Jeremiah Johnston: Shroud of Turin, Dead Sea Scrolls, & Attempts to Hide Historical Proof of Jesus

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27:20That's claude.ai slash Spotify.

27:26Hey Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Croc store today. What do you mean there are holes in his heels? Yeah, this is amazing. Can you describe crucifixion? What was it? What was the purpose? How did they die? Crucifixion was the most heinous way to die. It turns out humans are really good at figuring out terrible, tragic ways how to destroy ourselves.

28:14And crucifixion brings that to a fever pitch. The Persians likely invented it. Alexander the Great, who gives us the language of the Bible, Koine Greek, he also made crucifixion fashionable throughout his Hellenization of the world. The Romans come along and they take crucifixion that they learned from Greek Hellenization and they perfect it for 700 years. Remember, Josephus tells us that during the Jewish revolt, AD 66 to 70, Titus and Vespasian are crucifying 500 Jews a day. And so they were experts. Now, it wasn't like they had a crucifixion manual. There were 30 provinces in the empire during the time of Jesus.

28:54Remember, we have Pontius Pilate, who's governor. We have first Augustus, who's emperor. And then we have the other emperors who followed during the time of Jesus. There's 30 provinces. And the provinces would practice crucifixion in different ways, but it was in the Syrian province where Judea was, where it was particularly heinous. I already mentioned we have 21 different records of crucifixion with nail piercing. Nails were iron. I actually have a nail artifact that I'm going to show you. In fact, this is a great time to do that. I want you to hold the replica of the crucifixion nail. This is a crucifixion nail.

29:39It was circular on top, and then it was actually a spike. It was an iron spike, and the Romans would drive this crucifixion nail through the wrists, through the palm area, and then through the heel, the calcaneus. Our heels are very brittle, and so they had to be very accurate when they would pin someone to the cross, and they would likely straddle the heels on either side of what was called, there you have the patibulum, and then you have the cross beam, then you have the center vertical beam, and the heels would be fastened, straddling the beam. And the victim would be crucified completely naked.

30:18There was no loincloth. I know we see that represented in traditional Christian art, but Jesus would have been crucified naked because the Romans were saying something with this. The Romans were saying, don't ever defy us. We are the truth. And remember, Augustus was called the son of God. And so when Mark comes along and says, no, Jesus is the son of God, I mean, those were seditious words for the time because Augustus was called the son of God. When Augustus gave good news, it was called the gospel. Christianity takes that term euangelion. No, it's not the gospel of Augustus. It's not the gospel of the Roman Empire.

30:55It's not Pax Romana. No, this is the gospel of the true son of God, Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead. And so he's crucified and the Rome... And so crucifixion was, I mean, at least one gospel account describes the other men on other side as criminals or rebels. Malfactors. Who got crucified? Well, this is interesting. It turns out we really hate to crucify slaves and we want to do it in the worst way possible. That was the Roman view. And so non-Roman citizens, however, we do have citizens like Antigonus, the last of the Hasmonean rulers, who's a Roman citizen, but he defies Rome. This guy named Mark Anthony, who becomes Augustus, crucifies Antigonus in a really despicable way.

31:41He actually beheads him first and then crucifies him. We have all of his remains. It's interesting because these crucifixion nails were thought to be something like amulets, phylacteries. They were thought to bring you good luck. And what's interesting is crucifixion nails were reused again and again. So the very nails that pinned Jesus to the cross had probably been used many times before that to kill other Roman victims. Because, you know, iron work is expensive. Right. And again, the Romans, you know, they were a slave machine. They knew how to kill people. They knew how to enslave. You know, 40 % of the empire were slaves.

32:16And so they had to know how to crucify them. And so you have this slave crucifying machine that is the Roman empire. And then if you were a citizen, but you defied the empire, you would be crucified too. How does crucifixion kill a man? It's really interesting. Were women crucified, by the way? Yes. In fact, they were crucified naked, often facing towards the cross, just for pornographic reasons. How does it kill you? It kills you in a variety of ways. It doesn't kill you quickly. It maximizes torment while minimizing, actually maximizes the length of death and it prolongs death. And so when we study the blood work, so there are some amazing hematological reports that I've enjoyed reading thoroughly.

33:04When we study the blood that's on the crucified man, it bears correspondence with that Jesus, there's high levels of creatinine, which means he was suffering from kidney failure, high levels of ferritin. His body had inflammation all over it. He was dehydrated. You read John's gospel. Remember in John's gospel, Jesus, one of the seven sayings, I thirst, he's dehydrated. We know that Jesus likely lost one third of his blood volume during flagellation. So he was dying of a variety of things. Many thinkers believe that he died of suffocation, asphyxiation because of pulmonary edema. And we see that pulmonary edema reflected both on the shroud cloth and on the sudarian of Oviato, the face cloth.

33:47It's six parts pulmonary edema, one part blood. Again, a hoaxer is not going to make this stuff up. I mean, it becomes so crazy. Pulmonary edema, so your lungs fill with fluid. Fluid, blood, and a mixture. In fact, there is a translucent mixture of fluid around the side wound. We looked at the side wound there between rib five and six, just above that triangle, which is really a patch from a burn hole. There's actually a translucent serum around that, that again is consistent with what John's gospel said, blood and water flowed out of Jesus because he was already dead. And so the crucifixion would prolong that.

34:23High levels of ferritin, high levels of creatinine. Jesus is suffering liver failure, kidney failure. His body has inflammation all over it. I believe, though, that Jesus died of cardiac arrest, massive heart failure, congenital heart failure, because he has labored breathing. We know all of this from the blood samples. The New Testament, one account says that his tormentors wanted him off the cross by the Sabbath, by Passover. That's Deuteronomy 21, actually before nightfall. Before nightfall. Right. So they broke his legs or they were planning on breaking his legs. They didn't because he died.

35:01And that's consistent with Messianic prophecy in David's Psalm 22. Yes, but why would breaking the legs of a crucified man hasten his death? Wonderful question. Thank you for asking it. So the one way you could prolong your life is you would kind of essentially try to stand up while you were being crucified, even though your feet were nailed straddling the cross. and you would just edge up ever so often while you're trying to breathe and that would prolong your life. So if you broke your legs, obviously you can't stand up. So you can't. So the point is when you're hanging by your wrists, you can't breathe.

35:35Exactly. And you suffocate. You die in your own blood, essentially. And so you can't do that. And so that's why, but they come to Jesus, even though they break the legs of the criminals on the right or left, indicating that Jesus suffered a different kind of torment than they suffered. and his flagellation. We'll get to that here in a moment. But they didn't need to break his legs because he was already dead. In fact, they're surprised. Remember, Pilate is shocked that he was so soon dead. Jesus begins the crucifixion around noon. He's dead by 3 p.m. The Jewish day would begin at 6 p.m. And so they only have about three hours to get Jesus off the cross, ask for the body of Jesus from Pontius Pilate, and then lay him in a tomb that was not far, probably 150 feet away from where Jesus was crucified.

