He is Alive: Science Finds Jesus

By John S. Carpenter

When science set forth to explain the historical evidence and miraculous events attributed to the existence of Jesus, it expected to find hoaxes, a lack of evidence, and nothing substantial to support a supernatural belief in God. What skeptical scientists did discover actually validates the beliefs of Christians. And what they could not explain also added even more support for Christian faith. The historical accounts, eyewitness testimonies, and miraculous artifacts provide overwhelming proof that something supernatural and heavenly is in contact with mankind. Join John Carpenter, a psychiatric therapist, on his logical investigation into the divine realm of miraculous evidence through the startled eyes of disbelieving medical and scientific researchers. The amazing conclusions from their professional examinations suggest that Jesus Christ must truly be alive and impacting our lives today. As with Carpenter's first book, Be Not Afraid to Follow the Footprints from Heaven, be not afraid of having your current assumptions about God challenged by this historical evidence, now under the scrutiny of today's science. Open your mind for this fascinating and inspirational journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644240342

Book preview

Chapter 1

To Be Alive, He Had to Rise

Is Jesus really alive?

Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Perhaps it just feels good to fantasize or hope that it could be true.

But is there any scientific evidence? What could possibly prove this?

Do we need the evidence in order to believe?

Can Jesus be alive today—and truly here for us? If so, then He had to have risen from His tomb as the Bible suggests. We know from several sources in the Bible that He was clearly described as missing from the tomb. A body was never found. The Romans greatly feared a hoax that would falsely prove the prophesized resurrection. But nobody was ever accused or found guilty of any grave-robbing or mischief. But then, He began making a number of appearances. His body was seen by His beloved disciples in the Upper Room as He passed through locked doors and solid walls to stand incredibly before them.

Then, while they were talking about these things, Jesus stood in their midst. And, he said to them, Peace be with you. It is I. Do not be afraid. Yet, truly, they were very disturbed and terrified, supposing that they saw a spirit. And he said to them, Why are you disturbed, and why do these thoughts rise up in your hearts? See my hands and feet—that it is I, myself. Look and touch. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Then while they were still in disbelief and in wonder out of joy, he said, Do you have anything here to eat? And they offered him a piece of roasted fish and a honeycomb. And when he had eaten these in their sight, taking up what was left, he gave it to them." (Luke 24:36–43)

Doubting Thomas, who was not present for that first mystical appearance, had to see and physically feel the wounds of Christ on His next visit before he could actually believe the reality of Christ’s risen body.

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus arrived. Therefore, the other disciples said to him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I will see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the place of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will not believe. And, after eight days, again his disciples were within this room, and Thomas was with them. Jesus arrived, though the doors had been closed, and he stood in their midst and said, Peace be with you. Next, he said to Thomas, Look at my hands, and place your finger here; and bring your hand close, and place it in my side. And do not choose to be unbelieving, but faithful. Thomas responded and said to him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, You have seen me, Thomas, so you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. (John 20:24–29)

That would certainly do it for me if I were to see Jesus walk through locked doors and stand before me, where I could reach out and touch His physical wounds. But can we fully believe this, today—that He is still alive—without seeing Him? The younger generations typically demand physical proof before buying into adult fables. Can they find enough reliable information in the Bible to truly warrant genuine belief in a risen Christ? These young adults may view Christians as quite foolish to believe such questionable matters on blind faith alone. Atheists seem quite content to not waste any time on the consideration of these ancient myths; they assume that these stories cannot be possible, did not ever happen, and are not worth exploring any further. They believe that when we die, we turn to dust, and there is nothing further to understand or discuss.

However, as many as three hundred bodies of deceased holy persons (many of them declared saints) have defied the natural decay of death—and did not turn to dust. That’s right—their deceased bodies don’t follow the normal but ghastly process of rotting, turning purple or black, and smelling with a horrid stench. People who have encountered that stench of death seem to never be able to forget it. Usually discovered by accident—without any expectation of being incorrupt, these bodies have had nothing done to help them remain beautifully preserved. No embalming, no chemicals, no preservatives, no airtight sealed containers, no special protection from the elements. In fact, one incorrupt body had been discovered displaced out of its coffin, submerged underwater for years—and it still had no signs of decay or deterioration. Some bodies are over three hundred years old—and yet they appear as if sleeping peacefully and about to awaken refreshed at any moment. Instead of a horrid stench, musty smell, or rotting odor, the bodies often smell as sweet as roses. The skin may appear pink, fresh, and with good natural color—sometimes moist or even oily. Arms and legs may even remain flexible. There have been accounts in which perspiration and fresh blood still ooze from the corpses.

