by
Mark Antonacci
and
Patrick Byrne
of The Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation
Posted May 25, 2012
Historical and Religious Aspects
Now that the Easter season has come and gone, the inevitable
Resurrection naysayer publications have hit the bookstore
shelves and online websites.
Most notably, this year we have The Sign: The Shroud of Turin
and the Secret of the Resurrection by Thomas de Wesselow and
Resurrected or Revived? by Helmut Felzmann.
De Wesselow, an art historian, researched the Shroud for seven
years to tell the reader that the image was caused by some
natural process that he or no one else can adequately explain.
This image then became the origin for the greatest
misunderstanding in the history of mankind. The monumental
confusion stems from the theory postulated by de Wesselow that
the image on the Shroud is what the first disciples saw, not a
physically resurrected Jesus.
According to de Wesselow, the Shroud was retrieved from the body
of a dead Christ. Later, Jesus was re-wrapped in new burial
garments and his body left to decompose in keeping with
traditional Jewish burial customs. The bones then would have
been placed in an ossuary and lost to history with the passage
of time.
To the first Christians, the Shroud became the “risen Christ”
according to de Wesselow. De Wesselow explains this by
introducing “animism” (the attribution of life to inanimate
things) and “anthropomorphism” (to credit with human-like
thoughts and emotions) to his conjecture. These two concepts,
coupled with the superstitions of an unsophisticated people,
leave “no reason to doubt” that the Shroud figure would have
been viewed “as a living presence” in the first century.
So the reader must now accept that Paul’s dramatic conversion
was due to viewing the Shroud; and the 500 in Corinthians
described by Paul as having seen the risen Christ was nothing
but the display of a cloth. Further straining credulity, is de
Wesselow’s notion that the apostles, by viewing a cloth, could
have launched the teachings of Christianity in the face of
extreme hardship and the most horrific deaths.
However, most implausible may be de Wesselow’s belief that
thousands of Jews steeped in centuries of Jewish tradition, who
took no notice of Christ’s teachings during his lifetime, now
cast all that aside post Crucifixion merely by viewing an image
on a cloth.
De Wesselow explains the Shroud’s disappearance in Edessa in
modern day Turkey as the final step in creating the great
misunderstanding. With the cloth gone from sight and the passage
of time, the Shroud displays following the Crucifixion morph
into a body and blood resurrection. According to de Wesselow,
this myth becomes the prevailing basis for today’s Christianity.
Felzmann takes another approach and proposes that Christ
survived His Crucifixion; then almost immediately set out
visiting the apostles and wanting to preach again in public. All
of this supposedly occurs with the aid and protection of the
Essenes, a controversial group of holy men and women of which
little is reliably known.
First, however it is necessary for Felzmann to prove that Christ
survived the Crucifixion. He supports this theory by referring
to the work of the late Prof. Wolfgang Bonte, a credentialed
forensic scientist. Bonte proposed that the blood stain patterns
on the Shroud and other indicators show that Christ was alive
when wrapped in his burial garments. It should be noted that
this conclusion is shared by only a few in the field and is
contrary to all mainstream research conducted by numerous
eminently qualified forensic scientists.
Felzmann asserts that Christ was alive when taken from the
cross, which enhanced the possibility for natural body encoding
to occur (similar to de Wesselow’s natural process causing the
image) and create the unique image on the Shroud. Here Felzmann
introduces an unproven methodology described as the reaction of
a warm body (necessarily alive) and body enzymes acting on cloth
to produce an image.
Felzmann speculates that a living Christ is rescued from the
tomb by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea because both men are
Essenes and essential to this grand hoax. The Essene writings on
which Felzmann relies describe a post Crucifixion Christ in a
weakened state, desperately wanting to be with his disciples
while being hotly pursued by Caiaphas (a Jewish high priest) and
his underlings.
After several meetings with his followers, including the
well-known “doubting Thomas” encounter, Christ retreats to
safety at an Essene community near the Dead Sea and dies only
days later. These accounts by Felzmann’s admission are in
“reasonable doubt.” Most scholars disregard these texts finding
it totally implausible that Jesus, ravaged by crucifixion and
succumbing to death from those wounds, could have possibly
inspired the apostles to go forth and spread the message of
Christianity.
Felzmann also takes us through the flawed process of the Shroud
carbon 14 dating. His work is thorough and uncovers many of the
shortcomings surrounding the 1988 attempt by three prestigious
labs to accurately date the age of the Shroud.
Unfortunately, much of this fine work is overshadowed by rather
blatantly accusing the Church of perpetrating a fraud. This
fraud or conspiracy surrounds the 1988 Shroud test samples being
“replaced by bogus ones.” Felzmann further asserts, “the motives
of the Church are to devalue the Shroud and to make it seem
unauthentic,” presumably to discourage further research that
would verify his theory that Christ was alive post Crucifixion.
