Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Lee Brainard: Is The Shroud Of Turin Manmade Or A Miracle?

Transcript

Lee Brainard: Is The Shroud Of Turin Manmade Or A Miracle? · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:03
  Welcome to Worldview Matters.
• 0:05
  Discussing controversial issues.
• 0:07
  Discerning current events.
• 0:10
  Defending biblical Christianity.
• 0:13
  No topic.
• 0:14
  Off limits.
• 0:16
  And now, here's your host, David Fiorazzo.
• 0:20
  Friends, family in Christ, thank you so much for tuning in to another podcast, Worldview Matters.
• 0:26
  I don't know how many we're up to now, but we just keep this ball rolling.
• 0:29
  Praise God for His sovereignty and for you for sharing and allowing our audience to grow.
• 0:35
  I'm just so thankful.
• 0:37
  And it's due to the great guests that we have.
• 0:41
  Like all the others, we've got some great information, some great topics to discuss.
• 0:45
  Lee Brainerd is our guest, author, researcher, writer.
• 0:48
  He does some great YouTube videos, Q&A videos.
• 0:52
  But I want to direct you to his website.
• 0:53
  It's soothekeep.info.
• 0:56
  That's S-O-O-T-H-K-E-E-P, soothekeep.info.
• 1:00
  And then over at Substack.
• 1:02
  Soothekeep.substack.com.
• 1:06
  And don't forget to subscribe to his YouTube channel.
• 1:09
  Look up Soothe Keep over on YouTube.
• 1:12
  And, hey, you can be part of those Q&As that he has.
• 1:15
  Today's topic is I'm excited to talk about.
• 1:17
  I'll let him share why we're talking about this.
• 1:21
  Lee, good to see you, brother.
• 1:22
  Thanks for your time.
• 1:23
  David, it's a pleasure to be with you and pleasure to be with your audience.
• 1:27
  This is a great subject and it's a great time to have a conversation.
• 1:31
  Yes, yes, it's great.
• 1:33
  Now, so I want to bring up some of your books, Apostasia.
• 1:37
  That is your most recent, correct?
• 1:40
  Yes, the updated version is the most recently published book.
• 1:43
  Okay, so you can go to Lee's website or you can go to Amazon to pick that up.
• 1:49
  The proofs for the pre-tribulation rapture we had you on, I think it was about a year ago, maybe to talk about that one.
• 1:55
  Anyway, look up Lee's book.
• 1:56
  Great writing, great information, and he is meticulous, friends.
• 2:00
  And that's why this topic is The Shroud of Turin.
• 2:04
  And we're going to talk about, we've heard different reports.
• 2:07
  We've seen kind of a split on whether people believe it's authentic or it's not.
• 2:13
  Is it a hoax?
• 2:13
  I don't think it's a hoax, but is it Jesus?
• 2:18
  So that's what we're going to ask Lee about, and we're going to walk through this, because he has some very surprising—
• 2:24
  research and evidence that I think you guys might be interested in.
• 2:28
  So, Lee, out of all the things we could be writing about Bible prophecy and anything else or talking about, you came across this topic and said, I've got to dig into this a little bit.
• 2:38
  Why?
• 2:38
  How did that happen with you?
• 2:42
  Well, really, we probably could be talking about any two or three dozen issues, but below all these issues, underneath all these issues, there's really only one issue, and that issue is are we going to be consistent
• 2:56
  with the historical grammatical hermeneutic and with the scientific method.
• 3:02
  That's really the only error there is behind every error and every failure in the church, inner doctrine and practice is how carefully we execute our research
• 3:13
  and our conclusion-making process with the scientific method in historical grammatical hermeneutic.
• 3:20
  Now, this one is raising great issues and great waves in the church today, and so I think it really merits attention.
• 3:28
  Are we going to be scientific or not?
• 3:31
  Okay, so we're going to try to—well, Lee is going to answer the question, is this the genuine burial cloth of our Lord Jesus Christ?
• 3:41
  Because as you mentioned in what you sent me, the shroud has been regarded by some Protestants and evangelicals as just another relic, I mean, out of thousands.
