The Shroud of Turin the Silent Witness

Dive into a comprehensive exploration of the Shroud of Turin — from its mysterious origins and scientific analyses to powerful biblical correlations. Discover how forensic evidence and history converge to tell the story of what may be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Join Mary and Haley for a special Easter Week Episode of Rebel Road.

shroud.com Absolutely everything you need to know.

The bible  

Jeremiah Johnston:Shroud of Turin

New Evidence for the Shroud of Turin Fr. Andrew Dalton

Fr. Mike Schmitz

The Shroud of Turin: An Overview of the Archaeological Scientific Studies

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Rebel Road theme music by: B3yondBeatz Tony Simms

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

I find no fault in him, I will chastise him and let him go. But the people became even more feverish with anger, crucify him. A lone voice cried out, the crowd grew restless, and another voice, crucify him. And then, much like how fire spreads, crucify him, crucify him, was shouted all throughout. Again Pilate spoke. Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him. I will therefore chastise him and let him go. And the people cried, Away with this man, crucify him, crucify him, and the people were instant with loud voices. Pilate said, Take him yourself and judge him by your own law. But we have no right to execute anyone, they objected. The crowd could not be satisfied. Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus, and asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? Is that your own ideal? Jesus asked, or did others talk to you about me? Am I a Jew? Pilate replied. Your own people and chief priest handed you over to me. What is it you have done? Jesus answered him, My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place. You are a king then, Pilate said. Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. What is truth? retorted Pilate. With this, he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said for a third time, I find no basis for a charge against him. But is this your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of Passover? Do you want me to release the King of the Jews? They shouted back, No, not him. Give us Barabbas. Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they slapped him in the face. Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered here, Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him. When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, Here is the man. As soon as the chief priests and other officials saw him, they shouted, Crucify, crucified. But Pilate answered, You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him. The Jewish leaders insisted, we have a law, and according to that law, he must die because he claimed to be the Son of God. When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid. He went back inside the palace. Where do you come from? And he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. Do you refuse to speak to me? Pilate said. Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you? Jesus answered, You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar. When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the stone pavement. It was the day of preparation for the Passover, and it was about noon. Here is your king, Pilate said to the Jews, but they shouted, Take him away, take him away, crucify him. Shall I crucify your king? Pilate asked. We have no king but Caesar, the chief priest answered. Finally, Pilate handed him over to be crucified and washed his hands of him. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus, carrying his own cross. He went out to the place of the skull, Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the middle. Pilate had a tetalus prepared and fastened to the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this sign for the place where Jesus was crucified near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. The chief priest of the Jews protested to Pilate. Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written. It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. While the sun's light failed and the curtain of the temple was torn in two, then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw that this had taken place, he praised God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent. And all the crowds that had assembled for the spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home, eating their breasts. Now there was a man named Joseph from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to the decision and action, and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen shroud, and laid him in a tomb cut in stone. No one had ever been laid yet. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. And so Jesus was buried before the third star lit the night sky. The next day, the one after preparation day, Saturday, the Sabbath, the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate. Sir, they said, We remember that while he was still alive, the deceiver said, After three days I will rise again. So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first. Take a guard, Pilate answered. Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how. So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard. Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb. We don't know where they have put him. Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb, both running. But the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in. Then Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. There he saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went inside. He saw and he believed.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

And I'm Haley. Welcome back, friends. It is the week of Easter, so happy Easter to all of you who celebrate. And in honor of Easter, we have an amazing episode for you today. And today, we are going to dig deep into the scientific evidence of the Shroud of Turrent. Before we start, we just want to give everyone a heads up. We will be talking about some pretty graphic information on the process of crucifixion. We hope you will stick around. And if it does get a little too hard to hear, you can just skip ahead for a few minutes.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Thanks for the warning, Haley. We know some people may be sensitive to descriptive violence, so we just wanted to give you a little notice. Are you ready to just dive in? First, I think let's talk about what the shroud of Turin is. Some people may have never even heard of it. So what is it, Haley?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

You're right, Mary. A lot of people have not heard about this. Even I myself and uh talking with others, it's not something that's in the day-to-day conversation. It is a burial shroud. And burial shrouds were used back in the Stone Age and were used until the 1800s. And even today, with natural burials, people will still use them. Now, burial shrouds were typically long sheets of natural materials, so think cotton, linen, and wool. And they were used to cover, wrap, and transport a deceased person for burial. They provided dignity and helped aid in natural decomposition.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yeah, the cloth used is exceptionally long by design, and it is one wide long piece of fabric. You would lay the body in the center of the shroud, then pull the bottom of the sheet over the head, and then you would fold one side of the shroud tightly over the body and tuck it under, and then you do the same with the other side. And then to finish, you would fold the top part of the shroud over the head and tuck it down at the feet. And then you would fasten that with ties or straps, usually at the shoulders, the waist, and the knees. And sometimes they would tie a strap around the head just to keep the mouth from falling open.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Just gently taking care of your loved ones, essentially. So this is what a burial shroud is. Okay, let's start to focus on the shroud of Turin. This is a burial cloth that is 14 and a half feet long and three feet seven inches wide, made from linen that bears a faint image of a crucified man. The linen that it is made from is a fine linen. I think a luxury bed sheet. And it was woven in a three to one herringbone twill leave. Now, remember that because it's important for this particular burial shroud. It bears all the characteristics of ancient high-quality linen. Now, the image of the crucified man is what makes this shroud so amazing. It is claimed to be the image of Jesus of Nazareth, the burial shroud of the Christ.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

