The Creator Unveiled

The heart of Judeo-Christian theology is the revelation of God. My mentor, Fr. Robert J.

Spitzer, is a retired metaphysics professor and president of Gonzaga University. He points to

evidence from cosmology and philosophy for an intelligent creator, but he is also a Jesuit, and he

told me, “For us to know God, he had to reveal himself. We would never know the Father of the

Prodigal Son (a metaphor Jesus used to characterize God in Luke 15:20-24) by pondering an

uncaused cause or observing the redshift of galaxies.” Christians believe Jesus is the perfect

revelation of God, God in human form, and he certainly was a historical figure. Even leading

skeptical New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman says, “No scholar in any college or university in

the Western World, who teaches classics, ancient history, New Testament, early Christianity, any

related field, doubts Jesus existed.” There are many early, extra-Biblical sources that mention

him. For instance, much of what is known about ancient Rome comes from 1st-century historian

Cornelius Tacitus. His books, The Histories and The Annals contain insight into Roman politics

and history from the reign of Caesar Augustus to Nero (27 BC - 68 AD). Tacitus references Jesus

in The Annals to record an event in 64 AD when Nero was blamed by his people for a

conflagration beginning in Rome’s Circus Maximus Stadium. The fire swept the city and burned

10 of Rome’s 14 districts, leaving thousands destitute. Tacitus illustrates how Nero scapegoated

the Christians to resist the accusations against him, “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the

most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.

Christ, whom the name had its origin, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius at

the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a pernicious superstition, thus checked

for the moment” (Tacitus XV, 44). Tacitus attests to the persecution of early Christians and Jesus’

disciple’s “Superstition” that he resurrected. Novelist and theologian C.S. Lewis argued that

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Jesus could not have been “Just a good moral teacher,” as some say, because he was claiming to

be the Son of God and the messiah prophesied in the Old Testament. Otherwise, he would not

have been executed as a criminal. In Mere Christianity, Lewis wrote, “You can shut Him up for a

fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord

and God” (Lewis 31). A moral teacher who is merely mortal would not put himself on the level

of God. Thus, Jesus was either a depraved deceiver, a lunatic, or who he claimed to be. What

evidence is there that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God?

Contemporary scholars agree that the four canonical gospels were written as

Greco-Roman biographies of Jesus in the living memory of Jesus’ apostles. Historians usually

accept Greco-Roman biographies as historically reliable sources, but skeptical scholars repudiate

much of what Jesus said and did in the gospels. However, the majority of skeptical scholars

accept that Jewish Sanhedrin Joseph of Arimathea gave Jesus an honorable burial where he

wrapped Jesus’ body in linen and placed him in a publicly known tomb in Jerusalem. The

majority of skeptics also accept that Jesus’ tomb was found empty by his women followers and

his disciples genuinely believed that he rose from the dead.

The most scientifically studied artifact in history is the Shroud of Turin. It is a 14 ft by

3.5 ft linen burial cloth, with two faint images and bloodstains of the front and back sides of a

5’9 ft - 6’0 ft scourged and crucified nude man. The images align like they were imprinted as the

man lay at one end of the cloth, and the other end was brought over his head to cover his body.

This shroud resides in Turin, Italy, and is believed to be either a medieval forgery made by a

clever artist or the authentic burial shroud that Jewish Sanhedrin, Joseph of Arimathea, wrapped

Jesus’ body in. Luke 24:12 and John 20:5 say Jesus’ linen burial cloths were left in his tomb

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after he rose from the dead. Some Christians believe Jesus’ resurrection produced the images on

the Shroud of Turin.

The Royal Savoy family of Italy owned the Shroud from 1453 until they gave it to the

Vatican in 1983. For centuries, it was hidden from public view until Italian photographer

Secondo Pia took the Shroud’s first pictures in 1898. When Pia was processing the photographs,

he was taken aback when he saw his negative image (white and black reversed) of the Shroud.

The ghostly images of the man transformed into detailed positive ones (normal images). This

means the Shroud images are negatives. In 1976, Dr. John Jackson, a physicist from NASA,

placed a picture of the Shroud under a VP-8 analyzer, which NASA used to map the terrain of

planets. It decodes 3D information and displays it on a monitor. Ordinary photographs and

paintings become distorted under the analyzer, whereas the Shroud picture revealed 3D

information of the man’s whole body encoded in the image. Jackson’s discovery captured the

interest of scientists, and he became the leader of the Shroud of Turin Research Project or

STURP Investigation in 1978. Forty American scientists came together in Turin, Italy, to solve

how the Shroud image was made. According to a book entitled, Report of the Shroud of Turin by

Dr. John H. Heller, a biophysicist on the STURP team, “Between 100,000 and 150,000 scientific

man-hours were spent [collectively on the Shroud], with the best analytical tools available”

(Heller 291). However, major research ceased in 1988 when a single sample was cut from the

corner of the Shroud. A carbon-14 test dated it from the 13th-14th century.

