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Evidence of the ResurrectionIn order to create the image on the Shroud of Turin a person had to know something about photography, about blood flow and anatomy and about some kind of high energy process still unknown to modern science. No one living before 1357 had this kind of knowledge and therefore could not create the image on the Shroud. After considering all the archaeological, photographical and physiological information uncovered about the Shroud of Turin by the many studies done on it, after taking into consideration the eleven points of congruence between the Shroud and the death and burial of Jesus Christ and after considering everything the STURP investigations revealed and adding all this information to the aforementioned biblical and apocryphal interpretations, one has proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the mere fact that the image was put on the cloth in a manner still unknown to modern science is not in itself proof for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ or of His exclusive divinity. In order to obtain this one must return to the Holy Bible. Although many may claim that such is not objective. However, in reporting straightforward facts, the bible is objective. It is only when one is interpreting those facts that the bible is subjective. For example, when Jesus fed the 5,000 people (Lk.9:14-17), it is subjective interpretation as to what actually happened — did He perform some kind of miracle or did He just convince the crowd of the wisdom in sharing their food? What is objective is that “something” happened and everyone ate because of it. Here the authors can be looked upon as just reporters of what they saw. Again, when Jesus walked on water (Mt.14:22-36) and calmed a storm (Lk.8:22-26) there is a question as to what actually happened. Were these events dreams that St. Peter or Jesus had or something more? What is objective is that Jesus seemed to be able to control natural phenomena. What is subjective is whether this was a dream of walking over a sea of lies and calming the storm in one’s soul or something more. (One should note that in all these miracles it is the theological teaching that needs to be emphasized.) The same may be said of other verses in the Holy Bible, including that information which one needs to prove the exclusive divinity of Jesus Christ. At His Resurrection there was a bright flash of light and an earthquake.
St. Paul writes that at the resurrection of the just on the last day, we will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye.
In the above passages there are a flash of light with an earthquake and a metamorphosis in a moment of time. Again, what the authors are actually talking about is a matter of subjective interpretation but that they are talking about some kind of momentary bright light and instantaneous change is objective information. By combining all the aforementioned archaeological, historical, medical, scientific, apocryphal and biblical information with the above two biblical passages and other objective information obtainable from the Shroud, an argument can be made which objectively proves the exclusive divinity of Jesus Christ. However, before doing so, one should note that several arguments similar to the one presented here have already been made by a number of scientists. For example, one book on the subject is Verdict on the Shroud, by Kenneth E. Stevenson and Gary R. Habermas. As stated earlier, only rarely have these publications brought the argument to its logical conclusion, namely, that Jesus Christ is exclusively divine. One can only surmise that this is due to the fact that most scientists do not wish to get involved in religious disputes. But Jesus Christ is a historical person and the Shroud of Turin is a historical artifact. Therefore, the authenticity of the Shroud is a historical argument, not a religious one. Those who claim that the authenticity of the Shroud is a religious subject are allowing religion to dictate to science as to what to teach as truth! Further, if the Shroud holds proof of His exclusive divinity, then this too is a scientific argument, not a religious one! One should note that the same argument would also apply to the funerary linen attributed to Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan or Socrates. What is obvious from an examination of the cloth is that the man in the Shroud was in a state of rigor mortis and yet there are no signs of bodily decomposition observable on the cloth. Since rigor mortis is only temporary, lasting from twenty-four to forty-eight hours after death, this is objective evidence that the body left its wrapping before putrefaction took place. Second, the cloth was loosely laid over the man, which would have caused it to adhere to the wounds only where it touched the body. Also, the blood stains are not marred or smeared in any way. Nor is there any damage to the fibrils of the image. Since, a normal unwrapping of the body would have destroyed the anatomical correctness of these stains and the threads are not damaged, this is objective evidence that when the body left the Shroud, it did so in a manner that left no trace of its leaving. That is, there was no apparent separation between the man in the Shroud and the cloth itself. The man just “disappeared” from within its folds. Finally, from the above quotation from the gospel of St. Matthew, one knows that there was some kind of bright, flashing light and an “earthquake” at the Resurrection. From the letter of St. Paul one knows that there will be a metamorphosis in a moment of time at the last resurrection. This is objective evidence that there was some type of flashing or momentary light, an instantaneous change and some kind of loud noise or shaking of the ground at what the Apostles considered the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the moment one can accept the fact that something happened at His tomb that was so extraordinary that the Apostles considered it the resurrection of a dead man. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is subjective interpretation at this point. The objective information is that there was some kind of extraordinary event early that Sunday morning. The fact that something abnormal happened to the dead body of Jesus Christ is further collaborated by the actions of the Roman soldiers guarding His body. They were ordered to secure the tomb in order to prevent the Apostles of our Lord from stealing the body of Jesus (Mt.27:62-66). Yet they would not have “told the chief priests all the things that had been done” had not something incredible happened while they were standing guard (Mt.28:11-15). A review of just the general knowledge gained by the STURP scientists, archaeological scientists and other investigations of the Shroud of Turin thus far reveals several undeniable facts, most of which were not known before modern science looked at it.