36:24So this is the coolest Christmas present I'll get this year. This is a leather Alp pouch. Logo right there gets on your belt, made in the United States out of actual leather. If you carry, you can put the firearm on one side and a loaded tin of Alp on the other. It will never be far from you. And it is legit cool. I'm going to be wearing it. Recommend you do the same. Alppouch.com is where you can find this. The leather Alp pouch. Alppouch.com. This podcast is supported by Anthropic, the public benefit corporation behind Claude. Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Your job, your kids, where it's going.

37:04Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way. Because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at Claude.ai slash Spotify and keep thinking. That's Claude.ai slash Spotify.

37:21Hey Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look. Try it. Style it. Make it yours. Because the right pair doesn't just show up. It shows off. First day fits, handled. Walk out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest Crocs store today. what does it mean that they carried the crossbar? What's the crossbar? That is such a great question. So, and this is what's so amazing. When again, I don't privilege this. I just look at this through historical eyes. When you look at the back, the dorsal image on the shroud, you can see that there are scourge marks all over it.

38:10But in the right shoulder, coming down at a diagonal, there are abrasions all over the back. We mentioned that Jesus, the crucified man of the shroud, weighed around 175 to 180 pounds. The patibulum, which is just the cross beam. So they didn't carry the whole cross. They would only carry the cross beam. And again, that wood was scarce as well, by the way, in the Roman empire. So that cross beam would have been used again and again for other crucifixion victims. And so Jesus experiences the scourging and then he's asked to carry the cross. And that cross, the cross beam, the patibulum weighs around 125 pounds and he can't carry it.

38:49he falls. And this is one of the most moving experiences for me when I was studying the signatures of the pollen. We actually have not just pollen, but we have limestone and clay soil that is native only to Jerusalem. And it's on three parts of the crucified man in the shroud. Are you ready for this? It's on the feet, obviously, because he walked barefoot. It's on the knees and then the tip of the nose. So when Jesus is carrying the patibulum, he falls. and he not only falls, he falls hard. He collapses and his face gashes the ground because we have in the tip of his nose actual soil from the land of Israel, from Jerusalem.

39:30So the cross beam is the piece of wood to which his wrists are nailed. And that's tied to the vertical post? Yeah, to match the Greek letter tau. So it would look like a capital T. We see that. And he's tied to that post, but he's nailed to it. Make no mistake, he was nailed to it. Right, but the cross is tied. Exactly. Why the letter tau? Was there a significance? There wasn't. The Christian movement makes it significant. We call this styrogram, where you write the letter tau and then the letter rho. So the two letters. And we actually see that used in early Christian scriptures. It's essentially just a quick way of saying Jesus was crucified.

40:16It becomes an early Christian icon. So this is not really an execution method per se, as much as it's like a way of torturing someone to death. It's like the rack or the spiked coffin. But even worse, because it prolonged the agony. Some would be crucified outside of Jerusalem. They'd be on the cross three, four, or five days. So this was for the most reviled enemies of the state. Like there's no respect at all. This is not like executing a man by beheading or a firing squad in later periods. periods. This is for slaves, insurrectionists, like the worst of the worst. And thinking about the heel, you think about the first gospel message.

40:58It's actually called the Pro Evangelium in Genesis 3.15. Remember that first prophecy that his heel, he would crush his head, but the enemy would strike his heel. And we know that the enemy did his best to crucify Jesus and did strike his heel. And then you look at that blood that was prophesied even as far back as Genesis 3.15, that Jesus would smash the enemy's head with his feet, even though his foot was crucified and pierced. And we see that it did take blood and a lot of blood. And I think sometimes we can look at this so academically we forget, no, this was a real historical person who suffered this torment.

41:39It's just kind of wild if you think about it, that the early church took a torture device, like the scariest and most humiliating of all torture devices, and made it the symbol of their religion. Totally. And I mean, again, if you and I - What is that? Well, if we were making up a religious movement, we would never start there. I don't think so. I mean, make no mistake. I mean, if you and I - No, because you'd want your God to be triumphant. You wouldn't want your God to be humiliated. Certainly not crucified. Not by some colonial governor and a bunch of local dumb religious leaders. Right. And I think the message in this, and there's so many points of application, many people wonder if God really loves them.

42:18And they say, well, how do I know God loves me? Or if I send away God's love for me? Paul wrote in Romans 5, 8, but God demonstrated his love for us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And the shroud is a beautiful demonstration. It's a great reminder that God gave his best for us, Tucker, when he sent his son. He didn't give us second best. He gave us his very best. But wait, I mean, if God's going to come to earth and redeem humanity, why would he allow himself to be like ritually humiliated and tortured in the most embarrassing possible way? Wouldn't he show up and be like, I'm God.

43:01Like, you're all wrong. I'm here now. Daddy's home. Knock it off. I have all power. He wouldn't like, why would he submit to some like ludicrous local authority and die with criminals on either side? It's like the opposite of what you would imagine. It smacks of authenticity to me. Well, I agree with that because it's so not what you would expect. No, you wouldn't. And 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might be the righteousness of God. And so that means that God treated Jesus, and we see that very clearly and depicted in the shroud, as if he lived your life and mine.

43:40So in Christ, and this is the beautiful message of grace, he could treat us as if we live the life of Jesus. And that's the message of grace. It doesn't make sense. There's not an equation that's going to help us make sense of grace. But it's like the early church decided to brag about its weaknesses. Right. And that's the foolishness of preaching that Paul talks about. It's the foolishness of preaching. It's the wisdom of God to those who believe and foolishness to those who deny it. Walk through in clinical detail the torture that this man endured before the cross. Tucker, it's something I'm still learning about because it takes my breath away.

44:16I mean, I've published 250 ,000 words in academic works on the resurrection and on the physical torment of Jesus. I've published several popular books on it. I've talked about it, and I can't get over it. because there's a realism to it that reminds me of how shameful my own sin is. Remember - But pretend you're a police reporter here. Right. So Jesus is with his disciples at night. Judas shows up in the bunch of olive trees are kind of standing around. Romans show up, local religious authorities show up, grab Jesus. He goes on trial. Walk us through what happens. Well, it started before that.

44:55It would have started before that night because Jesus cleanses the temple and he literally reserves his fiercest words for the corrupt religious establishment. I noticed that. Jesus hates hypocrites. He hates corrupt religion. In this case, it was the corrupt Jewish priesthood. It was the corruption of what was happening and taking place at the temple, the money changers. You had to put all of your currency in the Syrian, or excuse me, the Syrian temple tax. and they were ripping everyone off and they made God's house a den of thieves. Jesus clears the tables. That's a messianic sign. He's known who can do that, but God himself cleansed his house.