These incorrupt bodies are miraculous evidence that bodies can defy the natural decay of death and lie preserved—as if waiting for their own resurrection someday. Science cannot even begin to resolve this supernatural phenomenon and has not ever offered any explanations. The very existence of these tangible miracles defies natural human death. This also destroys the claim of the atheists that we will all turn to dust at death. These bodies can even look healthier than they did on the day that they died—perhaps 150 years ago. You and I will not look that good within one week after we die (unless we attain that special holiness of a saint).

Why is it that only very religious persons do not decay? Is this God’s way of saying that these devoted individuals are worthy of preservation and shall not be allowed to turn to dust? Might they be resurrected in the future? As the Son of God, would not Jesus be an obvious and automatic choice for preservation and resurrection? His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, would be another obvious candidate for being raised, body and soul, to heaven. Visionary Mother Mariana of the officially approved apparitions in Quito, Ecuador recalls an apparition of the Child Jesus, telling her these words in 1629:

The dogma of faith of My Mother’s Immaculate Conception will be proclaimed when the Church is fought against more, and My vicar (Pope Pius IX) is a captive.

The de fide dogma of My Blessed Mother’s Passage and Assumption in body and soul to Heaven (will be defined) in the same way. But you, My spouses and chosen souls, ought to believe it always, as if it were already a dogma. (Declared by Pope Pius XII, Nov. 1, 1950)

This gives me much happiness, because it is an act of recognition of My power and love as the Son for His Immaculate Virgin Mother, whose immaculate and blessed body, for My own honor and dignity, I would never have permitted to be reduced to the dust of the earth, as happens with the generality of mankind …

I know … that the preservation of the incorrupt bodies of some of My servants is beyond comprehension to human beings; with greater reason would I not preserve the body of My Mother, the Immaculate Virgin?

Validation of these messages came in a supernatural blessing to Mother Mariana; she and several of her fellow sisters in the convent in Quito, Ecuador, were discovered to be completely free of decay after death! Mother Mariana is still incorrupt today, nearly four hundred years later! Is this not only a wonderful but also miraculous and supernatural method of confirming her messages from Jesus?

As further validation, Blessed Mary is quoted by Bruno Cornacchiola, another visionary, in the apparitions of Tre Fontane, Rome (1947), as saying, My body could not decay and did not decay. My Son came for me with His Angels. Bruno had violently denied and dismissed such supernatural events until Blessed Mary’s stunning visit with him and his three young children in 1947 that converted his negative beliefs and changed his life forever, becoming a loyal and faithful servant for God.

Therefore, we not only have the miraculous physical evidence that bodies do not always naturally turn to dust, but we have some mystical evidence that the idea of a resurrection to heaven does exist. Jesus, therefore, could have a body that did not turn to dust and could rise as a physical entity. But what scientific evidence and proof do we have for the body of Jesus disappearing from His tomb and allegedly rising in a supernatural transformation? What could possibly exist today for us to examine that could help determine the reality of such mystical events so very long ago?

Fortunately, three ancient relics have miraculously survived and still contain enough information for scientists to be able to study and draw conclusions. The first one is the well-known but highly controversial Shroud of Turin. This is alleged to be the actual burial cloth that Jesus was wrapped in while lying in His tomb. This fine linen has the faint image of a man on it, which many claim is the actual image of Jesus Christ. But the controversy has been centered around proving the actual age of this relic and tying its origin to the genuine tomb of Jesus. And could scientists find anything that would prove that a mystical resurrection took place?

The publicized notion that the Shroud of Turin is nothing more than a medieval hoax created by clever artists was widely believed due to carbon 14 testing in 1988. The scientific test suggested that the shroud was no older than AD 1290–1360. For most people, that settled the mystery, and they looked no further at any other studies or evidence. It was a fake, a clever artistic creation, and nothing more than that. Case closed. Mystery solved. Science set the record straight. Right?