And some of our listeners may have seen images of this cloth, at least the negative image that produces a face, we all recognize. And that is part of why this cloth is so fantastical. But before we really get into the shroud, let's start with its providence. We learned that word with our NASA mommies, and unlike them, we can trace the providence back to the first century.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

And if you think back to that episode with our NASCA mummies, Mary, the only grave robber in the story is the Lord himself. Right? Oh my gosh, yes, I love that. I'm starting the week off strong with dad jokes. But I know for this episode, we are going to try our best to stick with facts and scientific study, which is good science. And let the shroud speak for itself. But I have a lovely legend kind of story of what happened to the shroud right after it was found in the tomb. Mary? Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I think we'd all love to hear it, Haley.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

King Abgar of Edessa was dying from leprosy when he heard of a miracle worker, a man who was healing the sick and raising the dead, the son of God. So he wrote to Jesus and sent a messenger to him, asking him to come to his kingdom, and King Abgar offered asylum, having also heard the Jewish priests were beginning to conspire against him. Legend says Jesus responded to Abgar, explaining he was unable to come and that he had to finish his work in Jerusalem, but would send one of his disciples to the king soon. Knowing that his work in Jerusalem would not allow him to visit the king in person, his image was sent with his disciple Thaddeus at the request of the apostle Thomas. The image was on a cloth, folded into fours, so that only the face was visible to viewers. The cloth was the burial shroud of Jesus. Not wanting to insult the king, with the macabre details of his death, the shroud was folded in such a way that only the face of Jesus was visible. It is said, when King Abgar looked upon the holy face, he was healed, and Abgar became one of the first Christian kings, and Edessa became a major early center of Christianity. There in the kingdom, the shroud remained until his successor became king and did not follow the Christian faith. Out of fear that the new king would destroy the now named Cloth of Edessa, it was hidden within a niche in the city walls of Edessa, where it laid forgotten until 544 AD, when it was discovered during rebuilding efforts after a flood.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

I love that story. And that's actually the earliest account we can find of the Shroud of Turn. But like you said, Haley, it is considered just a legend. But our listeners know how we feel about legends here on the Rebel Road podcast. There are always truths in them. And we're going to get into the scientific studies. And one of the scientific studies that they did on the shroud was pollen. They actually tested it for pollen. They found pollen all over the shroud, and the pollen was from all over the world. But interestingly, it collaborated with every place where the shroud was said to have been. The pollen spores backed up the Providence, and they even found pollen spores from Edessa. So if we continue with the shroud being unearthed in Edessa, we don't find it again in history until 944 A.D., when it's transferred to Constantinople and remained until 1204. There it was housed in the Church of the Virgin of Pharos, and it was historically documented as being part of the Byzantine Emperor's extensive collection of relics. The shroud is thought to have vanished during the sack of Constantinople in 1204.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

It is widely believed that during the sack of Constantinople, it was smuggled out by the Ninths to crusader strongholds, where it later resurfaced in around 1353 or 1354 A.D. in Lire, France. The shroud surfaced in the possession of Geoffrey des Charnets at a church in Lire, France, where it stayed until 1453, when Margaret des Charnay gave the shroud to the House of Savoy, who kept it in Chambri, France.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

And it stayed there in the House of Savoy for a hundred years, until 1532, when a fire broke out and it was damaged by fire. Now the shroud was mended by the nuns at Chambri and remained there for almost another 50 years. Then in 1578, the shroud moved to Turin, Italy, where it has remained housed at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It is there to this day. It's no longer on public display, but the shroud has been the private property of the House of Savoy. So that's the former Italian royal family for over 400 years. And during this time, in 1898, the first photographs of the shroud were taken, revealing the face of Christ in a stunning negative image. Imagine being the photographer and watching that image develop.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

When Sakanda Pia, the photographer, developed the glass plates, he discovered that the image on the cloth acted like a photographic negative. The darks and lights were reversed, revealing a much clearer, high definition image of a man that was not visible to the naked eye. So even though you can faintly see the face and the entire body on the shroud, when photographed, and you look at the negative of the photograph, you see the image clearer. It's really remarkable.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, it's hard to explain. And we will get into that image soon, but let's still look at the providence. During the House of Savoy's ownership, the shroud also went some testing. There was the Turing Commission that was from 1969 to 1973, and that's a formal commission of experts that was appointed to advise on the cloth preservation. They did fabric analysis and they did the pollen analysis during this time. And then Max Fry, he took samples of dust and pollen from the shroud, and he claimed to have found pollen from plants native to the Middle East, specifically Jerusalem and Turkey, suggesting that the cloth had traveled through all those regions. And the STERP investigation of 1978 was the most extensive. It was a hands-on study conducted on the shroud. The Shroud of Turn Research Project, or the STERP team, was mostly American scientists, and they were given 120 continuous hours of access. So this was a team of 33 scientists. And during this investigation of the shroud, they did 3D mapping. They used a VP8 image analyzer and they discovered that the image contained topographic 3D information. So unlike a flat photograph or painting, the intensity of the image correlates to the distance between the cloth and the body. So literally a 3D image can be seen on this, and it boggles science today. They also confirmed that no pigments were used. They used fluorescence, x-ray fluorescence, infrared spectrometry, and microscopy to search for pain. They concluded the image was not a painting. There were no brushstrokes, no pigments or dyes found in those image-bearing fibers. They also conducted blood tests on the shroud. This shroud is covered in pints, and I mean literal pints of blood. So researchers John Heller and Alan Adler identified the presence of real male human blood type AB that was consistent all over the shroud with the same blood type with the same male, and they found hemoglobin and serum aluminum in the reddish stains. And superficially, they found that the image only affects the uppermost fibers of the linen. It is just a few microns deep haley, and it does not penetrate the cloth.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