Consequently, “the magical salvation and resurrection story is
thrown into the theological trash heap of history.”
After mind numbing research, both authors apparently arrive at
Christ’s tomb with no clear explanations for the Easter mystery.
At this point, as all confirmed nonbelievers must do, they
develop a theory - no matter how dubious - that allows them to
continue with their preconceived notions. They each took a
different approach using the Shroud as their path to a
“reasoned” answer to the Resurrection miracle. Both authors
should take note of a comment from the common sense mind of G.
K. Chesterton, “reason is fine until it becomes unreasonable.”
Since most of the evidence derived from the Shroud is
scientific, a focus on the authors’ scientific bases is
essential in understanding their overall positions.
Scientific and Contemporary Aspects
Both Felzmann and de Wesselow rely prominently on the scientific
research of Raymond Rogers in formulating their respective views
that either the live or decomposing body of Jesus naturally
caused his images on the Shroud. Both also rely on Rogers’
scientific research to suggest that either a foreign repair
piece was unwittingly carbon dated in 1988 or that foreign
samples were intentionally switched with the Shroud samples by
the Church and their supporters. For this reason, it is
important to review some of the underlying scientific methods
and findings relied upon by the authors.
According to Felzmann, Rogers claims that during the Shroud’s
production its spun fibers were individually moistened with a
paste of crude starch as other ancient linen supposedly
received. The complete or woven Shroud was then washed in
saponaria officinalis or soapwort, a soap-like solution, and
then laid out to dry. De Wesselow explains that when the water
thus evaporated a thin layer of carbohydrates containing starch
or sugar then resulted throughout the surface of the entire
Shroud. Rogers claims as Jesus’ corpse decomposed and putrefied
that it gave off amines or amino acids in a gas diffusion that
would have reacted with a reducing sugar as a form of
non-enzymatic browning or carmelization that resulted in the
unique body images on the Shroud of Turin. While such a series
of events has never occurred in history, there are a number of
reasons why they could not have occurred with the Shroud.
There is no evidence on the Shroud’s body images of a
decomposing body, yet by definition the body in this image
forming hypothesis would have been decomposing. Furthermore,
there is no evidence or any decomposition stains at any location
on the Shroud, nor is there any evidence of sugar on the Shroud
or the distribution of starch as hypothesized by Rogers. At
orifices like the mouth, the stains would be the most visible by
this method; but some of the best resolution is actually found
at this location on the Shroud image. The corpse’s temperatures
would also vary from its dorsal to its frontal side and its
extremities, yet no such correlations are found on the Shroud’s
body images. The chemical reaction known as the Maillard
reaction will not even occur unless the corpse’s temperature is
104 degrees F (40 C) or more. Since the dead body in the Shroud
first went into rigor mortis while it was in the vertical
crucifixion position, it is extremely unlikely any part of this
coldblooded corpse would have been at such a high temperature
when it was subsequently buried in a cool tomb, as in the case
of Jesus.
Even assuming every undocumented reaction of this hypothesis, it
would not produce uniform coloring on all the individually
colored image fibers found throughout the length and width of
the full-length frontal and dorsal body images. This necessarily
means it could not encode the three-dimensional and vertically
directional information also found throughout the full-length
Shroud body image. Nor would this method produce negative images
that contain highly-resolved, detailed images of a man when they
are photographed. The Shroud’s body image fibers are also
uniformly encoded 360 degrees around each individual fiber. This
method cannot encode individual fibers in such a manner. The
same shortcomings in this paragraph, as well as others, apply to
Felzmann’s live body method.
The lack of scientific understanding and rigor on the part of
both authors is very apparent. They only focus on a few of the
Shroud’s many features when discussing their naturalistic
methods, while failing to notice the multitude of body image and
blood mark features their methods fail to encode. The authors
also ignore many other image forming methods that account for or
duplicate far more of the Shroud’s features than their methods.
They fail to recognize that all sorts of diffusion, vapograph,
direct contact and various combinations of these and other
naturalistic methods have been tested over the course of a
hundred years, but all have noticeably failed. Millions of
people have also died and been covered with burial shrouds,
sheets, blankets, jackets etc. over their bodies. None have left
images that approach the unique and unfakable human body images
and blood marks found on the Shroud. Many millions more have
been similarly covered under many circumstances while alive
without leaving body images or blood stains approaching those of
the Shroud. Yet, despite the repeated failures of all
naturalistic methods by experiments and by natural design, both
authors confidentially assert that their naturalistic methods
would work.
Both authors also emphasize Rogers’ claim that the Shroud
samples he studied had a different chemical composition than
other Shroud samples; however, the “other” Shroud samples
referenced by Rogers came from the edges of water stains, where
chemicals are typically deposited by the flow of water.