• 3:53
  Is it authentic?
• 3:54
  That's what we're going to dig into.
• 3:56
  We've seen—
• 3:57
  Some maybe shows on what are Discovery Channel, Nat Geo, they do these whatever.
• 4:03
  And you can't really trust those.
• 4:05
  Whatever side they come out on, you go, okay, where do they get their evidence?
• 4:09
  But, Lee, you did a little bit more digging than I think they might do on that.
• 4:13
  I think some people are skeptical when you use the word science.
• 4:17
  Sorry, it's just the way it is now in this day and age.
• 4:20
  Science has taken a hit because of some fakes and some just lies.
• 4:26
  And so where do you want to start as we walk through some of what you found about the Shroud of Turin?
• 4:32
  Well, the first thing I'd like to do is just defend the scientific method.
• 4:36
  Okay.
• 4:36
  I mean, there is zero contradiction between a robust, consistent application of the scientific method and the Christian faith.
• 4:46
  There's zero problem, zero difference, zero tension, zero contradiction.
• 4:52
  If we don't start on this ground, we are going to either incline towards exalting science over the biblical revelation, or exalting a spiritual understanding of that biblical revelation over science, and there should be zero contradiction.
• 5:08
  Agreed.
• 5:08
  Absolutely agreed.
• 5:09
  So you dug into this and you're talking about the scientific method.
• 5:15
  For those of us that, you know, might not trust science as much as we used to, what does that look like when you talk about something like the shroud, which apparently is approximately 2000 years old?
• 5:26
  Is that accurate?
• 5:29
  Well, actually, we've really got two questions here.
• 5:32
  The first one is the 2,000-year question, and the second one is, are we using the scientific method?
• 5:39
  Okay.
• 5:39
  So if we're going to approach the scientific method with the shroud, we want to look at the supposed...
• 5:45
  some objective arguments for the authenticity of the shroud and then look at the contrary arguments that would expose those arguments as either not true or misunderstood.
• 5:58
  So we've really got to weigh both sides.
• 6:01
  If we're not gonna weigh both sides, we're not gonna do the scientific method.
• 6:05
  Science is not afraid of facts.
• 6:08
  Science is not afraid of objectivity.
• 6:11
  As soon as you get afraid of facts, soon as you get afraid of objectivity and robust research, you're on the path of superstition.
• 6:20
  Now, the second question, which is the age of the shroud.
• 6:24
  Historically, the first dating that was done on the shroud was the carbon dating.
• 6:29
  And that gave a date range from 1260 to 1390 A.D.
• 6:34
  which would indicate that this is just one more relic from the Catholic Church from the early medieval era.
• 6:42
  Now, the problem that we're going to face is that they did another dating method, which is called the wide-angle x-ray diffraction method, and this method supposedly gave a date of 2,000 years ago, give or take a century.
• 6:57
  Now, there's a problem with this dating, right?
• 6:59
  There's not a problem with the science.
• 7:01
  There's a problem with the application of the science.
• 7:04
  Wide-angle X-ray diffraction measures the degeneration of crystalline structures in various organic and inorganic materials.
• 7:14
  Now, there's a specific application of this test that was developed by science to measure the age of linen or the cellulose fibers in the linen.
• 7:29
  Now this theory or this application of this formula assumes fairly consistent humidity, ambient room temperatures and ambient room humidity over a period of time.
• 7:44
  So when you use this wide angle X-ray diffraction and you assume that it's been relatively stable humidity and relatively stable room temperature, then it gives you a reading around 2000 years old.
• 7:58
  But if you factor in
• 8:00
  the wide ranges of humidity and the wide ranges of temperature that it faced.
• 8:06
  And the chambery fire, for instance, in 1532, which was so hot it melted the silver box the shroud was kept in, and silver dripped in and burned the shroud.
• 8:16
  You start adding this stuff into the formula, and you're going to end up with the date that actually agrees with the carbon dating dates.
• 8:27
  Okay, so let's go back to one thing even before analyzing the shroud.