Since only God has the kind of knowledge needed to produce the image, an objective interpretation of these facts proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Shroud of Turin or, as it was one time called, the Mandylion of Edessa, is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. As for the above biblical quotations from St. Matthew and St. Paul, STURP investigations concluded that the image was produced by some type of unknown energy or light for a very short duration. Such exactly corresponds to the lightening of St. Matthew and the twinkling of an eye of St. Paul. Thus, the investigations of STURP are an independent source for verifying an objective interpretation of these two biblical passages. That is, there was a bright flashing light, an earthquake or loud noise and a metamorphosis in a moment of time. There is more. From earlier chapters one has learned that mankind lives in a theistic universe and that God is the Author of life. Then from the gospels one knows that Jesus Christ professed to be God and professed that He would prove His divinity by rising from the dead after three days (Mk.8:29-31; 9:30-31; 10:32-34). This is objective reporting by the Apostles, as many individuals have claimed to be God and have claimed to prove it. But no one else in history has ever risen from the dead. At this point one has only a legend that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. But one also has the Shroud of Turin that Science has professed is an enigma. There is no known explanation for it. A corpse cannot produce energy or light and then just disappear! But the Shroud also gives objective evidence that something extraordinary happened to the body of Jesus Christ after rigor mortis set in and before putrefaction took place. Surely, there must be a logical solution to all this. There must be one, simple explanation that can help solve the enigma. There has to be one exegesis that answers all the questions surrounding the unique life and unique teachings of Jesus Christ. There is! Science has a precept of conservation that is beloved of scientists known as the principle of Occam’s Razor. It states that if there is a simple, elementary way of arriving at a solution, opposed to a complicated one, the simpler solution is probably the correct one. There is only one simple explanation: Jesus Christ is exactly who He proclaimed to be and He accomplished exactly what He said He would do. He rose from the dead, thereby proving His exclusive divinity and the Shroud of Turin is the record of that Resurrection. In the words of Ian Wilson from his book The Shroud of Turin: “In the darkness of the Jerusalem tomb the dead body of Jesus lay, . . . suddenly there is a burst of mysterious power from it. In that instant the blood dematerializes . . . while its image and that of the body becomes indelibly fused onto the cloth,” (1979, p.251). Any other explanation is like trying to defend a geocentric solar system in the light of the evidence for the heliocentric system. Before moving on, something must be said to refute all the criticism of the Shroud of Turin. However, before doing so one should note that there comes a time in the propagation of any hypothesis when such supposition has to be accepted as truth, even though there are few hard facts supporting the hypothesis. For example, there is very little “proof” that man evolved from an ape-like pedigree. The only things available to science at present are a bunch of fossils that appear to declare such evolution. For all science knows, modern man evolved from Piltdown Man or something similar, only the fossils of such have yet to be found. But to propose such a belief would be ludicrous in light of present evidence. A similar situation prevails with the Shroud of Turin being the burial shroud of Jesus Christ. Just a cursory review of all the archaeological evidence and scientific investigations — many of which have not been covered here, e.g. the works of Max Frei — proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ and that it is a result of His Resurrection. The time has come for the Shroud’s detractors to shoulder the burden of proof for the Shroud’s alleged forgery. The problem is that religion has been needlessly interjected into what is actually a scientific question. Jesus Christ was a historical person and the Shroud of Turin is an archeological artifact. Therefore, the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin is not a religious question; it is a scientific one. Those who do not believe in the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin cannot separate their religious beliefs (lack of faith) from scientific fact. The result is that many people’s faith is revealed by their view of the Shroud. First of all, criticism of the Shroud has already been refuted by many children of God. This is the main reason it has not been dealt with extensively in this book. One only needs to seek these books out and they can be found. One such book that proves scientifically that the Shroud of Turin is not a forgery is Report on the Shroud of Turin by Dr. John H. Heller, a STURP scientists. In his book, Dr. Heller points out that the STRUP investigations discovered microscopic bits of dirt particles