In 2000, a published x-ray analysis study on the Shroud revealed a seam through the area

where the sample was taken. This caused prior STURP team thermochemist Dr. Raymond

Rogers to analyze the carbon-14 sample. According to his peer-reviewed journal in 2005, Studies

on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin, “A gum/dye/mordant coating is easy to

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observe on the radiocarbon yarns. No other part of the Shroud shows such a coating. The

radiocarbon sample had been dyed” (Rogers 189). Additionally, while the Shroud is entirely

made of linen, Dr. Rogers discovered that the sample has significant cotton content in it. Dr.

Rogers concluded, “The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid

for determining the age of the Shroud” (Rogers 189). The radiocarbon sample did not match the

original cloth because, in 1532, the Shroud was burned in a fire in Chambéry Cathedral, France.

The Shroud was left with burn holes and scorch lines down each side of the image. To preserve

the Shroud, Poor Clare Nuns patched the burn holes, added a backing cloth, and repaired the

burned corner using a technique called invisible mending. They spliced cotton threads into the

linen and dyed the cotton to match. Therefore, the carbon-14 test was the mean date of the

repaired corner. The Vatican has not allowed another carbon-14 test. However, Dr. Rogers did a

vanillin decay test on the central part of the Shroud. He concluded in his study, “Kinetics of

vanillin loss suggests that the Shroud is between 1300 and 3000 years old” (Rogers 194).

Afterwards, Dr. Giulio Fanti, a mechanical and thermal measurements professor, carried out five

dating tests with six teams in six different laboratories and published his results in Il Mistero

Della Sindone in 2013. All Dr. Fanti’s tests dated it a little before Jesus’ death with a mean date

of “33 BC (+ or - 250 years)” at a “95% confidence level,” just as accurate as carbon-14 dating.

The STURP Investigation identified many characteristics that indicate the Shroud’s

authenticity. For instance, biophysicist Dr. John Heller and porphyrin expert Dr. Alan Adler

collected blood samples from the Shroud. In one of their peer-reviewed journals in Applied

Optics, Blood on the Shroud of Turin, they concluded, “The presence of whole blood was

established by detection of heme derivatives, bile pigments, and proteins…There is no chemical

evidence for the application of any pigments, stains, or dyes on the cloth to produce the image.”

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In another journal, A chemical investigation of the Shroud of Turin, they concluded, “These

blood images generally represent clotted blood and not free blood flow…such a chemically and

anatomically correct representation produced by any means other than direct contact of the cloth

with a wounded human body is difficult to conceive” (96). Despite attempts to create a DNA

profile from the blood, the DNA has been too broken down over the centuries. However, various

researchers have determined that the DNA belonged to a human male, and the blood type is

AB-positive. Also, when an individual is severely tortured over an extended period of time, they

go into anaphylactic shock, causing the red blood cell walls to break down and the liver to flood

the bloodstream with bilirubin. Dr. Alan Adler found high levels of bilirubin in the blood. The

bloodstains also match Jesus’ unique crucifixion described in the gospels. Blood flow from the

head indicates a crown of thorns which was unique to Jesus for being mocked as the “King of the

Jews.” Plus, executed convicts were generally not wrapped in fine linens, and no other burial

shroud like this exists because they were always buried with a body and decomposed.

The Shroud has had a clear history since 1349 when French knight Geoffroi de Charny

presented it to a clergyman in Liery, France. It has a less-clear previous history. It likely passed

from Jerusalem to Edessa, Turkey. The Shroud image is believed to have been the base for all

iconography of Jesus first depicted in Edessa’s mandylion. It was then likely stolen out of

Istanbul during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204. During the STURP Investigation,

criminologist and pollen expert Dr. Max Frei, collected pollen grain samples from the Shroud

and confirmed that history. In Frei’s article, Identification and classification of the new pollen of

the Shroud, he compared the samples to pollen grains from the world’s largest botanical

museums. He concluded that of the 58 pollen grain types he collected, 45 are from plants

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indigenous to Israel (13 exclusive to Israel), 6 from the Middle East (2 exclusive to Edessa,

Turkey, and 1 exclusive to Istanbul), the rest were from France and Italy.