Painting by Giovanni Battista Della Rovere (1575- 1640)

Wrong. This popular misconception has endured simply from ignorance of all the facts. Proper scientific testing and credible results must always pass a peer review by fellow scientists. But other scientists found many flaws, problems, and issues with this carbon 14 testing. First of all, the sampling of the linen from the shroud had been done incorrectly. There were supposed to be three, postage-stamp-size samples taken from three different areas of the shroud. But all three samples were taken from the same spot, which later was determined to be a repaired section of the shroud—and not the original linen! Chemical testing confirmed that the tested samples were indeed different from the original fabric of the shroud. On January 20, 2005, a paper by Ray Rogers, published in a highly respected, peer-reviewed scientific journal concluded,

The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysis/mass spectrometry proves that the material from the radiocarbon testing area of the shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. The radiocarbon sample was thus not part of the original cloth and is invalid for determining the age of the shroud.

In August 2008, Robert Villarreal and a team of eight researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory analyzed Roger’s samples and corroborated all of Roger’s conclusions.

The shroud also survived three fires over the centuries. The most intense fire in 1532 reached 920 degrees centigrade and melted the silver casket that contained the shroud. The melting silver burned holes in the linen. Since intense heat could affect the results of a carbon-dating process, Russian scientists set out to determine how much it could throw off test results. Simulating the heat intensity from that 1532 fire, the Russians determined that carbon-dating tests could be in error by as much as seven hundred to one thousand three hundred years! Microorganisms, bacteria, and fungi found on the shroud could also throw off the carbon testing results by as much as three hundred years. These issues along with improper testing basically threw out these 1988 carbon 14 results. In fact, no science journal ever published the test results; it was Nature Magazine that actually publicized the carbon 14 results—without any of these critical considerations or serious doubts offered to the public.

Since the carbon 14 testing was improper, inconclusive, and unreliable, how do we determine the true age of the shroud? How can it be placed in the time frame of Jesus?

Let’s start with the material nature of the shroud. The shroud is a very fine, expensive linen cloth, perhaps from a dining table because of its size: 14.3 feet long by 3.7 feet wide—or exactly four cubits by one cubit in the ancient method of measurement for that time period. In fact, some researchers even suggest that it may have been the dining table cloth from the Last Supper because it still had drip patterns of wine or sauce that had not yet had a chance to be cleaned. Furthermore, it has a classic, first-century style of weaving—the triple herringbone weave pattern. The Swiss textile conservationist Mechthild Flury-Lemberg discovered that the shroud’s stitching pattern was indeed identical to that of burial clothes found in tombs at the Jewish fortress of Masada—dating back to the AD first century.

Coins had been placed on his eyes. Through computer analysis, polarized image overlays of ancient coins found an exact match—the lepton, produced around AD 29. under Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate! Thanks to advanced imaging technology, another coin expert in France also believes that he has solved the mystery and that his findings reveal the true age of the revered shroud. Agostino Sferrazza told a French newspaper that his scans showed previously unseen details from the coins, specifically a sacrificial cup and a religious staff as well as the letters YKAI. The numismatist believes that those characters are part of the Greek spelling for Emperor Tiberius, who reigned from AD 14 to AD 37 and that the symbols are also in keeping with currency from that time period. As such, Sferrazza concluded that the coins, and therefore the shroud itself, came from around the era when Jesus would have been crucified. Therefore, the old coins and the weave pattern of the linen cloth place the shroud in the AD first century.

But can we place the precise location of the shroud in the Holy Land at that time?

Max Frei-Sulzer, a Swiss criminologist, found fifty-eight species of pollens on the shroud. Forty-five of them could have come from the Jerusalem area; eighteen of them could only come from the Holy Land and from flowers blooming in early April—around Passover/Easter! Almost half of the pollen grains discovered on the shroud are of the Gundelia tournefortii species—and were concentrated around the head of the image. This finding confirms the notion that the Crown of Thorns was probably formed from the long thorns of the Gundelia tournefortii plant.

Dr. Frederick T. Zugibe noted that travertine aragonite dust taken from the bloody foot area of the shroud was a very high and significant match to Jerusalem dirt samples when using a scanning ion microprobe of high resolution. And of course, the coins on his eyes were dated AD 29 and were found in this region. The 3-D imaging analysis also revealed other images on the shroud. Hundreds of flower petals and leaves are evident around his body through the use of polarizing filters by professor Alan Wangher—and they match the blooming flowers of springtime in the Holy Land. So the shroud is hardly a European-produced, artistic fake from medieval times!