And in October of 1983, when the last king of Italy died, in his will, the shroud was bequeathed to Pope John Paul II and his successors. So it is owned by the Vatican to this day, and since then, all studies are highly regulated, but they have allowed some to be done. From most recent to oldest, starting in 2022, a wide-angle X-ray study proposed the shroud was from the first century, and that's based on fiber degradation. This is when Christ was crucified. Now, a little bit further back. In 2015, DNA testing was done. A genomic analysis of dust on the shroud revealed the DNA from plants and people worldwide. Even further, in 1988, a carbon-14 test. Now, this dated the cloth to the Middle Ages. So we're talking uh 1260 to 1390. But that 2022 wide angle x-ray study later disproved the carbon test. And the paper that originally published the results in 1988 came out and said they were wrong. This is what happened. But did we see that on the news in 2022? No, we did not. But in 1988, this was plastered everywhere. And again, it is still what people cite when saying the shroud is a hoax, misinformation. Now, at the time, did they think they were right? Well, where they took the sample, the shroud, they knew it was where the nuns had patched the shroud from the fire, remember? So that cloth would have been not as old as the main fabric. And there were a few more in there, but these were the big ones. So clearly, this is an item from antiquity that we can find historical documents of and are able to trace the providence accurately back to 944 AD through texts and documents. We mentioned the story of King Agar, and it cannot be proved as 100% fact. But if you did take it as fact, then we have the entire providence.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Of this item. Right. So we have providence. And of those missing years, remember the pollen, they actually found pollen spores from Edessa. So it was there. That lends credibility, in my opinion, that it actually we have the full providence of the shroud. And if for some reason those missing years give you pause, then we hope that the forensic and scientific data that we're going to share with you, and mind you, this is just a small fraction of the forensic and scientific data, but we hope that this is going to convince you that this is the burial shroud of Christ. Now, before you say it could be from a Jesus who was crucified, who just had that same name, how do you know it was that actual Messiah or the Jesus of Nazareth? We have to look at the ancient records and documents from history again. And the Romans and Jewish people, they were, thank goodness, they were meticulous documenters of their histories. They had censuses, they had logbooks, they kept records of everything. And we still have all of these. Not to mention, we have Josephus and a lot of other historians that kept separate accounts from the government. So from all of these books and records, and combing through all of these, we know definitively there was only one prominent Jesus, known as Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified by Pontius Pilate. And there's only one found in history. Now that is our written record, and absolutely no scholar, nobody disputes this. They have tried, but they've all come to the same conclusion that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, did exist and he was crucified by Pilate.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

And if we use the Bible only as a type of confirmation of information, maybe as a witness, what happened, we have more evidence that collaborates the science, and everything begins to line up. So let's look at the fabric. The Bible says Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body of Jesus and bought his burial shroud and laid him in an unused tomb. Now, this is important because Joseph was a wealthy man. He used his wealth and influence to get the body, and he would have purchased the finest linen available at that time. First century high-quality linen was characterized by extremely fine threads, and they were often hand spun and woven using ancient techniques, such as the herringbone pattern with a three to one diagonal twist, which made the fabric both durable and aesthetically refined. The shroud of Turin was a herringbone pattern with a three to one diagonal twist and delicate fibers. Remember, earlier I said to tuck that away because that was going to be important when we first started the story.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Not only is the fabric of the shroud historically accurate to the first century, the last test allowed on the shroud, that was that 2022 white X-ray test, it confirmed that the flax fiber's vanilla content, now linen is made from flax, and over time it loses its vanilla through natural aging. But it takes forever to lose its vanilla. At 700 years old, that linen fiber would still have 35% of its vanilla content in the linen. But science did this test, and with these charts and comparisons, and um they've done this not just on the shroud, but all sorts of fibers found in antiquity. And so they get all these charts and they compare them, and you can accurately date items this way in a non-destructive manner. But this 2022 test proved the cloth was from the first century. They were able to do this by comparing known samples from the first century and older to the results from the shroud. And in the shroud, no vanilla was detected. Now there's an argument about the natural fibers of the cloth. Some say that linen, there's no way it can last that long because it's natural. But the oldest known linen garment that we have, and it sits in a museum somewhere, is a 5,000-year-old Egyptian linen dress called the Tarkin dress. So clearly, linen can survive that long and longer in the right conditions.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Okay, to keep everyone on track, I'm going to summarize almost every point. So we have the providence of the artifact, we have dating, placing it to the first century, and the physical item with the linen, the forensic visual and testing of the item. It fits the timeline and matches description and historical facts of what the burial cloth of Christ would be made from. You cannot dispute it is a burial shroud from the first century by looking at the forensic and archaeological dates and the science. Now, let's start looking at the actual image on the cloth.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