An artifact related to the Shroud is the Sudarium of Oviedo, a 33 by 21in linen cloth with

messy blood stains and bodily fluids. In ancient Jewish burial custom, a cloth often wrapped the

head of the deceased before being wrapped in a shroud. This Sudarium resides in Oviedo, Spain,

and is believed to be the face cloth that the Apostle John described was rolled up and separate

from the Shroud in Jesus’ tomb (John 20:7). This sudarium has the same AB-positive blood type

as the Shroud which only 3.4% of the world’s population has. AB-positive blood is also the only

“Universal receiver” blood type. To Christians, this symbolizes that Christ can receive all. Dr.

Frei also took pollen samples from the Sudarium. He identified 13 pollen types, 9 indigenous to

Israel. According to an article by Emanuela Marinelli entitled, Pollen Grains on the Sudarium of

Oviedo, “Frei stressed, ‘The Acacia albida is typical for the Dead Sea area, and the Hyoscyamus

aureus still grows on the walls of the Old Citadel of Jerusalem. These two plants are represented

also on the Shroud’” (Marinelli). This Sudarium was likely separated from the Shroud in its early

history. It was taken out of Israel in 614 AD to Alexandria until Persian King Khosrau II invaded

Alexandria in 616 AD, and it was brought through Northern Africa to Spain.

In ancient burial custom, coins were placed on the eyelids of the dead to keep them from

opening from rigor mortis. Professor Robert Haralick, a computer imaging expert, in Analysis of

Digital Images of the Shroud of Turin published by spatial Data analysis Laboratory, uncovered

OUCAIC on the eyelids of the man, this is part of the word TIBERIOUCAICAROS which

translates to “Tiberius,” for Tiberius Caesar Augustus the Roman emperor from 14-37 AD.

Haralick also identified a lituus/augur’s wand, a spiral staff which was a Roman pagan symbol.

The only coins in the history of the Roman Empire with those characteristics are Jewish lepta

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minted by Pontius Pilate (the governor who crucified Jesus) in 29 AD in Jerusalem for the people

of Judea, likely the same as the widow’s copper coins in Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4. Duke

University professor Dr. Alan Whanger published a journal in Applied Optics, Polarized Image

Overlay Technique. Whanger concluded, “Using the forensic criteria for matching fingerprints,

we feel that there is overwhelming evidence for the identification of the images and the matches

with the coins.” Needless to say, it would have taken a very sly medieval forger to come up with

that one.

Characteristics of the man on the Shroud make it more realistic than artwork. For

instance, artists usually do not depict Jesus’ scourging. The Shroud shows scourge wounds all

over his body, particularly in the same size and shape as the Roman flagrum, a three-strand whip

with metal dumbbells the Romans used. Also, there are virtually no nude depictions of Jesus

before the Renaissance as he is on the Shroud. Even more unique, he has a piercing through his

wrist. Artists have always depicted Jesus with nails in his palms because the gospels say he had

nail prints in his hands. However, that is translated from the Greek word, Χέρι (cheir), which

includes the hand and wrist. Deputy coroner and forensic pathologist Dr. Robert Bucklin

analyzed the Shroud image. He said, “The structures in the hand are too fragile to hold the

weight of a man, particularly of this size.” Historically, the Romans nailed convicts in the center

of their wrists behind the transverse carpal ligament to hold their body. The nail would pierce

directly through the median nerve, which runs through the whole arm, causing excruciating

shock sensations. Also, the median nerve controls the thumb, which explains why Jesus’ thumbs

are folded under his hands in the image. Also, French physician Dr. Peirre Barbet and many

others studied the image and determined that the man’s body is “Anatomically perfect.” It was

not until over a century after the Shroud was first documented in 1349 that Renaissance artists

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like Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Sandro Botticelli studied the human body to depict

more accurate representations. Medieval paintings have obvious flaws in anatomy. A forger

would have had to be highly knowledgeable of history and anatomy to pull this off.

Over half of the STURP members have passed away. However, I was lucky to interview

one of the youngest members, Barrie Schwortz, the documenting photographer for the team. He

is now 75 and is a well-known Shroud expert. However, he told me, “When I was first asked to

be on the team, I immediately said no. I assumed it was some painted religious relic, but then I

thought, ‘hmmm…free trip to Italy.’” Schwortz says he was very skeptical of the Shroud, “I said,

‘give us five minutes; we’ll see the paint and brush strokes and go home.’ So the first thing I did

when I got to Turin was I took my magnifying glass out and I started looking for brush strokes,

but I couldn’t see any. Then our team started eliminating the possibility of a painting, scorch,

photograph, and to this day, no one has replicated the physical and chemical properties on the

Shroud.” He told me that eighteen years after the STURP team, he was finally convinced that the

Shroud was authentic, which rekindled his faith in God which he had lost when he was thirteen.