But can we prove that this particular shroud actually belonged to Jesus?

If we are to accept for the moment that the image left upon the shroud might be that of Jesus, let us examine if it accurately depicts the traits and wounds we would expect to find at the time of his crucifixion. Scientists concluded that the shroud image is of a man who is 5'11" tall, approximately 175 lbs., and appearing to be about thirty to thirty-five years old. Jesus was about this size and died at thirty-three years old.

The soldiers had struck blows on Jesus’s face; the shroud reflects blows to the forehead, brow, right cheek (swollen), right upper lip, jaw, and nose. We believe that the reported scourging of Jesus was horrible. Jewish law only allows thirty-nine lashes, but it was the Romans who did the torture. Approximately one hundred twenty scourge marks are present on the shroud’s image of his body, indicating that two Romans were striking him, one on each side, according to the directionality of the lash-marks. They could even determine that one of the two men was much shorter than the other.

A crown of long thorns had been fashioned to jam onto the head of Jesus, mocking Him as King of the Jews. Was there any evidence for such a crown to be found on the shroud? Fifteen puncture wounds encircling the top of the head were found to correlate with the crown of thorns reportedly jammed onto the head of Jesus Christ. Thorns in that region were most likely from two to four inches long. Pollens from such a plant were found around the head region on the fabric. Not one other crucified man was ever known to have worn a crown of thorns. There was no reason for any man to wear a crown of thorns for a crucifixion—except for one, Jesus Christ!

Shroud face, showing white for blood from Crown of Thorns and nose.

The visible shoulder abrasions are consistent with injuries sustained while carrying the cross piece of the cross. The tip of his nose as well as his knees were scraped badly. These injuries would be consistent with falling face first while carrying the cross.

After suffering these punches, abrasions, punctures, and whippings, Jesus was then nailed to the cross. What evidence does the shroud contain to confirm these wounds? The shroud depicts clear nail holes in his wrists and one through his feet. The wrist holes would have severed the median nerve, causing the thumbs to draw inward. The shroud does reveal the thumbs as drawn in, hidden behind the other fingers. No prankster would have known to depict all these details so accurately. From the angles of the bloodstains the forensic experts have determined that this blood flowed while the man was upright with his arms angled like the hands of a clock at ten and two—as in a crucifixion position on a cross.

Hands with thumbs pulled in due to bloody nail wounds in wrists.

It is traditional to break the legs of all men on crosses to hasten their deaths, but Jesus had been beaten so badly that he died too quickly before they had to break his legs. Does the shroud show this? The shroud image indeed depicts that no leg bones had been broken. This again increases the likelihood that the shroud belonged to Jesus.

When the Roman guards suspected that Jesus had died, they thrust a spear into his side, releasing blood and bodily fluids. What could the shroud possibly reveal to confirm this historic action? Scientists describe the following examinations: the wound in his side is between the fifth and sixth ribs and measured on the shroud as one and a half inches long and three-fourth of an inch wide—the exact size and dimensions of a Roman lance. There was no swelling—which is consistent with a postmortem wound. The bloodstains from this wound confirm that the wound was inflicted postmortem. Present also are stains from a clear bodily fluid such as pericardial fluid or fluid from the pleural sac or pleural cavity. These findings indicate that the man was stabbed near his heart after he died. Ultraviolet light tests reveal blood serum halos for each scourge mark and the wound in his side from when a spear lanced his side after death. These invisible details are further proof that a hoax is unlikely. What artist would know how to add invisible attributes in medieval times?

Were the bloodstains real human blood or added later, perhaps painted on by artists? Pathologists and scientists all agree with the following summary:

Microchemical, fluorescence, and spectrographic tests reveal that the stains are human blood, type AB. They resulted from real bleeding from real wounds of a real body that came into contact with the linen. The distinctive forensic signature of clotting (red corpuscles around the edge of the clot and a clear yellowish halo of serum) is clearly present. Some of the blood flow was venous and some was arterial. Most of the blood flowed while the man was alive, and it remained on his body. Some, however, clearly oozed from a dead body.

The Italian doctor Pierluigi Bollone identified the blood group as AB—the rarest of all blood groups, found in only four to 5 percent of the world’s population. However, it is much more common in Middle Eastern people, accounting for about 18 percent of the Jewish population. There is no evidence of coloring or shading underneath the stains of blood, meaning that the bloodstains were the first to be imprinted on the shroud, with the imprint of the human figure occurring later.