deep into and between the threads of the cloth where it touched the heel of our Lord. This by itself is enough to disprove any forgery because, to quote Dr. Heller, “no forger would have put it there, because artists aren’t likely to add things that cannot be seen,” (p.112). He also observes that the microscopic examination of areas of image show no matting or capillarity of the fibrils of the threads (which would normally happen if the image had been painted) and there is no diffusion of the threads. Thus, both liquid and vapors are ruled out as a painting agent. Again, this rules out forgery. Finally, Dr. Heller points out that current scientific investigations provide evidence of the Shroud’s authenticity beyond the ability or competence of medieval forgers. One of the weakest links in the Shroud’s title of authenticity is the 1389 d’Arcis memorandum. Pierre d’Arcis, the Bishop of Troyes, claims that his predecessor, Henry de Poitiers, “discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it” (italics added). There are two things wrong with this memorandum, other than the fact that the 1978 STURP investigations proved beyond all doubts that the Shroud is not a painting. First, the d’Arcis memo was written by a bishop who, by all accounts, was clearly prejudiced and afraid of losing political power to the Cannons at Lirey, where the Shroud was being kept at that time. His letter is nothing more than an unsubstantiated attack on the motives of the de Charnys. If Henry de Poitiers conducted an investigation and if d’Arcis had proof of that investigation, it has never been produced. Had d’Arcis had proof for his claims, he would surely have provided it. The second thing wrong with the d’Arcis memorandum is in the translation. It was written in Latin which lacks the articles a, an and the. Also, d’Arcis used the word depingere which is translated “to paint.” But it can also be translated “to copy.” Hence the statement the artist who had painted it, can also be translated an artist who copied it. If this latter translation is what d’Arcis meant, such would not be proof that the Shroud is a fourteenth century forgery. The second major weakness in the Shroud’s title of authenticity is where Geoffrey I de Charny obtained the Relic. This has been successfully dealt with by Ian Wilson in his book. Therefore, it will not be touched upon here except to say that Geoffrey I probably received the Shroud from a friend or relative in the Templar Knights for safe keeping from Philip the fair, king of France. As to why Geoffrey I never revealed how he obtained the Shroud is not hard to imagine. The religious order of the Templar Knights was destroyed in 1307, by King Philip. This cold hearted monarch had long envied the wealth of the Templars and falsely accused them of heresy. He imprisoned the members of the order and seized the land of the Templars. After being subjected to brutal, merciless torture, many of them “confessed” their sin; others died of their torments. The grand master of the order, Jacques de Molay and a companion, Geoffrey de Charnay, were burned at the stake in 1314, after recanting the confessions they made while being tortured. One only needs to put himself in the situation faced by Geoffrey I in order to appreciate the dilemma he was in. Had this holy man revealed how he obtained the Shroud and what his intentions were, he would surely have been branded a heretic, burned at the stake and the Shroud would have been destroyed. (There are some who believe that he intended to revive the Templar Knights under a different name.) When one considers that the safety of this Relic was, without a doubt, his first objective, one can hardly criticize his silence on where he obtained it. A third weakness in the Shroud’s title of authenticity is in the belief by many that the body of Jesus was washed clean of all sweat and blood before His burial. This would have prevented the blood from being imprinted on the Shroud. However, St. John made it very clear that the burial of Jesus was according to Jewish custom. He wrote in Greek Kathos etos estin tois Ioudaiois entaphiazein. A translation of this passage (Jn.19:40) is “as is the custom of the Jews in laying out a body.” St. Jerome retained this meaning when he translated it into Latin sicut mos est Judaeis sepelire. Jewish law prevented the washing of the body of a crucifixion victim and this is what St. John wished to convey. This is to say nothing of the fact that on the morning following the Sabbath, Mother Mary, Mary Magdalen and the other women were returning to the tomb with burial spices to finish the hasty burial that was started on the day before the Sabbath. This is plainly discernable in the gospel of Mark (16:1-8). If the body of Jesus had been completely washed, as the Shroud’s detractors claim, then St. John would not have written that the burial was according to the custom of the Jews. Nor would the women have been returning to the tomb to wash it. Hence, the body was not completely washed before being placed in the tomb. The most recent challenge to the Shroud’s authenticity has come from the Carbon-14 dating of the linen. According to the independent tests done on samples taken from the Shroud, it dates from