The first thing we should point out is that this image is only on one side of the cloth. You can see the blood stains on the other side. The blood did soak through the linen to the other side. But that fragile image of the man, it's only visible on one side of the cloth. It's the side that touched the body. You really can only see the image if you stand about eight feet away. If you're up on top of it, you can't see it because it's so fine and faded. But through those photographs, specifically the negative aspect of the photograph, you can see it. So a negative image is where the lightest area of the scene becomes the darkest. And so the darkest areas appear lightest. So the white of the shroud becomes dark and kind of blends into the background and out pops the image. It almost glows. It doesn't, but it almost glows. And that's what allows us to see amazing details.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Yes. And multiple people have come in and tried to recreate this image and still to this day have not been able to. It is a scientific fact that we cannot reproduce this image on this scale. It just cannot be done. So for any hoaxers out there, how did they do it? Here we are in modern times again, unable to reproduce something made in the first century. Well, let's not make any conclusions. Let's talk about it some more. The image is monochromatic. It's in a brownish tone. It is scientifically proven to not be paint, dye, ink, and there are no brush strokes noted anywhere. The team in 1978, who had just 120 hours to prove it was a hoax, came to that conclusion after exhaustive tests. No evidence of any natural pigments or even unnatural pigments. The image is caused by oxidation or dehydration of the linen fibers themselves. The image appears only on the topmost surface and lacks the directional properties of a brush or a liquid, making it unexplainable by any art technique. Now, this team of scientists, quite a few, 30. I think 33, Mary, right? Yep. And they did everything that they could. But back to the image, it is a clear image with no smudges. And if you're wondering, no, it's not made by scorching. Many have tried that in recent times with lasers and the linen burn. Now, before it does burn, they can see an image, but they can't recreate this. So how was it made? Now bear in mind, this is a full-size anatomically correct image of a naked man that in life stood about five feet 11 inches, a well-built, muscular man with a beard and with blood evidence of crucifixion, scourging, feeding, a helmet of thorns, a pierced side and long hair. And we'll get into the blood evidence in just a bit. It's it's a life-size image.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Yeah, his hands are folded over his privates, and evidence suggests that his beard was even plucked. And yes, the Bible says that. It says that they plucked his beard, and on the shroud we have that evidence. Now, all the little details we find in this shroud, but we're still talking about that image. Now, the blood is forensically proven to have been on the cloth before the image. We know this because the image is barely on the surface of that cloth. Now, what do we mean by that when we say it's barely on the surface? The image is only 0.2 microns deep on the cloth. 0.2 microns. That's 200 nanometers of depth. This oxidation on the linen that shades the image does not penetrate into the threads of the weave or linen fibers, but it's confined to the primary cell wall of the weave, leaving no image in the middle of the fibers. So it just gently rests on top. Paint, dyes, ink, scorching would bleed deeper into the other side, like the blood did. This image is barely there, yet we can see it. So 0.2 microns, let's look at how minute this is. If we took a strand of hair, cut it in half long ways, and if somehow we were able to cut that in half and in half again and again and again and again and more, well, let's just put it this way: a human hair is about 50 to 100 microns thick or wide. Therefore, 0.2 microns is roughly cutting a strand of hair long ways 250 to 500 times. That is minute. We're talking microscopic. If you brushed up against this image or if you like scratched at it, it would flake off. So the fact that it's still there, that's a miracle in itself.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

It really is mind-boggling how fragile this is. The image is so faint and superficial that it was not clearly seen until the invention of photography in 1898 when Secondapia took that photograph. Now, there is reason to believe that the image used to be much bolder, clearer, and easier to see, especially with the way it was folded and preserved. Now, ancient people they knew where the face was, that is evident by the way it was folded, and they knew accurately where the wounds were. And ancient depictions, I'm talking the first depictions of Christ actually line up with the shroud image if you were trying to copy them in the face and in the body posture. And we'll post images of the shroud and the ancient art and such, but to add even more weird to how the image was made, it was discovered during one of the scientific studies. The image is not just one side, the image contains 3D information. That's right. Not only do we see the front of the man, but we also see the sides and the back of the man. It's almost as if the cloth somehow collapsed into the body and took a photo. Now, how is that possible? Right. The image is 3D.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