45:36My house shall be called a house of prayer. And so that's when they begin to decide to kill him. Who's they? The Sanhedrin. The 70 members of the Jewish ruling council ask Pilate to crucify Jesus under the reign of Caiaphas, who is the high priest. When after Jesus rolls into the temple and overturns the tables to the money changers and says, get out. They're like, we're gonna crucify him. We're gonna kill him. We want him dead. And again, Pilate had to sanction that. And so Pilate being the politician he was, he says, okay, we'll do it. And so Jesus is arrested. He's taken to the home of Caiaphas.

46:12You can go to this home today. It's the first century steps that Jesus would have been led to Caiaphas' home. He spends his final night there, which would have been Thursday night. He is beaten. He's tortured. They put a blindfold on him. They began to hit him. They club him. There are marks on the crucified man that are different from the scourging. He's clubbed. Someone took something that's the equivalent of a bat and struck him with like a rod. And that's when they're saying, prophesy to a preacher who struck you, because they blindfolded him. And then he is led from there to Herod Antipas, who I find no fault in him.

46:51Send him back to Pilate. But, you know, everyone's trying to... Herod Antipas was one of the... He was the Tetrarch of Galilee. He was one of the Jewish leaders who was put in place by the Roman Empire who beheaded John the Baptist. He was the one who killed Jesus' friend, John the Baptist. He was like a local guy who was a stooge of the Roman government. Totally. But from Galilee, but they all came to Jerusalem for Passover. So this is not unusual. And then ultimately, Jesus ends up in Praetorium at the hands of Pilate. What's Praetorium? It would have been right off the Temple Mount, this structure where the Romans were headquartered to keep peace in the city.

47:30So you have the Jewish priests and they have their armed forces that arrest Jesus like they're Jewish police. And then Jesus is handed over to the Roman authorities to be crucified. And in John 19, 1, I think it's one of the most overlooked, understated passages in all the Bible. And Pilate had Jesus flogged. And if we read that too quickly, we just don't understand the impact of it. And that's why I've brought these artifacts for you. I want you to, this is a phlegrum that we had commissioned. I want you to hold this, Tucker, and I want you to get it in your hand. It's a phlegrum. This is a phlegrum.

48:07Okay, so this is a wooden dowel with three rawhide lines coming off it and lead balls on the end. Right. And I have two of them because we know from the crucified man that there were two torturers. So Jesus is being whipped simultaneously by two different executioners. So the purpose of the lead balls on the end of the rawhide is? Is to inflict as much torment as possible. And so sometimes you would have phlegrums with bone ends, but there are all these barbell shapes on the hash marks of the crucified man, which leads me to believe that it was used in something just like this. So this is, again, a one-to-one phlegm that the Romans would use.

48:51So if you hit someone with a length of rawhide and a piece of lead balls at the end, I mean, you kill someone with that. And this is where Jesus loses one-third of his blood volume. And I want you to understand something for the benefit of our audience. Notice how short this is. I mean, this is not like an Indiana Jones whip, right? I mean, there was a demonic intimacy to this torment. and the blood of Jesus would have been splattered all over the executioners. And so they flogged Jesus. There are 200 wounds on the dorsal, on the back image. So if we took time right now to count them up, there's over 200 on the back.

49:28There's 172 on the front. There is not an area of Jesus's body that has not been tortured, including the pelvic region. We have, we do not have - They hit him in the crotch with this? Again and again. With lead tips. Lead tips. And not only that— You just take the skin right off a man's body with that. And actually, according to the hematological reports, Jesus is—we think his right eye was blinded. So there's not only—we'll get to the crown of thorns here shortly, so hold your breath for that one. But there's—his right eye, there are wounds consistent with flagellation. So we don't know if the guys were drunk or if they were just going to town on him, but they whip him.

50:10And at some point, the scourge hits him probably from the back of the head in the eye right here and likely blinds him in the right eye because his right eye is severely punctured in the image of the crucified man. And also his left cheek, probably from the rod beating at Caiaphas' home, is also hugely—I mean, it's like he's been in a heavyweight boxing match. I mean, he can't see out of his right eye. His left cheek is raised. And so this is the phlegrum. So this was before he was sentenced to crucifixion, before he was sentenced to death. Pilate, again, he brings Jesus after. And again, so 372 wounds that we count.

50:54But again, we don't have the lateral side. So again, I want to reiterate, there's probably 700 wounds on his body if you count them up. And if you just— You couldn't survive that long term, right? And this is where Pilate then fashions a crown of thorns, and he places it on Jesus, his head. And let me set these so we can make some room. So that's the halo of thorns? No, actually not. Let me show you. I thought it was a halo because you and I, we've both been so influenced by early Christian art and specifically medieval art. But this is what took my breath away. And I want you to be careful with this because these are Bethlehem thorns.

51:37this is the crown of thorns. This is the helmet of thorns. This was not a wreath, Tucker. This was not like a sweat band you wore around your forehead. They fashioned this diabolical crown of thorns, these Bethlehem thorns that when they dry, they're as sharp as nails. You can feel that. I mean, it pricks your finger right to the touch. and they ram this on Jesus's head. And I want you to let this set in because there's 50 puncture wounds on the head, both the forehead, the top and the back of the head of the crucified man of the shroud, 50 puncture marks. And so you can imagine - And that's all detectable on the shroud?

52:18Right on the shroud. You can see the back of the head, all of the blood pooling in the back of the head from this crown of thorns being rammed on his head. So Jesus has 700 scourge marks And then they slam this on his head. And this is where Pilate brings Jesus before the Jewish mob. And this is where we hear in the Latin, et jo homo, behold the man, Pilate says. And he's bloodied. How does he even stand? We don't know. His love compelled him to stay standing on our behalf. And this is the point. Imagine seeing a man in this state. He will very quickly be dead. And it's not enough for the crowd.

52:56They begin to yell, crucify him. Crucify him. Crucify him. Demons. And this is where Pilate says, I wash my hands. I should also note as a historical fact, he never did anything wrong. Like he was never even accused. He was never accused of hurting anybody. Remember, all of the false witnesses came forward when Jesus is in this dummy trial at Caiaphas' home. And they say, well, he's a bastard. Remember, Jesus is accused of being an illegitimate child. He's accused of blaspheming, of casting out demons by Beelzebub, by the worker, by the prince of demons. all of these false accusations are brought against him and Jesus doesn't open his mouth.

53:31But just to be clear, even if the false accusations were real accusations, if they were true, he's still never accused of hurting anyone. Right. In any way. No sin was found in him. But he's not even accused of it. Right. So, right. So just to put it in context, so they didn't even claim like he killed a man in Reno, shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. You know, there's nothing like that at all. No. He cheated people out of money or he, you know, kicked out the money changers and stole the money. Exactly. Nothing like that at all. Right. This was diabolical in every sense of the word, as you rightly point out.

