Some of the material in this essay is obsolete. Please refer to the
Shroud of Turin Story Home Page

The
Resurrection
Problem
and the
Shroud of Turin

By Daniel R. Porter

1. Introduction
2. "Ann, You're Nuts"
3. What we need to know 
4. The newer evidence
5. The resurrection problem
6. Vetting
7. Acceptance
8. Textile studies
9. Plant images and pollen
10. Travertine aragonite
11. Sudarium of Oviedo
12. The Image of Edessa
13. Jesus in art
14. A negative that is not a negative
15. Other visual characteristics
16. The most intriguing characteristic
17. A picture of a million words
18. How were the images formed ? 
19. Appendix: Carbon 14, etc.

Printer Friendly PDF File

Part 4:  The Newer Evidence

It is useful, here, to take a look at a brief outline of some of the most compelling evidence. Some of this evidence is very new and some of it is newly verified by recent studies. Some of it we will delve into in greater detail.

• Textile analysis suggests that the cloth originated in first century Israel and that it was produced on a Syrian or Egyptian loom used during the time of the Roman occupation of Palestine. It appears to be identical to unique linen cloth found at the Masada fortress.
  
• Pollen spore deposits and floral "imprints" place the Shroud in the environs of Jerusalem, likely in springtime. Certain pollen spores also place the Shroud in areas of Turkey that include Constantinople and the early Christian community of Edessa.
  
• Spectrographic chemical analysis of travertine aragonite calcium, found on the Shroud's fabric, strongly suggests that it was once in direct physical contact with one of Jerusalem's limestone caves or tombs.
  
• Detailed forensic evidence shows that a towel sized cloth, the Sudarium of Oviedo - which has been in Spain since the 8th century CE - once covered the same human head as the Shroud.
  
• Numerous portraits of Jesus in icons and on Byzantine coins appear to be artistically derived from the face image on the Shroud of Turin. The earliest of these was created in the mid-sixth century CE and is located at St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai wilderness.
  
• Three-dimensionally encoded information along with photographic-like negativity of the images virtually eliminates the possibility that the Shroud was created in medieval times. These physical characteristics are not found in art or any known forgeries. Anyone with a personal computer and over-the-counter graphics software can confirm these astounding qualities.
  
• Medical forensic analysis of the body image - some of it only clearly visible with photographic and computer image enhancement - is so realistic that only a modern day pathologist can explain it. This includes contusions that are specifically consistent with flogging with a Roman flagrum whip. The body is in a state of rigor mortis and shows no decomposition. Some of the medically correct imagery is supported by recent archeological finds that would not have been known in medieval times.
  
• Bloodstains, which have been proven to be real human blood, show the proper medical characteristics of serum separation and clotting that could only occur if the blood flowed from "real" wounds of a human body in contact with the cloth. Yet there is no evidence of unwrapping.
  
• The images are composed of microscopic lengths of oxidized and dehydrated fibers that are part of the thread of the cloth. These darkened strands of cellulous fiber are called pixels because they form the Shroud image in much the same way that an image is formed on a computer screen or a half-tone printed photograph. No known artistic technique, or any known natural process, could have produced these microscopic pixels.

To face this evidence is to face the question of how the images were created. Are the images the byproduct of a resurrection event? Are they miraculous images? This is a problematic question for Christians and many non-Christians, as well. Most shroud researchers, to their credit, avoid metaphysical or supernatural interpretations and stress the point that science and objective history cannot provide such explanations for the images. But, as I stated earlier, it is hard for me, (and probably many people), to not speculate beyond such scholarly methodical restraint.

It is hard to be totally objective in facing the evidence. Bias plays a role. What we may believe about the resurrection colors how we perceive the evidence - whether we believe it was a real, physical, bodily event as Tom Wright argues; a metaphor for God's promise as we might find among Jesus Seminar thinkers including Marcus Borg; or a myth devoid of any traditional meaning as John Shelby Spong would have it. Resurrection thinking even affects whether or not we will look at the evidence. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

If there is a downside to enlightenment thinking today, it is that it has become so prevalent that we are not open to some possibilities. Yet a founding principle of the enlightenment was to be open to possibilities. There is a feeling among some 'enlightened' scholars that the enlightenment has run its course. Tom Wright has called it bankrupt in that it now seems to owe more in the way of explanations than it can produce. What were once conclusions, derived by science and logic, have become our assumptions. The great philosopher of empirical skepticism, David Hume, some two hundred and fifty years ago, challenged very effectively (but never disproved) the possibilities of miracles when he wrote:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.

Today's enlightened person (myself included) might simply state a derived conclusion as the assumption: "Miracles don't happen." We must get beyond such thinking and the Shroud does just that for us.

Dan Porter is an Episcopalian and a member of Trinity Church, Wall Street, in New York City. He may be contacted by email at porter@shroudstory.com or by mail at 20 McIntyre Street, Bronxville, NY 10708. 

(c) Copyright 2001, Daniel R. Porter. All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced in full for any non-commercial purpose without further permission.