Who do you say that I am? - What we can now learn from a nearly 2000 year old piece of fabric
Modern 3D image analysis allows the Shroud of Turin to reveal so much more to today's audiences
Suddenly, conversations around the Shroud of Turin are once again making the rounds. The new editor of the Shroud.com website explains:
Fall Update! December 7, 2024
Since the Summer Update, the Shroud has been very prominent in the News. At the Catholic National Eucharistic Congress held in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 17-21, a Shroud exhibit put together by the “Othonia” group of the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum in Rome, which many people waited hours to visit. “The Chosen” actor Jonathan Roumie was given an individual tour of the exhibit.
In late August, a flurry of Shroud stories, many of which dealt with the resurfacing of the news from 2022 regarding a new dating technique known as “Wide Angle X-Ray Scattering”, which indicated that the Shroud was about 2,000 years old. There was also new research concerning the blood, that the Shroud wrapped a man who had been severely tortured. More recently, there has been a claim by a Brazilian graphics expert who asserts that his research proves the Shroud is a forgery.
Before I took over as editor of shroud.com, I was sending out a weekly email posting about the latest Shroud news, books, articles, videos, etc. Apart from Lent/Easter season, most of my postings generally had 10-15 items per week. Since this flurry of stories came out in late August, the number of items has ballooned to about 20-40 items per week. https://www.shroud.com/latebrak.htm
https://www.shroud.com/examine.htm
When America’s best known podcaster Joe Rogan and internationally known nursing instructor Dr. John Campbell both dedicate time, space and attention to the ancient relic, it might be time to share links to their conversations below…
Image Source: https://www.atotheword.com/tag/the-burial-of-jesus/
A linen burial cloth was mentioned in the Gospel accounts on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The Shroud of Turin has long intrigued many—could the visible imprint in the fabric be the face of Jesus? Or was it only paint?
In 1978, an in-depth analysis was done to demonstrate that the imprint was definitely not paint. And that small dots were actual human blood. But in the 1980s, carbon dating showed that the fabric could not have been from Jesus’ time.
Now however, that carbon dating was redone and, along with pollen, fibre and sand grain analyses, show that the fabric comes from the region and the time frame in which Jesus walked the earth.
NASA has developed three-dimensional photography techniques to discern hills and valleys on distant planets. These techniques were now done on different gradients of darkness and light gleaned from negative and positive photographic images of the shroud. This allows pathologists to determine that the types of scourging (lashing with spiked whips, etc.) that the person enclosed in the shroud would have suffered.
It also allows for the reconstruction of the 3-D shape of the man inside, knees bent and head down, in keeping with a position of rigour mortis after death by crucifixion.
These images and the resulting 3-D model are among the items to be displayed and available for study at an upcoming conference in St. Louis, Missouri at the end of July. https://shroud2025conference.com/exhibit/ The previous North American Shroud conference was held in 2019 in Ancaster, Ontario.
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In recent conversations, Joe Rogan has been touching on some of the mysteries of the Christian faith. For example, he spoke with Wesley Huff, a Christian apologist, public speaker, and current Central Canada Director for Apologetics Canada. www.wesleyhuff.com
Here is the part of a longer conversation Joe Rogan had with actor and movie producer Mel Gibson in which the Shroud of Turin is discussed.
The latest theory is that in the sudden moment in which Jesus’ body transformed from death to life, a sudden flash of light could have burned the photographic-type of image into the fabric, leaving behind a perfect imprint, even including that of the coins that would have been placed on the closed eyelids of the dead man.
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Dr. John Campbell, a respected Scottish nursing instructor, has long been making educational videos to support nursing education in remote regions of the globe. Here he took a break from medical videos in order to address recent scientific findings related to the Shroud of Turin.
Dr. Campbell’s video on this topic has picked up over 1.4 million views in 2.5 months. He included the links to all the studies referenced in his video.
His closing words on the topic:
So that was my whistle top review of the shroud of Turin that I've been looking at so far. I just thought I wanted to share that with you. Make what you will of it. I'm going to put a lot of links down [if] anyone wants to follow it up. A truly truly fascinating document and uh I don't know — I I do feel that the way the world is going at the moment, um there's a lot of things aren't looking very hopeful at the moment and uh it's almost like that this is a message for later times. That while the Shroud could be appreciated in earlier centuries uh no one knew it was a photographic negative until photography was invented. No one knew it had three-dimensional information until the people started wanting to interpret the topography of distant planets and so many other things that science is revealing about this quite extraordinarily extraordinary artifact. I'll leave it there for now…
Could that piece of fabric be the thing that connects people alive today with the two thousand year old story of the Risen Lord?
While it feels odd posting an “Easter” topic at this time in the church year, it should not be. The Child recently honoured on Christmas Eve and by the Magi thereafter, the youth who stayed behind in the Temple, the young man blessed by God’s spoken benediction at His baptism by his cousin John — this would be the very same man (God in human form) who later was crucified, died and buried.
Glory be that HE ROSE AGAIN!
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Were you there when they crucified my Lord? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree? Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Where you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb? Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Were you there when He rose up from the grave? Were you there when He rose up from the grave? Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there when He rose up from the grave? (He rose up from the grave!)