Schowrtz says that besides his family, the Shroud research has been the most fulfilling part of his

life, “I would have never thought that 44 years later, I would still dedicate my life to archiving

the Shroud research.” Schwortz has appeared in documentaries about the Shroud on the History

Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and has done lectures around the

world. He also founded Shroud.com, the oldest and most extensive Shroud resource online.

So, how did 3D negative images get on Jesus’ burial Shroud? Dr. Raymond Rogers

noted, “No evidence for [artificial] pigments or media (the work of artists like brush strokes) was

found.” Also, the STURP team discovered that the image is not from the blood either. Rather the

image rests on 1 to 2 of the uppermost fibrils which makes the Shroud image very unique. A

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single thread has about 200 fibrils. The STURP team determined that the image was produced

by, “A discoloration due to rapid dehydration.” Therefore, it was produced by radiation, but not

heat radiation/scorching because the STURP team placed the Shroud under UV fluorescence

which causes sourcing to fluoresce. The only part of the Shroud that showed fluorescence were

the scorch lines from the fire. Plus, sourcing would also easily penetrate to the center of the

cloth. Instead, the Shroud was produced by a light radiation source, and a very intense one

because linen is a non-photographically sensitive cloth. Dr. John Jackson hypothesized that the

best source of light radiation to reproduce to image would be vacuum ultraviolet radiation. He

said it “Would be absorbed at the surface of the fibrils, which would leave the medullas

unaffected, thereby satisfying those requirements” (Jackson). Vacuum ultraviolet radiation is a

unique type of light, different from sunlight due to its intense short wavelengths.

Dr. Jackson’s hypothesis was tested in 2010 by a team of six physicists led by Paolo Di

Lazzaro. They irradiated linen fabric with the same absolute spectral reflectance as the Shroud

with nanosecond pulses from an ArF excimer laser, a powerful laser only used in laboratories

which emits vacuum ultraviolet radiation. The team published their findings in an Applied Optics

journal entitled, Deep Ultraviolet Radiation Simulates the Turin Shroud Image. They concluded,

“We have shown that 12 nanosecond, 193 nm laser pulses are able to color a very thin layer on

the linen yarn…this is the first coloration of a linen material resembling the very shallow depth

of coloration observed in the Turin Shroud fibers” (6). In a National Geographic article Paolo Di

Lazzaro said one laser would not be enough to produce a full body image, “‘[The ultraviolet light

necessary to form the image] exceeds the maximum power released by all ultraviolet light

sources available today’ says Di Lazzaro. It would require ‘pulses having durations shorter than

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one forty-billionth of a second, and intensities on the order of several billion watts’” (Viviano). It

would have to be that short so the light would not fry the cloth. How did a medieval forger get

access to billions of watts of precise light energy that we do not even have today?

In an article by Dr. John Jackson, An Unconventional Hypothesis to Explain all Image

Characteristics Found on the Shroud Image, he wrote, “The finger bones are visible well into the

palm of the hands, extending right up to the base of the wrist…It thus seems as though we are

looking at the internal skeletal structure of the hand” (Jackson). Also, the STURP team removed

the backing cloth and discovered a third image on the other side of the frontal image, a more

intense image nearest the body, and a fainter but identical image on the either side. Dr. Jackson

suggests this might imply that the radiation that created the image was emanating equally from

every point from the dead body the Shroud was wrapped in, and that body passed through the

cloth to capture the skeletal image in the hand and create the identical image on the other side.

Since probably no forger had access to billions of watts of precise light energy, perhaps

only the second option remains; the Shroud verifies what the New Testament writers reported,

Jesus’ unique crucifixion and resurrection in a glorified spiritual body. His resurrection created

3D negative images of his crucified body on his burial shroud. It is no surprise that much light

radiated from him. The apostle Paul was a Pharisee and persecutor of Christians, but suddenly

converted on the road to Damascus by what he believed was the risen Jesus with intense light

emanating from him. Also, in the gospels, Jesus, like many rabbis of his time, used figures of

speech to teach his disciples, like metaphors, parables, allegories, similes, and hyperboles. One

metaphor he used to describe himself in John’s gospel was light (John 8:12, 9:5, 12:35).