• 8:34
  When was it found?
• 8:36
  I mean, do we know?
• 8:38
  Is it kept in someone's private?
• 8:41
  Was it privately owned for centuries?
• 8:44
  Where did we get a hold of that where now it's public knowledge?
• 8:50
  Well, when you're gonna trace back the trail of possession or the trail of custody, the chain of custody that would be called, you're gonna go back into the 1200s, the 1100s, in that area is where you're gonna find the last definitive
• 9:08
  Proof that you can actually say this piece of cloth we have now goes back to this era.
• 9:15
  So depending upon whose research you're going to follow, you're going to end up in the 1200s or the 1100s.
• 9:22
  Before that, there is theories that identify with other known relics in the Catholic Church.
• 9:29
  But now we no longer have a chain of custody.
• 9:32
  Now we no longer have proof of identity.
• 9:36
  Now we're on the ground of theory.
• 9:37
  So we can't trace the shroud that we have right now before the 1100s.
• 9:43
  It's very interesting because I know there are conflicting views on this.
• 9:46
  That's why we're going through some of these details.
• 9:49
  And so the next part here, I appreciate what you did.
• 9:52
  You listed, you know, very fairly main arguments for the genuineness of the shroud and the main arguments or facts that testify against the shroud as being the actual burial cloth of Jesus.
• 10:08
  So is this a good time to start walking through those points?
• 10:11
  Oh, yeah, it'd be a good time.
• 10:13
  Okay.
• 10:14
  Go ahead.
• 10:15
  So there's been a couple major arguments made to defend the shroud as the actual burial shroud of the Lord Jesus.
• 10:23
  And one of the major claims that almost everybody repeats is that science is unable to replicate, not merely replicate the image, but replicate the kind of image that we see on the shroud.
• 10:35
  Yes.
• 10:36
  So they're basically assuming and asserting a miracle had to happen to make this image.
• 10:42
  But this claim is simply not true.
• 10:44
  You know, as early as 1995, Ian Wilson, who's one of the leading advocates for belief in the Shroud as the burial shroud of Christ, admitted that Nicholas Allen actually produced a convincing replica of the shroud image.
• 10:59
  And he produced this using a technique that would have been available in the early medieval era,
• 11:07
  where they used a camera obscura with a quartz lens.
• 11:12
  They used either silver nitrate or silver sulfate, and they used ammonia.
• 11:17
  And they soaked the cloth in this silver nitrate or silver sulfate, let it dry.
• 11:23
  Then they used it as the film for the camera obscura, baked an image onto it.
• 11:31
  And then they used the ammonia to wash the silver nitrate or silver sulfate out.
• 11:37
  And then they rinse the ammonia out and you have an image.
• 11:40
  And that image is the same color coordination and same style as you have with the Shroud of Turin.
• 11:49
  So this image can be replicated.
• 11:52
  Wow.
• 11:54
  So we've got to take that in right away, what we can do today to replicate something.
• 12:01
  It's very interesting to me.
• 12:02
  What about some have said, some assume that there was a supernatural movement of heat and radiation that caused the image to go from a physical body to the cloth.
• 12:20
  How would that happen?
• 12:22
  If we are not to think that this is the actual burial cloth of Jesus, how did they get this image?
• 12:31
  How would that happen?
• 12:32
  Right.
• 12:34
  Well, I'm not even convinced that it could happen.
• 12:37
  The closest analogy that we have is there's a few places in Hiroshima, for instance, where the distant nuclear explosion or atomic explosion with radiation embossed a person's shadow or outline on a concrete wall or on a stone wall.
• 12:54
  So we can make an analogy for the resurrection image on the shroud.
• 12:59
  The difficulty comes is, in theory, the shroud was either wrapped around the body or it was draped over the body.
• 13:07
  You're gonna now have a different kind of image than one made where the film and the person and the source of the picture are three different locations.
• 13:21
  If you have them all at the same location, you're not going to get a photo-like image.
• 13:27
  And so this is a big problem for the theory that the image was made by the resurrection.
• 13:33
  What about the spots on some of the images that some say would be blood?