It really is. It includes areas where the cloth was not even in direct contact with the body, which defies all standard of photographic or painting techniques. This encoded 3D information suggests it was created when the cloth was wrapped around the body, but how it got there, they just don't know.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Their best guess, our modern scientists and scientific studies' best guess, is the image was formed by an intense, instantaneous burst of ultraviolet radiation. One scientist was able to get a momentary similar mark with a laser, but the linen burst into a flame. I mentioned that a bit earlier. And others claim the energy needed to create an image like that would require a staggering 34 trillion watts of power. And this is more power than the combined output of all the world's nuclear power plants.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah, so really it's just you need a powerful, like incredibly powerful, and an overwhelmingly brief flash of light to get this image so as not to burn the linen. And also you need a cold energy in that scenario. So science just cannot explain it. They are perplexed at how this image was created. Haley, now can you think of another intense brief flash of light that science had a hard time explaining off the top of your head? Can you think of that? Not off the top of my head. Well, the moment of conception, that moment when a sperm fertilizes an egg when life begins, it releases billions of zinc atoms, which scientists have dubbed the zinc spark. The fertilized egg releases zinc atoms which bind to fluorescent molecules in a lab setting and it produces this light explosion under visible special cameras. So, I mean, have you seen photos of that when the sperm fertilizes the egg? There is this flash of light that goes off. And they took forever to figure out how that happened. So we have science that definitively says that when life begins, spontaneous light is produced. Now, this is on a tiny microscopic scale, but what happened if a full-size man were to suddenly come back to life?

SPEAKER_00 36:45

The moment of life, a beautiful parallel. So let's recap to this point. Again, we have an image that science and artists have no idea how it was made. An image so shallow it really shouldn't have survived uh this long. And an image that appeared after blood stains soaked into the burial cloth. And again, an image that is not two-dimensional but is three-dimensional. That gives us the full image of the man on a linen cloth dated to the first century and forensically proven to be as well, and providence of where it has been and what people have said it is. It's the burial shroud of Christ. So let's look at those blood stains.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Okay, so before we get into those, we need to learn a little bit more about accurate crucifixion and scourging in Roman times. So this is where things might start to get a little rough for people. So just keep that in mind and listen with caution. So let's start with scourging or flogging. We know Pilate had Jesus scourged, hoping that that would be enough to calm the religious leaders. Now, scourging is the act of whipping someone. But here's something interesting. The Jewish by law could not scourge someone more than 39 times. The Romans were not bound by those laws, and another tiny glimpse into why they wanted Pilate to deal with Jesus. But if we look at the marks on this body, this is the body of the Shroud of Turrant, the scientists did this. They were able to count the marks. This man was scourged 360 times by two men, one taller than the other. They examined the arc of the wounds and the little circular impressions in the flesh. Now, scourging was done with a flagrum, and a flagram was a short handheld whip with three short leather straps, and the straps also had metal balls on them. Now, some flagrums had bone and metal spikes to rip at the flesh, but the blood evidence on the body from the shroud shows the flagrums used to beat this man was consistent with the flagrums that had the metal balls. Now, the scourging, this is a brutal thing. It was intimate because these are short-handled whips, and the soldiers would have been covered with blood. Now remember, they found pints, pints of blood on this shroud. They would have removed his clothing so this man would have been naked and leaning on a block or stone, and then they would begin. It tore at the muscles underneath the skin. It weakened the skin and impacted maximum pain. Every lash would be equivalent to a third-degree burn as far as pain and damage, eventually causing the skin to burst and swelling from those hematomas forming under the skin would also burst. So it he would just become instantly swollen and a bloody mess. We're told in scripture he was unrecognizable. You could not see if he was male or female. So the shroud showed 360 lashes, 240 were on the back of his body, and 120 on the front. He was scorched everywhere: arms, legs, pelvic region, groin area, everywhere. There is evidence that he was also hit in the head and that the flagrum wrapped around the side of his face and probably blinded this man in the shroud in one eye because the eye was punctured.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Whoever this man was, he most likely would have died from these injuries. The scourging was so severe, yet they were not done with him. There's more that lines up with the specific account of the crucifixion of Christ. We are told in the scriptures, and remember, we are using scripture as the eyewitness to this crime scene, so to speak. We're told they made Christ carry his cross. And in history, we know this is true. They did do this. Now, most have a misconception of what this looks like. In Roman times, the cross people were crucified on was not shaped like a lowercase T that we think of, but rather a capital T shape. There's no height extension on the cross beam. Just imagine a capital T. The patibulum is what the cross beam or the wood that formed the T was called. And the stipes was the upright part of the cross, and that's the vertical beam. This part would have already been placed on the ground. So Jesus, or the man whose image we have from the shroud, would have carried the patibulum only. And the blood stains on the body show distinct marks on the shoulders, interpreted by some investigators as abrasions caused by a heavy object, such as that patibulum. Now, these marks are on the left shoulder. The right shoulder and the arms, other wounds suggest traumatic injuries, likely caused by the friction of a rough wooden object. Traces of dirt on the knees, the nose, and feet suggest a fall or direct contact with the ground while walking, which matches the narrative of Jesus falling while carrying the cross. Right, let's paint that picture.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

We have a man who's beaten. He's scourged, he's weak, he's losing blood, possibly blinded in one eye, naked, and struggling to carry roughly a hundred-pound wooden beam. It's pressing on his sensitive, wrecked skin. And as he's walking, that beam is bearing down on those wounds, opening them up, reopening them, and he's weak. So he stumbles, he slams into the ground, his knees hit to the dirt and the rocks, jarring his shoulder. And that crown of thorns on his head, it hits that crown of thorns, driving those thorns even deeper. And he stops short and his face just kisses the dirt. That's how we get that dirt on the nose on the shroud. The shroud tells us this, not only with the wounds and the blood evidence, but also with those traces of dirt. The dirt found on those parts of the shroud, and that dirt's only found on the feet and the knees and the tip of the nose, it matches the exact dirt found in the geological region of Golgotha. That is where this man was crucified. This man walked about 2,000 feet as the crowds jeered, spitting on him, and the guards prodded him along, and he stumbled and he fell. But he He got up again. He found that strength and he got up again.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