54:09And this crown of thorns, the first time I saw it was in Jerusalem. And, Tugger, it took my breath away. It still takes my breath away. So the reason that you've revised or you're going with the modern revision to the common halo of thorns is based on the blood record right there. Absolutely. The punctures, the wounds, basically the pathology of his head and his face and the back of his head. And this is what you asked, how do we know this is Jesus? Well, the helmet of thorns leaves it beyond all doubt in my mind. I believe this is a slam dunk case that the crucified man is the historical Jesus, without a doubt, based on the evidence.

54:51if you were to recreate if if you were to take the gospel accounts and josephus and the the 21 total accounts of jesus's crucifixion which i think is accepted by everyone atheist and christian alike as a historical fact right if you were to take all those facts from the record and try and create an image of them Mm-hmm. Could you create this? No. That's the fascinating thing. The best scientists in the world cannot explain how there's an image there and they cannot replicate it. And it couldn't be replicated now? No. Even with our best technologies today, it can't be replicated in any way. So this brings us to, I think, one of the central questions, which is the provenance of this.

55:36Where did it come from? What do we know? That's the fascinating thing. About where this has been for the last 2 ,000 years. Well, it turns out there's a scientist, a criminologist by the name of Max Fry, who was involved in the Nuremberg trials, a very respected criminologist. He spent five years of his life. Again, this is where I say 102 academic disciplines. These are men and women who risk their academic reputation. And again, why I'm so grateful you're bringing this to light today on your program. Max Fry is now dead, spends five years of his life studying the pollen spores on the shroud.

56:09What's a pollen spore? Well, I have it on me from this beautiful state we're in right now, from traveling here and all of the allergies here right now. But there are 56 different specimens of pollen that Max Fry detects. From plants. From plants, from plant life, botany. And what's amazing about it, again, if we're making this up or trying to hoax this, we would not have known this 700 years ago in medieval Europe. There are certain pollen flower plants that bloom only in springtime where in the land of Israel, where more specifically in Jerusalem, and that pollen is on the shroud. So you have pollen flowers that only bloom in April in the land of Israel.

56:50And that pollen signature, according to Max Fry, that pollen species, we have 56 of them, is embedded in the shroud chemically. What's fascinating is we don't just have pollen from the land of Israel. We have pollen that traces the provenance of the Shroud from Jerusalem, AD 30, to Edessa, which is far eastern Turkey, where it's there for 900 years. And then we have pollen from Constantinople. The Eastern Roman Empire. Right. Constantinople. And again, the Shroud is constantly escaping the caliphates of the time. So it goes from Constantinople and around 1200 through Athens, finally up to Leary, France with a knight, Geoffrey de Charnay, who we don't, he never says how he got it, but he has it.

57:39And then ultimately he sells it for two castles to the Savoy family of France. And then it's moved to Chambury, France, and it's under the house of Savoy. And then it becomes very political because the Savoys then relocate their kingdom to turn Italy. And to solidify their political rule, they make sure they bring the shroud with them in the 16th century to turn Italy. So where, as a matter of written record, leaving aside the modern chemical analysis of the shroud, how far can we trace it back so we know it was where, when? First, of course, as I already mentioned, the shroud is mentioned in all four gospels.

58:24And then we have Eusebius, who's the most respected church historian. He's at the Council of Nicaea in 325, talking about the face cloth, the image cloth of Jesus. He's the one who gives us the story of the shroud going from the land of Israel to King Abgar, who's the king of Edessa, where it stays for 900 years. And we know it was there. Right. Okay, so. And it's known by different names, though. This is the thing that I want to say. I'm a huge Kansas City Chiefs fan. Kansas City Chiefs were not always the Chiefs. They were the Dallas Texans before they moved to Kansas City. It's very similar with the Shroud.

58:57It's known by different names. But it's the same object. Yeah, the Mandillion, the image of Edessa, the face cloth. And as we continue to red pill ourselves with this, Tucker, you have the pollen that matches it. You have the textual records that match it. Eusebius, we have these other wonderful early Christian historians who are talking about this face cloth. When's the first written reference to it? It would be Eusebius, the great church historian, early 4th century. Early 300s. Right. 325 AD is Council of Nicaea, so it antedate that. So early 300s. Okay, so... And he's bishop of Eusebius. And keep in mind, what is Eusebius's...

59:35Wait, but hold on, but just so as a... Okay, so we know this has existed for at least 1 ,800 years. Exactly. So... The written record. The written record shows it. So that's kind of not in dispute. Right. So if this were a forgery, it would have to have been a forgery at least as early as the 4th century, the 300s. Exactly. And so that right there kind of tells you, like, if modern science can't replicate this, probably not possible in 20 AD. Right. Incredibly not. Okay, so I didn't know that. No, nobody does. because I was told by Reader's Digest in the 70s. No, I'm serious. I first, strange stories and amazing facts.

1:00:23It was a Reader's Digest book that I read in 1980 in summer camp. And I read about this and I'm like, this amazing thing and photographic negative, but we know it's a product of the Renaissance or the late middle ages. False. But there was already a written record of it going back to the fourth century. The greatest historian of the early church, Eusebius, who I was going to mention, he's in Caesarea. He has a library. We don't know the sources he had, but he had an incredible library. So he's standing on the shoulders of historians before him. And so this is a longstanding historical tradition in the church.

1:00:57One of the things that's interesting to me and one of the things I had to get over as I began studying the Shroud, Tucker, is I thought it was a Catholic relic. Now, we need to, again, I want to just hammer on this because you have a lot of Protestants that watch your program and a lot of Christians who think, oh, that's just a Catholic relic. I'm not interested in the Catholic church. Therefore, I'm not interested in the shroud. The Catholic church did not take control of the Shroud of Turin until 1983. Two years of probate court, the last king of Savoy bequeathed the shroud to the current pope who was Pope John Paul II at the time.

1:01:31And after two years of probate court, finally, the Catholic church becomes the custodian of the shroud in the 1980s. So it was held in private hands. Family hands. So you said it was in eastern Turkey for 900 years. Where? In Edessa, which is eastern Turkey. It was a stronghold of the Christian movement as it was, escaping the – but then when the Muslim invasion started, and again, the 7th century, it escapes to Constantinople and then Athens and then beyond that, as I mentioned. It keeps moving west. Right, exactly. As the Ottoman Empire rises. And Islam sweeps over the land of the Bible. Remember, Islam killed the bishops, the Bibles, and the buildings.

1:02:13Yeah. So it's escaping that. So it's amazing the embarrassment of riches we have from an artifactual standpoint. And then when you actually look, too, there's something else we haven't touched on. The iconography, the early Christian art, Tucker, I mean, is remarkable. On my social media, we created an AI image, my friend Doug Powell and me. Doug gets all the credit. He's an amazing artist. he imported the information of the face of the crucified man and compares it with the icon Pantocrater, Lord over all, which is currently at St. Catherine's Monastery where it's been since the 6th century. This is an icon of Jesus.