the Middle Ages. However, many scientists are today questioning the validity of those tests. That is, they are not questioning the protocol followed. They are wondering what caused the Carbon-14 test to give an incorrect date. When one considers the fact that all the archaeological and scientific evidence — only a small part of which has been dealt with here — proclaims that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, this by itself places those tests, not Carbon-14 dating, into question. Then to accept this single test (not the protocol followed) as the final arbiter, overriding all the other archaeological and scientific evidence, is at best ludicrous, to say nothing of it being unscientific. One may liken this to the anthropological community accepting Piltdown Man as mankind’s ancestor in light of all the evidence for an australopithecine ancestry for mankind. Thus, many people in both religious circles and in the scientific community are calling for a re-examination of the Carbon-14 evidence. They are asking what could have caused the Carbon-14 dating to give an incorrect date. One such hypothesis is in a paper by Joseph G. Marina and M. Sue Benford, titled Evidence for the Skewing of the C-14 Dating of the Shroud of Turin Due to Repairs. They propose that there have been undocumented repairs to the Shroud. They believe that rogue fibers of cotton from the sixteenth century were used to repair the Shroud. They put forth the hypothesis that the sample given to the testing labs was contaminated with these cotton fibers. It was these rogue fibers that caused the dating to be skewed. It is known that ancient weavers frequently dipped the cloth they wove in preservatives in order to protect it. Other scientists have asked whether or not the Shroud was dipped in a preservative before it was sold to Joseph of Arimathea. They are asking whether this could have altered the Carbon-14 dating. The fire in 1532, which damaged the Shroud has still other scientists seeking to discover if the fire could have altered the dating in some way. But regardless of what the scientists finally discover, one knows that something skewed the C-14 dating. One knows this because there cannot be so much scientific data proclaiming the Shroud to the authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ on the one hand, and just one test on the other hand declaring the Shroud to be a fraud. Again, the same may be said of Piltdown Man. There cannot be so much scientific data proclaiming that man evolved from an australopithecine ancestry on the one hand, and one “fossil” on the other hand saying that man evolved from some other ancestry. Although many have denounced the Shroud as a fourteenth century forgery, not one of these individuals have reproduced the image in all its minute detail, photographic negativity, anatomical correctness, superficiality, three dimensionality and nondirectionality. Some people, using of paints, dyes, pigments, powders or other organic or inorganic matter, have produced images on cloth that have some of the characteristics of the Shroud but not all the characteristics. Another problem of these attempts is that the STURP investigations proved that the image on the Shroud is not made with paints, dyes, pigments, powders or other organic or inorganic matter. The image was created by the oxidation, dehydration and conjugation of the cellulose of the fibers of the individual threads and is imprinted in detail on only one side of the individual threads of the cloth. As reported by STURP scientists, the image is an enigma of science that resembles a scorch produced by high intensity radiation of an extremely short duration — possibly as short as three seconds. In order to prove that the Shroud is a forgery a person would have to reproduce the image exactly as it is, using only the technology that was available to someone living in the Middle Ages. To do anything else is not to reproduce the Shroud. Since not even modern science can accomplish this feat, one must necessarily conclude that the principle of Occam’s Razor declares that the Shroud of Turin is the Mandylion of Edessa and burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Finally, one may behold the Holy Shroud and say of the image and blood stains: “This is the Body of God; this is the Blood of God.” But many are afraid to do so. They are afraid to call the Shroud the burial cloth of Jesus Christ because they do not know how to revere it. However, the Holy Shroud should not be given any more, nor any less, reverence than is given to the Holy Eucharist. It is a burial cloth that should inspire one to have greater faith in God and His Word; this is what is important. What is a pity is that the Mother Church keeps this Relic of relics, this Treasure of Love, locked up where no one can gaze upon its majesty, where no one can see the passion of Jesus Christ. It should be publicly venerated so that all those who wish to may use it to contemplate our Lord’s suffering and death. With today’s advanced technology there is no excuse not to place it in a hermetically sealed environment behind a bullet proof glass or plexiglass so that all mankind may venerate it.
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