And I don't know, Mary, how we skip this, but let's back up to the crown of thorns. Again, thanks to the forensic study of these bloodstains. The crown of thorns was most likely a helmet of thorns. So not just a little ring around the head, but a helmet pushed onto the entirety of his head. The shroud revealed numerous bloodstains around the head, consistent, again, with puncture wounds rather than a traditional ring-shaped crown. The forensic studies identify over 50 specific thorn wound marks on the forehead and on the nape of the neck, with blood flowing down the face, matching biblical accounts of Jesus' crucifixion. And we mentioned only one man named Jesus was crucified by Pilate. And in history, only one man was crucified with a crown of thorns. And that's a historical fact that can be found in ancient records. The shroud tells us this man wore a helmet of thorns.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

It's so intense, Haley, but let's keep going. Researchers even identified flower images near the face, which they identified as Gondelia torniforte. So that is a plant with very sharp thorns, common in Jerusalem. And again, not only with the blood evidence, but the pollen evidence as well. This revealed that the crown of thorns was likely a painful cat made from the spiny gondolia plant that pierced deeply into the scalp. So again, two different forms of science confirming the biblical narrative. The pollen from the gundelia was found on this cloth, and the blood evidence where those wounds on his head were the pollen and the blood were kind of mingled. Now, Haley, even more convincing, the Gundalia flowers in Jerusalem, they only bloom between March and April. And this was when Jesus was crucified, early April.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Now, if this shroud is a hoax, then it is, and pardon my pun, but the holy grail of all hoaxes. And I just want to say, I never once thought about the crown of thorns as a helmet. And not only that, but a helmet of thorns with actual flowers. You can see flowers in this image around his head, but they're not actually flowers. It's the imprints of the flowers. Now, like you said, Mary, if we look at this as witnesses to the event, if the blood stains were not enough, they found the pollen from the Gundelia flowers on the stains as well. This crown was put on this man in mockery. And if we believe it to be Christ, the king of the Jews, the soldiers didn't take the time to weave something. It is more likely they grabbed a few branches of these thistles and thorns, this vendelia plant that grows kind of wild there. They tied them together and made a crude helmet and probably just shoved it right onto his head.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

And the evidence is confirming a story and the shroud, it is a star witness speaking for this man and retelling a story that can now be confirmed with forensics and history. And it is a powerful testimony. We haven't even made it to the crucifixion site yet. So a big question and debate has been the precise placement of the nails and the hands and the feet of Christ. The shroud, it gives us some information. So let's talk about the nails and the hands. In Roman crucifixion, everything was reused. The nails, the patibulum, the stipes, everything. So many, many people would have been crucified before him and these scenes would have been recycled. The Romans were masters at crucifixion. It wasn't invented by them, but they absolutely perfected it. So let's talk about those nails. These were seven to nine inch long iron spikes, and they were used in conjunction with a crude type of wooden washer. The wood washer would prevent the victim from pulling the nail through and freeing themselves. So it helped to stabilize the victim to hang on those small nails. So once at the base of the cross, they would lay the accused down and force their hands into position, 90 degrees out at their sides, arms wide open and stretched. The patibulant, remember, would have been reused. So there would already be holes in them, and that would make it easier to align a person on this crossbeam. The nails, according to the shroud of turn, were placed in a specific place. And Haley, uh listeners, I want you to kind of do this with me if you're able to. If you're driving, don't do this. But take your thumb and touch it to your pinky. Do you see that meaty part of the flesh under your thumb and the flat part of your palm by your pinky? Do you notice where it folds there where it where they meet? This is where the nails went in. Now, the Romans, remember, were masters at crucifixion. They knew how to inflict maximum torture and lingering pain. So they would drive the nail right there in that place. And it would hit two nerves, the ulna and the median nerve. Have you ever funked your elbow and that pain that's ridiculous that goes through your arm? Imagine that pain never ending. This would shoot absolutely excruciating pain down your arms, shoulders, and neck and a lasting, debilitating pain. So they drove that first nail in, one hand, secured it with the piece of wood, and then would wrench your arm to the other side. Remember, they stretched you out to make it difficult to breathe. And so they'd stretch you out to the other side, find that second hole, and nail in the second nail. Now, the man from the shroud showed a dislocated shoulder. Now, this could have been from falling with the weight of that bean crashing down as he was walking, or it could have been made from wrenching him so violently during the nailing of his hand.