1:02:54It's famous. When he put those two images, the face of Jesus in the shroud and the icon Pantocrater in Sinai, he put that into mid-journey and created an AI rendering of what Jesus would have looked like, it is so moving. It's powerful to look at. It's interesting, the face of Jesus on the shroud before us, even at this distance, it's recognizable as the Jesus from antiquity, from the artistic representations of Jesus all the way up until George Floyd became Jesus in 2020. Not the gay-looking Jesus of the medieval era. And I really mean that. If you look at Jesus' depictions in the medieval era, it's a very effeminate Jesus, no facial hair, weak, small, a white Jesus.

1:03:39That's not what we have reflected. So again, if we were a hoaxer in the medieval era, we would have created the Jesus of our time, which is this effeminate Jesus. No, what do we have in here? We have a man's man, a long-haired man, a man. You know, we know Jesus walked 20 ,000 miles in his ministry. If you just add up his trips to Jerusalem and his public ministry, Jesus being about 30, according to Luke's gospel, when he begins his ministry, Jesus was walking all the time. There was no Ubers or rideshare apps. He was pound for pound a strong man, a physically fit man. And that's why he could probably take the brutality that he endured as well.

1:04:16that's such a that's just so interesting though but the face is distinctive and the face is reflected through christian art going back a long way like if you just showed me that that face i'd say oh that's jesus's face exactly the so the question always was like well how do we know what jesus looks like and this is the answer yeah and so all the icons what we call them is all the iconography all the icons of jesus there's over 200 of them they seem to have the same source material. And when you compare it to the shroud, it's like they all trace the face of Jesus off the man of the shroud. And not only that, you have the numismatics.

1:04:52This is the study of coinage from the ancient times. And you have all these Byzantine coins that look just like the image of the face of the man of the shroud. So like, what are all these people looking at if the shroud was invented, you know, like the liberal scientists want us to believe in the liberal Bible scholars who are apostate, you know, in the 14th century. So that's the claim. The claim is based on one fact, the carbon dating of 1988 that you brought up, 1260 to 1390 is what they wrote on the chalkboard in October of 1988, that the carbon dating said. So let's get into that in some detail.

1:05:26Absolutely. If you don't mind. I would love to. So everybody remember, so I miss, I guess I misremembered. I was told it was probably fake in 1980, but it was, you're saying, it was not until 1988. October 88. October 88, there was a carbon date, radiocarbon dating of the shroud itself. Right. Before you debunk it, if you wouldn't mind just explaining who did that. Right. So the agreement was, again, the Catholic Church did not take control of the shroud until the mid-80s. First, if you don't mind, could I just back up to 1978, Tucker, to the original scientific research? So, I mean, this is amazing, which I'm glad we have this time.

1:06:07In 1976, and I'll get to it, I want to set the context, two Air Force Academy professors, Eric Jumper and John Jackson, use a machine that was developed to study the effects of the nuclear bomb called a VP8 image analyzer. It's a brightness map, and they would use that to scan the impact of the nuclear bomb. So that's what the machine is. These are not pastors. These are not theologians. These are professors at the Air Force Academy. They get an image of the Shroud of Turin, likely the Henri 1930s image that C.S. Lewis had in his bedroom, and they put it through the VP8 image analyzer. And they realize there is a 3D, there are 3D information encoded in the Shroud of Turin.

1:06:50No other picture does that. I want to make sure this sets in. There's 3D information. What does that mean? There's like a holographic topography brightness map of the man of the shroud. That looks like you're looking at the surface, you know, geography, topography of the man. There's like depth. There is depth. There's 3D. The way they set it, analytically, there's 3D information encoded in the image of the crucified man. And when they put pictures of their grandchildren through it, it was just smeared 2D images. So no other image does this. So that VP8 image analyzer, you can go on YouTube and watch it done, is what gave rise to what's called the Shroud of Turin Research Project, the scientific STIRP team, which consists of 33 scientists, 26 who went to Turin, Italy.

1:07:39They had five days. They had 120 hours to study the Shroud. Keep in mind, the Savoy family allowed this, not the Catholic Church. This is controversial, but I don't believe the Catholic Church would have ever allowed the Shroud of Turn to be researched. And that's not my saying. That's Barry Schwartz, who was the documenting photographer who photographed the Shroud in 1978. It was the private family, the Savoys, the House of Savoy, who allowed this research team, 33 scientists, to study the Shroud for five days. Okay, so they took four years. They didn't go on Twitter, didn't exist. They didn't go on social media, didn't exist.

1:08:14They took four years to publish all of their findings. And I haven't used this word yet until this point in our interview. The STIRP team, these 33 scientists, by the way, Roy Rogers says, give me 15 minutes in the scientific method and I'll prove it's a hoax. He wasn't saying that after 15 minutes of studying the shroud. They all thought they had a free trip to Italy. They were in the lobby, Barry Schwartz, one of the original STIRP teams, and I met many of them. Sadly, many of them are now dead. But they're meeting over drinks in the lobby of the Italy Hotel in Turin, which is a beautiful city to visit.

1:08:47And they're all joking that they have a free trip to Italy to debunk this hoax. No one was saying that a few days later. So these 33 scientists publish, and they prove, this is the word I'm going to use, it's proven. The shroud is not a work of art. It is not a man-made image. They can't tell you how it's made, but they prove there's no pigment, there's no dye, there's no paint. They cannot explain how the image is there, but it is not man-made. So for the Christians out there or religiously minded people who think that we're violating the second commandment right now looking at this, we're not violating the second commandment, Tucker, so we can be at ease.

1:09:25What's the second commandment? You shall not worship a graven image. A graven image is, by definition, a man-made object, a handmade object. The shroud is not man-made. It's otherworldly. So we're not violating the second commandment. So that allows people to breathe easier. And what's otherworldly about it? The 3D? That the image, here's the cool part about the shroud. I believe we're looking at the moment of Jesus's resurrection, ultimately. All of this conversation leads that something powerful happens on that first Easter morning. It's electromagnetic radiation that's so powerful. We don't have this amount of watt power on earth.

1:10:0440 billion, literally 40 billion watts of energy, but it happens. It's pick power. It's not like the power when you flip on. It took me a while to learn this. It's almost like a cold energy because it happens so quickly in a twinkling of an eye. But it doesn't evaporate the linen. That's what the labs, the labs could heat up and essentially tattoo the shroud, but it would burn up instantly. It would scorch. This didn't scorch. It was the pulse rate, which was so, and I know we're getting deep, but it's important to be nuanced in this conversation and precise. The pulse rate power, 40 ,000 billion watts traveling at one 40th of a billionth of a second, we believe is that moment that Jesus' body is resurrected.

