with the wounds of the man of the Shroud.

Also, the latest scientific investigations of the Shroud of Turin have shown that the blood stains are composed of human hemoglobin and that their anatomical detail and proportion are authentic with both actual blood flowing from the wounds of a living man and postmortem seepage from the man after he died.

Even the manner in which a blood clot dries, thicker on the edges than in the center and surrounded by an aureole of serum, is exactly duplicated. There are also stains of serum albumin (pericardial fluid) preserved around the blood stains near the wound in the man’s side. In short, the blood stains and clots are anatomical correct.

Other medical facts about the man who was enshrouded in the cloth can be learned by examination of the Relic: a swollen right eye, a broken nose, the cause of death and evidence of rigor mortis. These are medical facts not known about the man before the twentieth century. One can learn more about these facts and other physiological information discovered about the man in the Shroud from the book A Doctor At Calvary, by Pierre Barbet, M.D.

Again, this information by itself says very little. But if one considers the fact that in order to imprint the image onto the Shroud, in all its anatomical exactness, its creator had to know something about anatomy, about the circulation of blood within the body, about blood clots and about crucifixion, then the Shroud of Turin reveals an abundance of information. This is because no one living before William Harvey (1578 - 1657) discovered that blood flows through arteries and veins had a comprehensive understanding of these things.

Adding this information to the previous information about photography gives very strong evidence verifying the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. For only God could have created it.

Anyone who has devoted even the most cursory of researches into the Shroud of Turin has discovered that the image is imprinted in extraordinary detail on the front side of the cloth with a faint image of the man on the back of the Shroud. Only the blood stains are visible on both sides of the cloth. Further, the blood stains were put on the cloth before the image was encoded.

By examination of the individual threads of the cloth under a microscope, the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) discovered that the image was created by the oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the cellulose of the fibers of the threads. The STURP scientists also discovered that the image was mysteriously imprinted in detail on only one side of the individual threads of the cloth, while the blood stains were put on the cloth by direct contact. However, STURP scientists were unable to discover how the image was put on the cloth.

Under microscopic examination the STURP investigations further discovered that the image is monochromatic. That is, the yellow discoloration of the fibers is the same throughout the image. What makes the darker areas of the image appear so is the fact that there are more discolored fibers in those areas than in those areas where the image is lighter.

Finally, as reported by Kenneth E. Stevenson and Gary R. Habermas, two STURP scientists, in their book The Shroud and the Controversy, the image of the crucified man is encoded with a three-dimensional likeness in a nondirectional manner. This is unlike paintings done by artists or ordinary photographs. These are feats that were impossible to accomplish by someone living before the mid-fourteenth century.

Since modern science does not even know how to reproduce the image, it is highly improbable that anyone living before the mid-fourteenth century knew how to do it. Nor would they have had the technology. Therefore, they could not have created the image that is clearly and vividly perceptible on the Shroud of Turin. Since prior to 1357 only God had this kind of knowledge, this is exceedingly strong evidence favoring the Shroud’s authenticity.

Conclusively, there are at least eleven matching points of congruence between the shroud and the death and burial of Jesus Christ and some of these irregularities are not associated with normal crucifixions.

The man in the shroud is Jewish; he received a severe beating about the face; he received a severe scourging; he was crowned with thorns; he was crucified; his legs were not broken; he has a lance wound in his side; there is the presence of blood and pericardial fluid; he was buried in fine linen; his burial was hasty; and there is an absence of decomposition of the body.

The arithmetical percentages of one person having all eleven irregularities, giving each of them a 10% probability, is one in one hundred billion people.

All the scientific investigations of the Shroud have prompted many from the scientific community, some of them STURP scientists, to declare that the image is acheiropoietos. That is, it is not made by human hands. Many scientists have further concluded that, after a careful consideration of the objective, scientific investigations of the cloth, there is an extremely high probability that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ.

One should note that except for the superficial nature of the image and its lack of fluorescence, STURP scientists discovered that it is very similar to the scorch and burn marks that the cloth received in the fire of 1532. However, some scientists have postulated that the reason that the image does not fluorescence is because of its superficial nature.

This has led many (not all) of those scientists who have studied the Shroud to believe that the image was produced by some type of energy discharge of extremely high intensity light for an extremely short duration, possibly as short as three seconds. That is, they believe that it was some “unknown energy” that produced what appears to be a light, superficial scorch on the cloth in the form of the image of the man it enfolded. But just how a dead corpse produced such an “energy,” STURP said, is an enigma of science.

Before continuing, one should note that the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) was conceived by Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Eric Jumper and numerous other scientists — all of them volunteers from many different scientific disciplines — for the purpose of discovering what the bloodstains and body images on the Shroud were made of and what caused them to be on the cloth. It was created as a nonstock, nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation in which no church or religious group had any influence.

Among the thousands of scientific tests these scientists conducted were: over 5,000 photographs — visible, ultraviolet and infrared; Reflectance spectroscopy — visible, ultraviolet and infrared; VP-8 image analysis; Computer image enhancement; Low energy X-radiography; X-ray fluorescence; Thermography; Multispectral analysis; Microdensitometry; Laser microprobe Raman spectroscopy; Electron energy dispersive spectroscopy; pophyrin fluorescence; cyanmethemoglobin and hemochromagen tests; protease lysis; and immunofluorescence.

The STURP scientists conducted chemical experiments in order to determine the nature of both the blood stains and the image itself. They also tested the water stains, miscellaneous fibrils and particle analysis. They looked for the presence of organic and inorganic pigments, oxidants, reductants and all known means of creating the image of the man on the Shroud.

Over 1,000 different nondestructive tests were conducted on the Shroud from over forty different scientific disciplines: e.g. nuclear and molecular physics, optics, spectroscopy, radiography, volcanology, meteorology, biology, entomology, microscopy, botany, mycology, physiology, bacteriology, pathology, endocrinology, forensics, anatomy, immunology and hematology.

The STURP scientists proved beyond all doubts that the image is not a painting of any kind. However, they were unable to determine what caused the image to be on the cloth. Their final conclusion was that the Shroud of Turin is an enigma of science.

To quote Dr. John H. Heller, a STURP scientist: “The Shroud of Turin is now the most intensively studied artifact in the history of the world. Somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 scientific man-hours have been spent on it, with the best analytical tools available. . . if a similar number of data had been found in the funerary linen attributed to Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan or Socrates, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was, indeed, the shroud of that historical person. But because of the unique position that Jesus holds, such evidence is not enough,” (Heller, 1983, p.219).

One can only conclude from this latter that this is due to the reluctance on the part of the scientific community to get entangled in religious arguments. But again, Jesus Christ is a historical personage and the Shroud of Turin is an archaeological artifact and anything that can be scientifically proven in this area of study, then such is a scientific argument not a theological one. The theologians of this world can only accept as fact what the scientists discover; they cannot force their dogmas onto the scientific community. This is true no matter what the scientists discover.

Alpha Omega

The Treasure of Love