• 13:41
  Depending on what images you're looking at, how do you explain that, Lee?
• 13:46
  What's your take on those?
• 13:48
  Well, actually I think the identification as the blood spots as either actual blood or really high quality fake blood, that's actually one of the strongest arguments that is made on behalf of the shroud.
• 14:06
  When you look at the literature there, there's less room for debate on what you see, which means that there's less room for interpretation of what you see.
• 14:15
  So I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there actually is actual blood on the shroud.
• 14:22
  But you're suggesting it, or you're just saying that doesn't prove that it's Jesus and his blood.
• 14:30
  It could be someone else.
• 14:31
  And we've got to understand that that's a possibility if we're going to examine this fairly, right?
• 14:39
  Accurately.
• 14:40
  Right, right, and so really the way the debate has unfolded, it's either an intentional fake or it's the real burial shroud.
• 14:49
  But I think we need to open ourselves up to, there's actually several other possibilities here.
• 14:54
  Yes.
• 14:55
  I mean, it could be that someone made this image just experimenting and a Catholic priest saw it and said, hey, can I have that?
• 15:05
  there was no intention at all to be fakery or delusion on the part of the author of it.
• 15:11
  So there's different possibilities for how this came about.
• 15:16
  And I think what we really want to do is focus on either this is the actual burial shroud of Jesus or it's something else.
• 15:26
  The something else could be any of five or six different possible explanations.
• 15:31
  So let's talk about the covering.
• 15:37
  When they, Jewish custom, they wrapped the body, right?
• 15:40
  So when you said a cloth could have been draped over, that wouldn't have been accurate as far as what the Gospels share, could it?
• 15:51
  I don't think so.
• 15:52
  Now, that's become the official interpretation of the pro-genuine burial shroud school of thinking, is that they actually just draped the cloth over the body of the Lord Jesus or just rolled them up in it like you'd roll them up in a blanket.
• 16:10
  When I look at the account that we see of Lazarus in John 11, and when I look at the account that we see in the Gospel of John on the Lord's actual burial scene, we see—
• 16:24
  the wrapping of the body.
• 16:28
  And then not only did you wrap the body, but you bound the hands and the feet so that they couldn't flop loosely.
• 16:34
  Those were with the carry eye strips.
• 16:37
  And then there was a separate face covering, the saudarion for the face.
• 16:42
  So you really had three different things going on here.
• 16:44
  You had the body wrapping, the face wrapping, and then the strips that you used to bind the hands and feet so you could carry the body from point A to point B. Wow.
• 16:53
  Okay, that's my understanding as well, what you just shared from the Gospels, that there are separate wrappings, and yet, isn't the shroud one straight piece of cloth that was apparently draped, supposedly draped over the body?
• 17:12
  Yeah, and in my mind, this is a really strong argument why this isn't the burial shroud of Jesus.
• 17:18
  No matter what explanation you come up for it, whether you think there's a supernatural explanation or a metaphysical explanation or a scientific explanation, whatever it is, I don't see how it could be the burial shroud of Jesus if we're gonna take the scriptures at face value.
• 17:36
  I know they've probably done some DNA testing on the cloth or the material.
• 17:41
  Have you heard anything for or against based on any DNA evidence or examination they did?
• 17:49
  Yeah, the DNA testing on the shroud, and I didn't actually put this in the notes that I gave you, but the DNA testing on the shroud reveals that by far and wide the most common DNA on the shroud is from the Indus Valley in India, that area of India.
• 18:06
  This is very surprising.
• 18:08
  To me, in my mind, this is going in the direction that this is linen that originated in the early medieval era
• 18:20
  or in the Indus Valley, or it was made from linen that was spooled, or linen string that was spooled in the Indus Valley and then brought to Europe.
• 18:33
  Okay, let's talk about what you said.
• 18:36
  This is one of the things that I was not aware of because I had not heard this, the evidence that might show an unusually large body size, which would not be
• 18:47
  a Jewish man necessarily.
• 18:49
  Can you talk about that and how you found that out?
• 18:52
  Yeah.