SPEAKER_00 50:41

That is extremely gruesome and heart-wrenching stuff. Just imagine if you had to sit and watch that with your own eyes. But we aren't done. Once he was nailed to the platibulum, they would lift him up onto the stipes. And remember, this is the tall part of the cross. Now there was a notch cut out at the top of the stipes. So the petulum would just slide down into the notch. And as he hung there, waiting for the nails on the feet, the entire weight of his body hung forward at a 26-degree angle with the pain and the full force of his extended body on just those two nails in his hands. And they hung like that until their feet were then nails. Now, another misconception is the crosses were tall and people hung feet above everyone. But in reality, victims were really only maybe eight inches off of the ground. So the humiliation was a maximum effect, and they're almost eye-level with you in the crowd.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Right. And if we look at a modern day cross, Jesus' feet are almost always crossed, and one nail goes through the top of the foot. But and let me note this: this is me taking the less thought-about route. There are two ideals of how his feet were nailed. One, like you see on a modern cross, one over the other with a nail through the top. But if you look at the real ancient archaeology of Romans and how they crucified people, we learn something that people back then knew. Each foot got a nail. And because blood obscures the hole in one of the feet on the shroud, we can have this hypothesis that I'm about to give. So sometimes the feet were pulled to the sides of the cross and the victim huned, straddling the cross. The nails were placed through the ankle or heel bone, the calcaneus bone, and it was put there to provide a stronger anchor. The feet were nailed, one on each side of the cross, again with a wooden washer to keep the feet from pulling through the nails. So your feet could pivot up and down, kind of twisting on this nail as you struggled to breathe.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

If we look at very early depictions of Christ on the cross, the first ones, they all showed an odd thing. His feet hung, one on each side of the cross, kind of like what you were just describing, Mary. This, paired with archaeological evidence, they have found nails embedded in the calcaneous bones of crucifixion victims. And that seems to agree again with you, Mary, that this is where the nails were placed. But I also want to point out, and you mentioned it, only one nail hole is visible in the shroud of Turin, suggesting his left foot was placed over his right. But because of the blood being present on one foot more than the other, there could be two. And the blood evidence shows the blood flowed in different directions. And they have different theories on that. But if you go with what Mary was just mentioning, and that theory of the two nails with him straddling the cross, his feet would have been able to move up and down. And maybe as he struggled there on the cross to breathe, using the nails to help hoist himself forward to maybe breathe and grab some air, he used his feet, pointing his toes down to push out, and then relaxed when he could no longer stand the pain of standing and straining against the nails, trying to breathe. And just imagine that over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

And for any listener who does not know, crucifixion was a purposeful, long, slow, torturous death. The victim slowly suffocated. It often took days to die on the cross. And when you're stretched like that, you are unable to breathe in deeply. You know, you just can't take a deep breath. You can't catch a breath. And with every breath, it takes all of your energy to lurch forward and to grasp for air. Now, the Nazis, they actually discovered that if you were to hang somebody with your arms together, you would die super quickly because you cannot get air. But the Romans, they wanted to extend the death, they wanted to slow death. So the arms went out to the sides, and that helped to prolong the humiliation and the torment and the death.

SPEAKER_00 55:31

Absolutely horrific. And our blood evidence indicates that whoever was in the burial shroud struggled with asphyation. And some studies argue that the blood flow patterns suggest the man was forced to move to breathe, leading to, again, eventual asphyation. But the severe scourging also likely made breathing increasingly difficult. And as the victim would struggle to breathe, the lungs would begin to fill with fluid and probably blood, especially with all the internal damage from the scourging. And his heart would also become engorged with fluid. So the man in the shroud could have also suffered a cardiac tamponade or blood leaking into the heart chamber. Whatever the direct cause, heart failure, shock, or asphyxiation, it caused this man severe stress and trauma.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Absolutely. This man was stressed and he was slowly dying. They tested this blood, and we mentioned it's a definitively human male blood type A B. And it is 2,000-year-old blood, but oddly, it is still a rusty reddish-orange color. And that is incredibly odd. But when they tested that blood, they found extremely high concentrations of bilirubin. And that indicates extreme trauma, high stress, and severe abuse. The high bilirubin is what has kept this blood this color through the centuries.

SPEAKER_00 57:11

So here we have a man tortured, beaten, scourged, crucified, naked, and now slowly dying on the cross. Talking would have been difficult. And from biblical accounts, Jesus does say very little, but he does speak. And all the accounts of what he says show nothing but grace and compassion, even as he is dying.

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Right. And we're gonna leave the science behind for just a moment, and I'm gonna hit the heart, hopefully. This man, if the shroud proves it was Jesus, and so far I'm like a billion percent it is. We and we aren't even done with the evidence yet, folks. The words he speaks using the Bible as a witness are even more impactful. Now picture this. As he's being nailed and they're stretching his arms apart, he screams, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. He is asking for grace for his executioners. And then a little while later, truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. He provides hope for someone afraid and in agony next to him. And then, woman, behold your son, behold your mother. Remember, that cross was almost at eye level. He would have been able to look at his mother one last time, who I couldn't even imagine was bearing witness to this terrific event, and provide one last kindness to her for his most beloved disciple to take care of her. Then scripture and history tells us an eclipse happened and the land went dark. And during this time, Christ calls out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And this eclipse lasted for three hours. But Christ then says, I thirst, and finally it is finished. He dies. Now, this is the biblical narrative, and we have no forensic or tangible proof of these words spoken. But the Bible so far has backed up that forensic science of the shroud and the events up to this. So, why would we discount this biblical account of the words he spoke?