Face image with blood trails from Crown of Thorns colored red.

These details are very specific to the wounds and experiences that only Jesus suffered. With the details regarding the time, location, and wounds all correlating so well, it becomes much more likely that this shroud is indeed of Jesus Christ. After all, who else would have an unprecedented one hundred twenty scourge marks and a crown of thorns created for a crucifixion? And the wealthy man, Joseph of Arimathea, had provided a fine linen cloth, according to scripture (Luke 23:50–53), that matches the same quality and nature of the shroud. It is doubtful that any other crucified men had a fine linen burial cloth or an expensive, donated tomb either.

Okay, so we have an image of Jesus on a linen burial cloth. So what? How does that prove Him to be the Son of God? How does it prove that He is alive? Is there really anything supernatural about any of this?

Yes—plenty of unusual details! Scientists have found no pigments, paints, dyes, stains, or brush marks to suggest an artist’s creation. The image color would not dissolve with the 25 solvents tested. According to French scientist, Arnaud-Aaron Upinsky,

It’s scientifically impossible for the Shroud of Turin to have been painted by an artist. The image is like a photograph, produced using a camera. And a unique one at that. Not only is it able to capture a negative image, but it can also reproduce a monochrome three-dimensional effect, which appears on the surface as a result of cellulose dehydration and is achieved through varying the pressure of the imprint.

Front half of Shroud with reversed lighting to reveal image.

They cannot determine, despite all their scientific studies, exactly how the image was created on the linen cloth. It is not burned as there is no evidence of scorch marks—which might have occurred if the linen had been subjected to a heated, three-dimensional statue. But there are no burn marks. The material does not fluoresce under ultra-violet illumination.

Barrie Schwortz, a Jewish American photographer from Arizona, is also a specialist in imaging, programming, and digital technology. He joined the Shroud of Turin Research Project in 1977. This team has conducted the most rigorous series of tests on the relic thus far. The theory that the image could be a photograph was dismissed since the cloth did not bear any traces of ionized silver. Schwortz states,

As a photographer, I have a decent understanding of the technology involved, as well as issues concerning focal lengths and lighting. I came to the conclusion that the image could not have been made by hand, and was created in a way that we are unable to duplicate. For someone like myself, who has behind him a considerable amount of professional experience in photography, the image on the shroud makes a powerful impression even to this day. I have spent thirty years watching various attempts—made by scientists and skeptics alike—to reproduce the shroud’s image. Nobody has been able to do so while retaining all of the relic’s physical and chemical properties.

But it took eighteen years for Schwortz to be fully convinced of the shroud’s authenticity. He was puzzled at how the traces of blood found on the shroud retained their red coloring instead of turning brown after nearly two thousand years. But a conversation with Alan Adler, another scientist on the team, resolved that mystery. If a man is tortured and not given anything to drink, his red blood cells burst, and his liver releases a chemical compound called bilirubin. When this substance enters the bloodstream, it causes the blood to retain its red color permanently. Schwortz had this reaction:

This evidence was like the missing part of the puzzle. After that conversation, it seemed as if every obstacle that had prevented me from believing the shroud to be authentic had been removed.

Scientists have determined that the top layer of linen fibrils have been oxidized to a depth of only six microns—half the thickness of a human hair. They theorize that a brief blast of energy like radiation could cause such a reaction. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the shadows of the vaporized residents were imprinted on the side of any building left standing—as if a dark image on negative film had been created from this burst of radiation. Efforts to recreate such an image with chemistry and physics on old linen cloths have all failed. Scientists cannot explain how the image exists, nor can they recreate it with established man-made procedures. Therefore, it becomes classified as a miraculous image.

The shroud does exhibit amazing characteristics. When illuminated from behind, the image of the man on the shroud vanishes, leaving only the traces of blood visible. Experts claim this as proof that the image was not painted. Paint, like blood, is not translucent. In fact, when a vertical cross-section of the shroud’s fabric is magnified 3,650 times, the structure that represents the apparent coloring in the imprinted image does not penetrate the fabric’s internal structure, but lies on top—and is, therefore, declared to be a surface phenomenon.