• 18:53
  So when you look at the size of the shroud, it's usually regarded to be up somewhere around 14 feet, six inches long, about three and a half feet tall.
• 19:04
  wide.
• 19:04
  And so when you have a shroud this size, then you look at where the feet are on the ends of the shroud, where the heads are in the middle of the shroud, and the feet are touching the edge on one end, and the other edge, they're maybe two, three inches away.
• 19:20
  And then you have maybe eight inches in between the tops of the heads where they meet.
• 19:26
  So if you put this together, we're looking at maybe 10 inches.
• 19:29
  You subtract the 10 inches from the 14 foot 4 inch or 14 foot 6 inch.
• 19:35
  Then you divide that by two.
• 19:37
  You end up.
• 19:39
  with a man who's six foot eight to six foot nine on the shroud.
• 19:45
  A person could easily verify this by just taking any official reproduction of the shroud, using your ruler and making measurements
• 19:56
  based on your official replication.
• 19:59
  This isn't rocket science.
• 20:01
  You don't have to have a PhD to do this.
• 20:03
  This belongs in the same category as using your Keurig to make coffee, belongs in the same category as measuring sugar for cookies, in the same category as using a tape measure to measure a two by four.
• 20:16
  This is something that any average human being of average intelligence can do.
• 20:20
  And even if your measurements, because you're sloppy or 10% off, the size of the man on the shroud is still way too big for a Jew that would be six foot tall on the very outsize and probably 5'6 to 5'8 on average.
• 20:41
  So how come this is not commonly discussed, or it's definitely not common knowledge?
• 20:47
  There's books written on the shroud.
• 20:49
  I mean, even from evangelical Christians, from that perspective of, yeah, this is authentic.
• 20:54
  But how come this is not known or talked about?
• 20:58
  Because this would probably indicate, well, that probably is not a Jewish man, if we're talking about someone that's six foot eight.
• 21:07
  Yeah.
• 21:08
  So one of the difficulties we're facing is the conversation in the last few decades has been dominated, absolutely dominated by men who believe that the shroud is the actual burial of the shroud of Christ.
• 21:22
  They're the ones whose books get published and advertised and read, circulated.
• 21:28
  They're the ones that appear in the talk shows.
• 21:30
  There's men who are just as learned, oftentimes more learned, more specialized in their own fields, and their contrary understanding of different aspects or the entirety doesn't get that kind of publicity.
• 21:47
  So really what we need to do is just go back to the ground of science and intentionally read pro-literature and anti-literature and see who gives the best arguments.
• 22:00
  If you read the anti-genuine shroud literature, you'll find quite a bit of evidence on the unusual size of the man on the shroud.
• 22:10
  You'll find a lot of evidence that brings out other points that just don't fit.
• 22:16
  This is the actual burial shroud of Jesus.
• 22:19
  Okay.
• 22:20
  We're running out of time.
• 22:21
  I just want to make sure to get this question in, because something you said is very provocative, that you regard the shroud as a, quote, Trojan horse brought into the evangelical camp to try to overthrow evangelicalism, end quote.
• 22:37
  My question is...
• 22:38
  If the shroud was authentic, wouldn't that be, I mean, a positive for evangelical Christians to know that maybe there's more evidence for the resurrection and Jesus rising from the dead when he was buried and that happened?
• 22:55
  And then wouldn't that be a good thing?
• 22:57
  Why do you call it a Trojan horse?
• 23:00
  Go ahead, Lee.
• 23:01
  Well, it really comes down to a question.
• 23:04
  Is this actually archaeology?
• 23:07
  Yes.
• 23:08
  Or is this another relic in the Catholic Church?
• 23:12
  If this was an instance of archaeology, someone had found a secret tomb deep in Jerusalem, 50 feet underground, in the vicinity of Mount Golgotha or the vicinity of the temple, and they found ancient relics from that time, including some early papyri manuscripts, and they found the burial shroud with a little note, or they found it in situ.
• 23:36
  Now we're talking archaeology, but the fact of the matter is you can't trace the shroud back past the 1100s, and when you trace it back, it traces to the bosom of the Catholic Church.