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Powerful and beautiful words. Let's step back into the forensics lab and see what else the shroud can tell us. The Bible tells us that the Jewish leaders wanted Christ off the cross before nightfall. The Bible tells us that the Jewish leaders wanted Christ off the cross before nightfall, or the third star lit the sky. So to speed in the death, Pilate ordered his legs to be broken. And it is said when they went to break his legs, they saw he was already expired, which is super rare. People didn't die quickly on the cross. So a Roman soldier took his spear and pierced his side. This is a biblical account. The shroud again corroborates this narrative. Forensic studies indicate blood, iron, and serum marks matching a spear wound. A significant blood stain on the right side of the chest corresponds to the piercing of the rib cage by a spear. And this is mentioned in John chapter 19, verse 34. And analysis of those stains showed a distinct separation of blood stains into red blood and clear serum, which often occurs after death. Remember, they said blood and water gushed from the wound. And it could have been the clear serum. Mistaken as water.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

The Lance wound was on the right side of his chest, specifically between the fifth and the sixth ribs, so the intercostal space there. It's an oval-shaped pierced wound, approximately 4 by 1.5 centimeters, with a large meandering blood stain that flowed down the side. Forensic studies describe the wound as a sharp object wound that pierced the pericardium or his heart, then resulted in both blood and pleural fluid, referred to as water, flowing out. The blood stain is described as appearing as it flowed while the person was upright and then subsequently changed as the body was placed in a supine position. So when they took him down off the cross. Further investigation found the wound indicated it was inflicted after death. As it flowed, it did not spurt. So a beating heart, you know, that causes blood to spurt and create a unique pattern. So the blood pattern and the blood identified with the serum would have been post-mortem.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

The final wound, and in the Bible, it indicated he was dead. They did not break his legs, and the shroud confirms this wound was made after death. And we want to point out that the blood found on the shroud, it includes both premortem and postmortem blood. Researchers have identified both arterial and venous blood along with serum, indicating that the body was subjected to trauma before death and that blood continued to leak after death. The blood stains are surrounded by halos that are often interpreted as being composed of blood serum, which can be visualized under ultraviolet light. Those halos, that's important because they indicate that the blood stains are not artistic additions, but rather real blood that underwent clotting and retraction, clot retraction. And it's a phenomenon in which blood clots and serum separates, with the serum moving faster and flowing around the edges of the clotted blood. This finding is crucial to the scientific analysis of the shroud as it supports the conclusion that the stains are genuine hematic fluids resulting from severe bodily trauma.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

So if we're hoaxing this, they would have needed a real victim. They would have needed someone alive and dead with all of these wounds. And remember, the blood stains were placed on the shroud before that image. The image rests gently on top of the blood. There isn't an artist alive that can do that. Not one. Think about what you'd need to create these wounds and blood splatter before you even have a body sketch to line it all up. This image, the full image and blood pattern line up perfectly. Absolutely nothing is off.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

So let's do one last summary. We have a burial shroud. It's proved to be dated to the first century and in line with a fine three to one herringbone weave. And that would have been purchased for Jesus by Joseph. And we have the providence that says it is the burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth. Not just a few hundred years, but centuries of providence. And we have historical documents and facts that say there was only one Jesus of Nazareth crucified by Pontius Pilate. And to further narrow that down, only one crucifixion ever recorded with a crown of thorn. The blood evidence and images on the shrouded taurine prove beyond doubt this man was scourged 120 times, which was the Roman method, leaving 360 marks, three straps on the whip. There are 360 marks on this body. There is evidence the man wore a crown of thorns. We have wounds. We have pollen from a specific thorny flowering plant that was in bloom at the time Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. We have dirt evidence from the feet, knees, and nose of this man on the shroud. And that has been proven to have come from Jerusalem or the exact place Jesus was crucified. And there is blood evidence and wound patterns consistent with someone carrying a large, heavy object. There is blood evidence and wounds of puncture marks in the hands and feet that undeniably say this man was crucified. And we have evidence of severe trauma seen and verified in the high villirubin that was found in the blood. And finally, we have the post-mortem wound in the side.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:23

And the final piece to all this, we have the image, a 3D image that is imprinted onto the very tippity top of the fine linen fabric, only visible from one side that science cannot say how it was made. Their best theory, that massive spike of energy and light bursts. Possibly the same light burst, but more intense than we could even imagine. The shroud acts as a witness and tells the story with irreputable, documented, and forensically backed scientific proof that can be backed with biblical or eyewitness accounts. So is the shroud of Turin the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth? Is this burial cloth the only witness to the resurrection of our Savior? Science can't tell us what made the image. But if you are a believer, and I hope we have made this case, the image on the shroud is the natural effect of a supernatural event that changed the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:34

Amen to that, Mary. And we hope all of our listeners have enjoyed this episode of Rebel Road. And if you've loved it and found it fascinating, please share it with everyone you know. We really do feel this has been an inspiring episode. And you can find all of our resources in our show notes. We will link other podcast episodes that went into even more detail about the Shroud of Turin. And like always, we encourage you to do your own research past the cries of a hoax. That always gets more news. But the retractions you have to dig for.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:14

Yeah, thank you everyone for joining us on this very special Rebel Road episode. And we hope you have a blessed Easter. And if you aren't a believer in Jesus, we hope that maybe this pushes you a little closer to the possibility of maybe.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:32

Until next time, everyone, keep it weird and always pull it back to Jesus. Bye. Bye.