In the late 1970s an electronics engineer, Peter Schumacher, developed a sophisticated topographical device for NASA’s space program called the Interpretation Systems VP-8 Image Analyzer. It translated a monochromatic tonal scale of the photographed surfaces of planets into layers of vertical relief. In other words, it could examine a flat photograph of a three-dimensional object and convert it into a three-dimensional image. When a regular photograph is analyzed, it collapses and distorts. But when Dr. John Jackson analyzed the shroud image with the VP-8 device, it was consistently and uniquely three-dimensional:

The results are unlike anything I have processed through the VP-8 Analyzer before or since. Only the Shroud of Turin has ever produced these results. One must consider how and why an artist would embed three-dimensional information in the grey shading of an image when no means of viewing this property of the image would be available for at least 650 years. Would an artist produce this work before the device to show the results was even invented? No method, no style, and no artistic skills are known to exist that can produce images that will induce the same photogrammatic results as the Shroud does.

3-D imaging proved the Shroud covered a three-dimensional figure.

Okay, but is there any evidence to suggest a mystical resurrection of Jesus Christ?

The shroud completely enveloped the body of Jesus. By all accounts, it was not tossed aside onto the floor. It was not heaped into a pile. It was still present on the slab in the tomb with the body simply missing from within it. The apostles Peter and John found the burial cloth flattened—and they saw and believed. The apostles would have seen the linen still in a wrapped position, but now emptied (Luke 24:12): he saw the linen cloths positioned alone, and he went away, wondering to himself about what had happened. The current theory is that His glorified body passed through the cloth, and the cloth collapsed onto itself—which would have been an incredible sight to behold afterward. Remember that the scriptures describe Jesus’s glorified body as passing through solid walls and locked doors to meet with his apostles.

If one were to unwrap the enveloping shroud or try to squirm out from inside of it, blood would have smeared everywhere, and the image would not have been so neat and precise. Like an amazing magic trick, how does one make a body disappear from inside the shroud and reappear outside of it? What does the evidence show us? The lack of any blood smears on the shroud suggests that the body made a very strange exit from within the shroud. Even just lifting the shroud off the body would have smeared the blood in areas where it had collected, possibly reopening wounds.

This miraculous image was not just from a contact phenomenon between the body and the shroud. Parts of the body not in contact with the linen (and as far away from contact as several inches) still show up in the imprinted image. It is like the body has passed through the cloth. In the 1980s, a chemist at Michigan University, Dr. Giles Carter, discovered that the shroud displayed properties shared with long wave x-rays. A skeletal structure of bones, hands, and two rows of teeth were uncovered. Even the thumbs which were drawn in from the piercing of the median nerve in the wrist can be seen through the other parts of the hand. What kind of energy would produce a negative image with x-ray quality on this cloth?

Scientists also determined that the miraculous image depicts a weightless body, because there are no marks of pressure on certain parts of the shroud when the image was made. If the body had had weight at the time of the light burst, then the image would have appeared differently with pressure points. Instead the image is evenly photographed by the flash without obvious pressure points. Again, this suggests that the body passed through the shroud as all parts were equally represented in the image.

It was determined that at the time of the light burst, the man was in an upright position with his long hair falling straight down due to gravity. If he had been lying down, his shoulder-length hair would have fallen back and away from his shoulders. Many tests were run to precisely determine what direction this light source was coming from that illuminated his body in a totally dark tomb. Assuming from the evidence that he was upright and probably suspended slightly above the ground, the light would have been coming from directly overhead. This was confirmed by numerous photographic tests to determine the direction of the light source that created this image blast onto the shroud like a photo negative.

The Bible describes this scene in Matthew 28:2–4:

For an Angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and as he approached, he rolled back the stone and sat down on it. Now his appearance was like lightning, and his vestment like snow. Then, out of fear of him, the guards were terrified, and they became (immobilized) like dead men.

In a similar manner, when visionaries encounter the appearance of the Virgin Mary, they enter into an immobilizing ecstasy, often described by others as dead on their feet. In fact, if others try to move them physically, the visionaries often cannot be budged or lifted by even the strongest men without an unusual amount of difficulty.

The disciple Peter was freed from prison by angels in a similar fashion as the guards were obviously immobilized and unable to react (Acts 12:4–11).

And when he had seized him, Herod put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison; but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the Church. The very night when Herod was about to bring him out, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, Get up quickly. And the chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, Dress yourself and put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him, Wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And he went out and followed him; he did not know that what was