Aside from the Shroud, Dr. Gary Habermas, a historian and leading New Testament

scholar, is known for his “Minimal Facts Approach.” He says there is enough historical data to

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suggest Jesus rose from the dead. This data is backed by so much historical evidence that even

skeptical atheist/agnostic scholars accept as fact. The facts include: 1. Jesus died by crucifixion.

2. After his death, his disciples had experiences they believed were appearances of the risen

Jesus. 3. The disciples were transformed from fearful panic to boldly preaching his resurrection

and were willing to die for their beliefs. 4. The resurrection was proclaimed very early in

Jerusalem, not decades later. 5./6. James the brother of Jesus, a skeptical relative of Jesus, and

Paul, a persecutor of Christians, suddenly converted by what they believed was a literal

appearance of the risen Jesus. Also, about 75% of skeptical scholars accept that Jesus’ tomb was

empty. Habermas says, “These six facts all strongly support the resurrection, skeptics admit these

facts, and I think by far the best explanation for the six is that Jesus rose from the dead.”

This is partly because scholars unanimously agree that of the 13 books in the New

Testament that bear Paul’s name, at least Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1

Thessalonians, and Philemon were authentically written by him. Since Paul was converted to

Christianity 1 to 3 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, there are dozens of verses in his letters called

“Early creeds” that he got from others which date before his conversion. Most are about Jesus’

death, deity, and resurrection. For instance, in 54 AD, Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to
the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas (Peter), and then to the Twelve. After that, he
appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still
living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,” then
Paul adds to the creed, “and last of all he appeared to me.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-9.

This passage translated in Greek has a distinct rhythm, like a jingle or slogan. Up to 90% of

Jesus’ audience were illiterate, so creeds like this were made for them to remember and preach.

Even the world’s leading skeptical scholar Bart Erhman accepts that this passage can be dated no

later than 1 to 2 years after Jesus’ crucifixion. Other scholars date this creed just months after.

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 From the beginning, Jesus’ disciples risked their lives preaching. Also, Cornelius Tacitus

(mentioned earlier) recorded what Nero inflicted on anyone who professed their faith in Jesus

after Rome’s fire in 64 AD. He wrote, “An arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty…an

immense multitude was convicted…Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered

with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were

doomed to the flames and burnt” (Tacitus XV, 46). Moreover, Christian tradition says nearly all

of the apostles were martyred. There are at least early extra-Biblical sources that attest that Nero

had Paul beheaded in 64-67 AD and Peter crucified in 64 AD; and High Priest Ananus had

James stoned to death in 62-69 AD. Usually when someone is willing to lay down their life for a

cause it is for an ideology they got from someone else, but many disciples were willing to die for

something they saw, and a person they knew. What convinced so many people that they had all

seen a resurrected man? Skeptical scholars’ most popular explanation is that all the appearances

Paul listed were hallucinations. Regardless, it was the resurrection appearances that grounded

and fueled Christianity. Paul wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain,

your faith also is in vain” 1 Corinthians 15:14. Jesus’ collection of peasant followers preached

his message in defiance of oppressive government authorities, religious leaders, and an empire.

The early Christians embraced Jesus’ message, which for the first 300 years, brought them

suffering, poverty, and death. Against all odds, Christianity, founded by an obscure carpenter,

flourished and shaped the history of the world.

Without this historical and archaeological evidence, I would not be a Christian. Still, I

need faith, because evidence can always be ignored or denied. So, we must take a leap of faith

either way. I chose to take a leap of faith to Christ rather than a leap of faith away from him. C.S.

Lewis illustrates his leap of faith beautifully in his book, Surprised by Joy, which chronicles his

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conversion to Christianity. He wrote, “Before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what

now appears a moment of wholly free choice. I could open the door or keep it shut; I could

unbuckle the armor or keep it on. I chose to open, to unbuckle, to loosen the rein” (Lewis 174).

In English, people often define “faith” as something one just believes, but Christianity is not

about accepting it as an arbitrary fact. It is about commitment to God and Christ. Faith in the

Bible is translated from the Hebrew word, ‫( אמונה‬enumah) which means “Done in a committed

manner” and ‫( אמו‬emun) which means “Trust.” C.S. Lewis once said, “Christianity, if false, is of

no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately

important.” If it is true, that means we are morally responsible for everything we do. We are all

answerable to a higher power, but there is also redemption and salvation for humanity because of

what Jesus suffered.

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