1:10:47And that's what leaves this image. But whatever it was, it was a process that chemically changed the fibrils at a point two depth, which is surface level, to leave this image. And that cannot, just for the fifth time, that cannot be applied with a brush? No, it can't be duplicated. And it hasn't been. One man in Britain offered a million pounds to anyone who could replicate the shroud, and no one's taken him up on the offer. So if we have a written record of the shroud going back to the fourth century, How were scientists, scientists allowed to say that it, I mean, if we know it existed because contemporaneous sources described it, then how were they allowed to say it was a Renaissance creation?

1:11:35Well, how are they allowed to say anything that's unfactual? They're liars. And they hate truth and they hate God. Well, yeah, I'm aware of that. But like just on logic grounds, how could, I don't know, did anybody say, well, wait a second, we've been, you know, someone in the 320s wrote about this. Well, they don't know that, honestly. Scientists, they don't read these truths. They don't read Christian history. Most, you know, most media people have never read the Bible. They don't even know what you're talking about. Yeah, but if they're studying the shot of turn, you'd think they would have some grounding in the shot of turn.

1:12:05Right, right. But okay. So they do radiocarbon dating. This was the headline from 88, I guess. Right. So thank you. So that was the scientific launch. So then in the mid and the late 80s, thank you for bringing me back, it's agreed upon that seven laboratories would do blind research, carbon dating of the shroud. And the scientists who studied it said, whatever you do, don't take the sample from the fringes because the shroud has been repaired. There's two things we're looking at, Tucker, that took me, again, a minute to learn all this. There's these parallel, those lines, those are burn marks, Those are scorch marks.

1:12:45These 16 triangular shapes, those are patches. The shroud survives a fire in 1532. The nuns stitched it up with a backing cloth. And they also, many believe - Where was the fire? This was in Chambury, France, 1532, before it moves to turn in 1578. So it survives this fire. It's doused. The shroud has survived at least three fires. And so there are also water stains. You can see those watermarks as well on the shroud. This is what's amazing. Like if this was a work of art, it would have diluted it. The image would have smeared or vanished. None of that happens. The image is still, as you just saw with the classic invert on my phone, very apparent.

1:13:27And so it survives all of that, but it did come in contact. I mean, millions of people have likely touched this shroud. I mean, it would be brought out for baby baptisms. That upper right corner would be cut off. Like if I really loved you, Tucker, I would give you a piece of the shroud to take home with you after having dinner with me if you visited me in one of my castles. I mean, so it's known that aspects of the shroud were given out even for indulgences. So in the top left, you can see with the naked eye, anyone who pulls up the shroud can see it is a contaminated area of the shroud. It's dark.

1:14:01It's been touched a lot. It's the fringes of the shroud. And so there's an invisible weave there that many great scholars believe that was patched. And so the scholars said, whatever you do, don't carbon date the corners of the shroud because it's been so contaminated. It's a contaminated sample. Get in the middle of the shroud and carbon date those samples. So what did this community do? These seven labs that were supposed to carbon date it, actually only three labs did. No one ever answered why seven labs didn't do it. It wasn't done blindly. Three labs, Tucson, Arizona, Zurich, Switzerland, and Oxford, England, carbon date the shroud.

1:14:41What part did they take? The upper left-hand corner that any non-scientist can see is a contaminated sample. And they carbon dated that sample. Well, it's a patch. Exactly. Thank you for noticing that. Exactly. You're talking about the... Very top left. That's a different color. Right. It's dark. That is what they carbon dated. And then, ironically, the British Museum suppresses the data, the raw data of the carbon dating for 29 years. only in 2017 through a French attorney who I'm going to be with very soon at the International Shroud Conference in St. Louis. I encourage people to check it out.

1:15:25The French attorney through the equivalent of a Freedom of Information Act finally got the raw data released for the carbon dating. And what did they find? The sample that was used to carbon date it has cotton within the sample, not fine linen. The rest of the shroud is fine linen. That's indicative it was patched so this whole bias towards the shroud is based on bad science and suppressed science by the way 29 years suppressed i don't know that there was there cotton in europe or the or the middle east yeah there was uh in europe because they would use it for patchwork these invisible weaves these seamstresses no right but 2 000 years ago yeah this was fine linen we don't have any other shrouds with cotton.

1:16:10This is the patchwork that was done in medieval Europe to protect the shroud to preserve it. And so that is what the carbon, so if we're stacking up all of the evidence for and against the shroud, we're in the middle of presenting a voluminous amount of evidence for the authenticity of the shroud and that it is indeed Jesus's burial cloth. And we have one bit of evidence to deny the shroud, this erroneous carbon 14 dating. Has anyone ever carbon dated the linen? No. No, it's not been allowed to be dated since. I don't understand how you could carbon date what's obviously a patch that I can see from here.

1:16:51Well, we weren't even made aware of what was dated until the data came out. So they knew that there was cotton in the sample, which just immediately disqualifies it. Exactly. It's a contaminated sample. And they knew that and they hid it for almost 30 years? Right. We're sure? Welcome to Shroud of Turn Research. Yeah, and Ray Rogers, the chemist who said, give me 15 minutes in the scientific method, debunked it in a scientific journal and then sadly died a month later of cancer and his debunk of the carbon dating got no traction. So I'm happy to bring it up on your program and give him all the credit.

1:17:22So why not just take, I mean, it's kind of a significant question, right? Right. If it's 2 ,000 years old. Well, because the Catholic Church is afraid of it. And the Catholic Church has still never come out in support of the shroud. Are you aware of that? Like they're ambivalent about it. They're indifferent about it. And I was just in Turin. So I'm thankful for everyone there who welcomed me. I met all of the scientists. My friend Enrico, the chemist, who the shroud is now currently kept in what's called a reliquary. It's the exact size of the shroud. The company, this is fascinating information.

1:17:55The company that creates all of the materials for the International Space Station is based in Turin. That same company created the box that preserves the shroud. But where is it in a church? It's in the cathedral of St. John the Baptist in this reliquary, this box. You can walk in and see it today, but it's a covered box. And it's 99 % argon gas because the two enemies of the shroud right now are light and oxygen. And so they're preserving it. So the Catholic Church has no interest in educating people about the shroud. Again, I'm thankful that you're having me on. I don't understand why. Their only interest is in conservation.

1:18:31So they're conserving the shroud right now. The shroud hasn't been on display since 2015 publicly. We don't know when it will be on display again. And yet it's this key to the whole message of Christianity. I mean, it is the death, burial, and resurrection in an artifact. Nothing else does that outside of the Bible except the shroud. But I'm confused. Why would a Christian church want to hide what appears to be physical proof of the core story of its religion? Right. What's the answer? I wish I knew. Who makes that decision? The Pope. So technically the Pope is the custodian of the Shroud. And that's because?