Moreover, when 13 threads taken from the same area as Rogers’
samples were examined by STURP using X-ray fluorescence analysis
they showed the same relative concentrations of calcium,
strontium and iron that were measured throughout the
entire Shroud cloth. Due to physical
limitations these were the only chemical elements that could be
measured in 1978; however, these three elements are distributed
throughout the entire Shroud linen.
This chemical comparison not only makes a medieval or 16th
century repair hypotheses extremely remote, but it completely
outweighs the non-elemental findings in Rogers’ 2005
Thermochimica Acta publication that was clearly relied upon
by the authors.
Significantly, when scientists at the University of Arizona’s
radiocarbon laboratory examined samples remaining from their
1988 dating of the Shroud by UV fluorescence and
photomicrographic analysis they found no evidence of any
coatings or dyes as indicated by Rogers. They also found no
evidence to support Rogers’ or the author’s position that their
radiocarbon sample did not derive from the main part of the
Shroud. When Italian scientists examined Shroud samples removed
from the same area as Rogers’ samples, they too found the
samples resembled those taken from the rest of the Shroud.
Similarly, the detailed, close-up inspections of the front and
back sides of the Shroud by textile and other experts also
refute the views of Rogers, the authors and others who suggest
the Shroud samples tested in 1988 came from an invisibly
repaired region or were not taken from the main part of the
cloth.
The authors also overlook the scientific evidence indicating
that the body images on the Shroud resulted from a dehydration
and oxidation process that develops over time. The Shroud’s body
images were probably not visible for centuries. This simple
fact, as opposed to the authors’ outrageous 1st century
conspiracies, best explains why no Shroud-like image is
mentioned in the first several centuries after Jesus burial. No
description of an image like the one on the Shroud is found
anywhere in history until the sixth
century, when the image either developed or was found after
having been hidden away for centuries. If Christ left his image
on his burial cloth, it would have clearly been mentioned. Yet
no biblical, apostolic or other writings mention such a unique
image until the sixth century. The scientific, biblical and
historical evidence all refute the authors’ assumption of an
immediate image (as well as many of De Wesselow’s and Felzmann’s
other positions).
In summary, what distinguishes the above books from most other
Shroud books are the authors’ conclusions regarding
1) How
the Shroud’s images were formed,
2) The conspiratorial actions of the Church and their colleagues
regarding the Shroud’s radiocarbon samples and Jesus’
resurrection,
3) The physical condition and actions of Jesus following his
crucifixion,
4) The actions of the apostles and Jesus’ followers following
the events of Easter. Unfortunately, all of the authors’ above
contentions are based on little, if any, scientific or other
credible evidence. Instead they are largely, if not completely,
based on conjecture and illogical interpretations.
Felzmann and de Wesselow also erroneously claim or imply that
their unsupported contentions will or should have enormous
effects on the public’s religious beliefs. These conclusions are
not only based on speculative and undocumented evidence, but
they understate or ignore the nature and extent of the objective
and independent evidence that has been documented from decades
of scientific and medical examination of the Shroud. As their
own failed methods confirm, most of this extensive evidence is
not only unfakable, but is consistent with the Shroud’s
authenticity as the burial garment of the historical Jesus
Christ. Moreover, the documented evidence is actually consistent
with every element of the passion, crucifixion, death, burial
and resurrection of Jesus Christ as these events are described
in the Gospels.
The realization that Christianity has hundreds of unfakable
items of scientific and medical evidence to confirm the central
tenets of Christianity and the most critical events in all of
history, which are contained in the most reliable and textually
attested sources of antiquity, could have unprecedented
consequences throughout the world. No other religion has any
objective evidence to confirm the central tenets or critical
events of their religion, let alone an exhaustive amount of such
evidence. Overwhelming, objective evidence--along the lines of a
150-0 shutout when compared to any contrary religious or other
view--would impress the listener whether agnostic, atheist or a
member of any other religion.
Unfortunately, religion causes, contributes to or is an
underlying element in numerous wars and conflicts that are
occurring throughout the world. While such wars and conflicts
have always occurred throughout history, their numbers are
increasing. Furthermore, the means of destruction by the
combatants have become alarming. These underlying religious
differences and conflicts go back centuries. Wars and conflicts
have not and cannot eliminate these differences. Worse yet, they
have perpetuated and deepened the differences and hostilities
among the combating religions. Overwhelming, objective, and
independent evidence for one religion, with the lack of any such
evidence for other religions, would allow sectarian combatants
throughout the world to end these unnecessary wars and
conflicts.
Contact Mark Antonacci, President
The Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation
antonaccilaw@aol.com (636-938-3708)
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