Evidence of the existence of Jesus, the man
The argumentation is similar to that employed in a lawsuit. It is based on the presentation of a number of 'exhibits' which, although of different 'strengths', as a whole may constitute the evidence 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
In the BOOK four 'exhibits' are presented, viz. The James ossuary, The Titulus Crucis, The 'Jesus house', and, last but not least, The Shroud of Turin.
Here only the latter will be briefly discussed. (See chapter 8 and chapter 9.)
The Shroud of Turin is a linen cloth bearing the image of a naked bearded man. According to tradition it is thought to be the shroud of Jesus.
True or false, that’s the question.
Radiocarbon dating carried out in 1988 showed that the flax of the sample was harvested at around 1300 AD, implying that the image is a mediaeval forgery.
In chapter 7 "The radio-carbon dating of the shroud of Turin", it is shown that the result is meaningless, since the sample had been taken from a mediaeval patch woven into the shroud to repair fire damage, as Dr. Raymond Rogers, a former scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory, showed in 2005. The BBC reported this stunning result under the heading 'Turin shroud older than thought', with the subtitle The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by radiocarbon dating carried out in the 1980s, according to a new study in a peer-reviewed journal.
With this roadblock out of the way we turn to the scientific evidence of the authenticity of the Shroud.
To this day the authenticity of the Shroud remains a controversial issue, despite the fact that science has conclusively shown that the image could not have been made by human hands. The reason is clear: for many (especially atheists) the very notion that the Shroud might be the silent witness of Jesus and the Passion is psychologically hard to swallow.
Science is but a refinement of common sense. Holding a loupe, the investigator is called a detective; peering through a microscope he is perceived as a scientist. Let's begin with a simple fact. When you take a close look at the vertically suspended Shroud you won't see an image within a range of about a yard since the picture then dissolves as in a mist (Ian Wilson, author of The Turin Shroud). Since a painter (forger) can’t paint what he cannot see, the minimal length of his brush should be at least one yard.
In 1978 American scientists found that the color of the image of the man was exclusively confined to the tips of the most superficial fibrils of the linen threads. What does this mean? Let your arm represent a thread, then the hairs on your arm are the fibrils. In order to paint the image the forger would have to use a brush one yard long, containing not hundreds of hairs, but consisting only of a single hair with a diameter of ten micron (a micron is one-thousandth of a millimeter). Is this conceivable? Yes, theoretically, but only with the aid of a super-microscope coupled to a television.
This argument alone is sufficient to show that the image could not have been made by human hands, and thus rules out a mediaeval forgery.
Science sometimes kills the fly with a sledgehammer. If you are interested in the 'hard science' proving the authenticity of the shroud of Turin beyond a shadow of doubt you will find all you ever wanted to know on the subject by turning to chapter 9: "The Shroud" continued.