1:19:14It was left to the Pope, not the Catholic Church. And I was there during conclave, which was an interesting experience. But I just don't, it doesn't seem to make any sense. Do you think they're worried that it would turn out to be fake? Right. I think so. I can't speak. I don't know what's in their mind. But just to be clear, so far as you know, the shroud itself, the actual linen cloth, has never been radiocarbon dated, just the patch. Just the upper left corner, which is a contaminated sample. So it was the patched sample, not a fine linen sample. Yeah, so not the real thing. And that's not just me.

1:19:53That's Paulo de Lazaro. That's Bruno Barbaris. I mean, there's Ray Rogers. I would encourage people to study these scientists for themselves. So in any way, doesn't radiocarbon dating destroy the sample? Yes, absolutely. Right. So, I mean, 25 % of CR14 dating is thrown out anyways. So my area of specialty is paleography and codicology, how we date Bible manuscripts. And we date Bible manuscripts through paleography, not through carbon dating. We date it through handwriting styles to get a date range for roughly 100 years to date Bible manuscripts. We don't do that because, to your point excellently, it destroys the actual artifact.

1:20:29Is there any other way to date it? Yes. In fact, it's been dated. That's the thing. Again, thank you so much for asking these questions, Tucker. It has been dated in four other scientific ways that conclusively all show that it's a first century artifact. We have breaking news on your show. Wide-angle X-ray scattering out of the Institute of Crystallography in Rome has shown that the shroud has been getting old. It's been decomposing. It's been degenerating for 2 ,000 years. They took a sample of a shroud from Masada that's conclusively dated to AD 70, and they compared the shroud of Turin using wide-angle waxes, wide-angle x-ray scattering.

1:21:09This is the Institute of Crystallography. And what they found is that the samples have both been getting old at the same time for 2 ,000 years. So it's not been getting old for 700 years. It's been getting old for 2 ,000 years. There was another study done. linen is made from flax and it has a substance called vanillin in it vanillin and it takes hundreds if not thousands of years for there to be no trace elements of vanillin in the fine linen guess how much vanillin there is in the shroud of turin zero so if it was 700 years old there would still be traces of vanillin chemically there's no vanillin in the shroud so i don't want to bore you with these details, but they're very important.

1:21:52They're not boring at all. There have been other scientific studies that have been suppressed that can, all of the other studies, to answer your question, have proven that the shroud is 2 ,000 years old from a scientific standpoint. I think it's pretty wild that the authorities, the British Museum, is that what you said? Right. Would hide relevant data. Suppress it for 29 years. I mean, the professor. How can you do, how is that science? How, I don't understand. One of the lab officials, Tucker, I mean, this is all, I mean, if people just read for themselves and think for themselves. I mean, one of the professors who wrote on the chalkboard 1260 to 1390 was given a$5 million endowed shared right after this announcement in 1988.

1:22:39By whom? By his cabal that was backing him. Huh. So again, people need to follow where the evidence leads. And again, I'm following forensic science. I'm following the iconography. I'm following, I mean, the blood samples alone, the hematology. If we wanted to fake the shroud, do you realize we'd have to kill someone? We would have to get blood, premortem blood, and then we would have to stab them in the heart and get postmortem blood and translucent pulmonary edema and smear that. I mean, and then we'd have to know that there are certain plants that only bloom in Jerusalem in April. we would then have to get, we'd have to know the provenance of the shroud.

1:23:18I mean, there's over 30 things a hoaxer would have to know to fake the shroud. And then you'd have to apply it in some unknown fashion that cannot be replicated even now. And then we would have to know, how do we change two microns deep? So surface level, and every, so we have a traveling exhibit right now that we're doing where I have 50 artifacts that show these things through infographics. And we have panel 13 in our traveling, who is the man of the shroud exhibit, but shows each fiber, each thread has around 250 to 200 fibers. So you think about 0.2 microns of each fiber of each thread. I mean, that's how superficial the image is.

1:23:58We couldn't fake that. No one can. We don't have the technology to do that. I'm fixated on the idea that the custodians of the science around this at the British Museum, which is the most famous museum in the world, whose job is to search for the truth. That's what science is, the pursuit of truth. That they would hide facts and mislead the public on purpose. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised because this is a religious artifact that speaks to the veracity of the world's greatest religion, which has many opponents. So it does raise questions about other archaeological finds that are relevant to Christianity.

1:24:42And the big one, of course, are the Qumran scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls found right after the Second World War by a shepherd. 1948, a Bedouin. Yeah, a Bedouin shepherd boy throws a stone into a cave. Here's something pottery breaking goes up there in all these jars with these scrolls in them. That, of course, was the same year that Israel became a nation, 1948, and they become the custody, or some of them become the custody of the Israeli government. and they're written right around the time of Jesus. Probably a little before, correct me if I'm wrong on the facts here. 250 BC. 250 BC. This monastic community called the Qumran community in Qumran.

1:25:20Right. And there, you know, many portions of what we refer to as the Old Testament. At least that's what we've been told. But then I've always wondered, like, these are in the custody largely of a government, and they slow rolled. I mean, they could just, like, take pictures of every single fragment and put them on the internet. Right. And anyway, there are a lot of questions, but my main question to you, I think you know something about this, is do we have all the Qumran scrolls that are in custody? Are they available to the public and to scholars? No, because they keep coming to light. I mean, there's the Cairo Geniza fragments.

1:25:56So there's also Dead Sea scrolls outside of the Dead Sea, if that makes sense. So there's the Cairo Geniza fragments. This brings up a great question. I mean, the antiquity of all artifacts is sketchy. to be clear. And, you know, when you look at the great artifacts from history, how people come into control of these artifacts, there's a lot of money involved. There's a lot of corruption involved, candidly. But could it be, is it plausible or is there any evidence that scripture from the Qumran cache, the Dead Sea Scrolls, has been suppressed? Oh, certainly. Absolutely. Certainly? There's absolutely ways in which all, I mean, there is a demonic hatred towards anything biblical.

1:26:41I mean, not just in the Dead Sea Scrolls community. I mean, I've seen this with all biblical fragments. There is a hyper skepticism towards biblical fragments, a framework, a worldview that we don't foist on anything else except biblical fragments. You know, as long as they're available to the public, I'm okay with that. Right. As long as people can, you know, have the information, decide for themselves. But my concern is that they're not available to the public. Well, I worked in the Griffith Papyrology Lab in Oxford, which is formerly known as the Sackler Library. They took the Sackler name off it.

1:27:18But when I was there, it was the Sackler. You're killing a lot of people. So now it's just the Ashmolean. So in the Griffith Papyrology Lab, I mean, we have a half million fragments that have not been categorized. They've not been cataloged. So, I mean, I say this as one who does this. I mean, yeah, there are biblical fragments that have not been brought to light. Well, I mean, it's a great— How hard is it to take a picture of them and put it on the internet? Exactly, and there are great people doing it. I mean, my friend Dan Wallace at the Center of Studying New Testament Manuscripts, their entire aim is to photograph as many biblical texts as they can and to make them available.