• 23:52
  It traces right into the mix of the era when a worshiping relics and honoring relics was in its heyday, and you also find that
• 24:04
  Right there at the beginning, when it was first discovered, a bishop declared it a hoax.
• 24:10
  So we've got some problems here because this is not a matter of archaeology.
• 24:15
  This is not a matter of science on that level.
• 24:19
  This is a matter of a Catholic relic that somehow is no longer being regarded as a relic by evangelicals.
• 24:26
  That raises the question, why?
• 24:29
  So let's emphasize now in the last couple minutes, if we are coming to the conclusion that this is not authentic, or at least not the authentic barrel cloth of our Lord Jesus Christ, that does not disprove the resurrection.
• 24:46
  That's right.
• 24:47
  It's just saying this is not relevant when you talk about the scriptures and the evidence that we do have from the Word of God.
• 24:56
  Go ahead and close with those thoughts, Lee.
• 24:59
  Well, I think this is a great point to end with, David.
• 25:03
  The fact of the resurrection is probably the most authenticated historical fact of the last 2,000 to 3,000 years.
• 25:13
  There's more evidence for the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ than there is to write a good biography of Napoleon.
• 25:20
  Amen.
• 25:20
  So we have...
• 25:23
  The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is a rock-solid fact.
• 25:27
  Now, would it be cool if we actually had the burial shroud of Jesus?
• 25:30
  Yeah, it would.
• 25:31
  But it would also be cool if we had 5,000 demonstrably true slivers of the cross.
• 25:37
  It would also be cool if we actually had the spear that pierced his side.
• 25:41
  It would be cool if we had a lot of that stuff.
• 25:44
  But we don't have any of that stuff, at least any.
• 25:49
  We don't have proof that we have any of that stuff, and we don't need it.
• 25:54
  We don't.
• 25:55
  And ours is not blind faith.
• 25:56
  There's enough evidence.
• 25:58
  When you talk about archaeology, when you talk, let's talk about prophecy fulfilled, Bible prophecy.
• 26:05
  When you talk about eyewitness testimonies of so many prophecies,
• 26:10
  who saw the Lord, not only heard his words and watched him teach, but after he was raised from the dead, and the evidence of all those who saw him, and just 1 Corinthians 15, Acts, the book of Acts, there's so much more.
• 26:26
  So there's overwhelming evidence, friends, that we can base our faith on, and it is grounded in truth.
• 26:33
  And so this shouldn't discourage anybody.
• 26:36
  But like Lee said, we need to have these, you call it, robust conversations and debates about this and really come to a conclusion.
• 26:45
  And it shouldn't discourage us at all.
• 26:46
  It's just okay.
• 26:48
  I'm glad to know more of this information that I had not heard before.
• 26:52
  Lee, what else do you want to discuss next time?
• 26:54
  We have a lot going on.
• 26:55
  You do a lot of Q&As.
• 26:57
  Maybe we can talk about something else.
• 26:58
  What's on your heart, brother?
• 27:00
  Well, there's a lot of things we could talk about.
• 27:04
  But one thing that would be fascinating is talk about the weather.
• 27:07
  Is our current weather actually signs we're in the last days?
• 27:11
  Or is it just part of long-term centuries and thousands of years long weather patterns?
• 27:16
  We should do that.
• 27:17
  Or is it just global warming?
• 27:19
  Yes.
• 27:20
  Right.
• 27:21
  Who warms it?
• 27:21
  Doesn't God sovereign over the weather?
• 27:24
  But yeah, there are signs.
• 27:26
  So maybe that's a good one to follow up on next time.
• 27:29
  Lee, good to see you.
• 27:30
  Friends, go to soothekeep.info or you can look them out on YouTube or Lee is also on Substack.
• 27:36
  Brother, God bless.
• 27:38
  Take care.
• 27:40
  Thanks, friends, for watching, listening, and sharing.
• 27:42
  And please keep praying for the podcast.
• 27:44
  God bless you.
• 27:45
  And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.