1:27:49So there are great groups out there that are doing it. But the hoops they have to jump through with these libraries and where these manuscripts are located— Why would it be controversial to take a 2 ,000-year-old fragment of Scripture, take a picture of it, and upload it onto the internet? Why would someone want to prevent that? I can only speak to my experience. And so many of the papyrologists who I've worked with, those are people that work with the papyri. So biblical fragments are papyri first. And then that was the original work of the Scripture. And then, of course, scrolls. Honestly, so many of them— So papyri made from papyrus plants that grow in wetlands.

1:28:27The early church was innovative. It used something called a codex. It did not take scrolls from Jews. It wanted to have this book form with writing on the recto and verso, the front and back of each page. And it was cheap. It was inexpensive. It could be hidden, unlike these scrolls that were, I mean, I have Jewish scrolls. They're beautiful, but they're heavy. They're hard to transport. They're only written on one side. You had to unroll the whole thing. And they're made of animal skins? Right, parchment. parchment would be uh bovine they're all bovine they're an animal they're a calf yeah okay um so the but any of this stuff is not i mean like what would be the justification for keeping it from the public yeah well i mean so much of it comes out of the enlightenment movement of of europe i mean coming out with what we called higher criticism the german scholars um the height of German scholarship in the 1800s that Jesus didn't exist.

1:29:24If he did, he was probably gay with a mortgage. No, I get it. I get it. And then you have this Pontius Pilate didn't exist. And so, so much of that influenced modernity in a way that, I mean, has wreaked havoc on all of our div colleges. Sure. But I'm just saying now, 2025, if you have a bunch of scrolls that are in a cave in 1948 that speak directly to the world's great religions. How can a government be allowed to hide those? Well, you're immediately accused of being a sensationalist. I've been ridiculed and attacked for bringing the shroud to light. I mean, you're called a popularizer. I mean, this is a very high view, hyper skeptical community that catalogs biblical manuscripts.

1:30:09All you have to do is go to Society of Biblical Literature with 5 ,000 Bible scholars to see how crazy some of these people are. I'm sure. There is a hatred towards truth. I mean, the man who I defended my thesis, I write about this in my book, Body of Proof. I've spent three years studying the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus. I've written a 93 ,000 word, history of resurrection belief in the Judeo-Christian motif. And I come to my viva where in England, it's pass fail. So if you fail your PhD viva in England, you can never do a redo again. You get what's called an MPhil, and there's no do-overs.

1:30:43So, I come to my defense, Tucker, and I have a Bible scholar who did not believe in the miraculous, did not believe in the historicity of the resurrection, and he looks at me and he says, Jeremiah, do you actually believe the resurrection happened, or is that just imaginative storytelling? Yeah, well, that doesn't surprise me at all, you know, that people who, I mean, how many Episcopal priests believe in God? None. None. No, I know some who do, but like the minority. Yeah, that doesn't shock me that they would, you know, that corruption exists. It's the suppression of information. It's Wikipedia that drives me crazy.

1:31:23It's gatekeeping information that prevents the public and interested parties, researchers, from even knowing that that information exists. Like that is so sinister. I'm a victim of it. I mean, I was taught that the shroud was a Catholic relic and there was no science behind it at all. I mean, I was taught that at the intellectual Jerusalem that is Oxford. I mean, so I'm a victim of this. I understand it completely. And I guess I'm numb to it, Tucker, that it's my world. I've been in it professionally in the academy since 2009. It's just a miracle if truth actually gets out. And that's why I'm so grateful for your program.

1:32:01Do you have hope that there will be further study of the shroud or do we not need any? I'm doing all I can to make that happen. This is changing people's lives, this truth, because when we look at this mystery, it actually reveals the message of Christianity, God's love for us, and that he sent Christ to die in our place and raise from the dead. That's the gospel. That's the good news. And that this event actually happened in history. Jesus physically, bodily rose from the grave. And there are great reasons to believe that. I have another artifact I want to hand you though, Tucker. I want you to hold the replica of the spear.

1:32:38So this is amazing. This is a replica. There's a weight to it. Now you mentioned that they did not break Jesus's legs, but let's make sure he's really dead. So they take this spear, this lance, and they stab Jesus according to John's gospel. And remember John's gospel, this is not a scientific or medical journal. It says that blood and water came out of the body of Jesus. Jesus is stabbed between rib five and six. And we see that reflected on the shroud with the post-mortem type AB blood that pools just above that triangle, right parallel with rib five and six. And you're holding in your hand the spear that would have inflicted that punishment on Jesus's dead corpse by the Roman executioners.

1:33:26Damn. And so the spear likely had an iron tip on it. Exactly. And it punctures about three centimeters wide. And again, the scripture said, Isaiah foretold it by his stripes were healed, by his stripes were vindicated. And we see that reflected in the spear, the lance wound, that Jesus body. And we see that reflected on the shroud, which is just fascinating to think about. Last question. Are there other physical artifacts, extant that you're satisfied are genuine, whose providence is knowable, that point to the historical reality of Jesus? Oh, absolutely. We have an embarrassment of riches of artifacts, archaeology.

1:34:14This is the beauty of Christianity. This is the beauty of our faith, Tucker, that our faith intersects with archaeology, where I often say that, and I say this in body of proof, archaeology is Christianity's closest cousin. What's amazing is— What extent can Christians—I mean, because all this is taking place in a non-Christian country. Absolutely. And well, I mean, I know atheist Jews who are archaeologists, and they use six sources to make sure their archaeological sites exhibit verisimilitude, that they're digging in the right place. And you've probably heard of these sources, Tucker. Are you ready for this?

1:34:47These are atheist or agnostic Jewish archaeologists in the land of Israel. There's around 100 archaeological sites at any one time. Most of them are secular, completely secularists. but they still use six sources to make sure they're digging in the right spot. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the book of Acts, and Josephus. So if the critical archaeologists are going to use our sources because they're so good, I'm going to use them too. But, I mean, why should we try? I mean, if you have people who are, you know, opposed to Christianity, you know, is there oversight? Like, are there, do we know that historical information isn't being suppressed?

1:35:29No. I mean, there needs to be more integrity to it, for sure. Are there people who aren't attached to that government who are on the archaeological sites watching this stuff? I have great friends who are there who have incredible credibility. Like my archaeologist friend, Scott Stripling, he's the lead digger at Shiloh, or what the rest of the world calls Shiloh. He's in season five. So there's great archaeologists out there doing great work, but they're fewer and far between. That's why we need more people to do what we do. Jeremiah, thank you for all of this. Thank you, Tucker, for having me.

1:36:01Love your program. Love you. And this is a horrifying device. Thanks. Thank you.

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