Shroud a 'radiation photo' of resurrection?

Negative of image on front of Shroud of Turin

Scientists are building the case that the image of a crucified man on the Shroud of Turin was created by radiation that emanated from the body itself, a theory remarkably supportive of the traditional resurrection account that is central to Christian theology.

A scientific paper co-authored by attorney and historian Mark Antonacci and physicist Arthur Lind argues that the image of the crucified man in Shroud of Turin might constitute what amounts to a photograph taken at the instant Jesus' body transformed as he rose from the dead.

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In the paper, "Particle Radiation from the Body," Antonacci's and Lind's argument centers around the 29 unique or unusual features that scientists over the past four decades have found on the Shroud's body image and fiber.

Among the 29 features are the following:

Lack of fading of the image;
Uniform coloring around each fiber of linen;
All fibers collectively colored with the same intensity;
Oxidation and dehydration of fibers;
Stability of the body image to water and heating;
Insolubility of the body image to acids, redox and solvents;
Equal intensity of the body image for frontal and dorsal views;
Negative images of the body with left/right and light/dark reversals that develop into highly resolved, photographic quality images;
Three-dimensionality encoded through the space between the body and the cloth.

"All of these features can be accounted for by radiation, and only radiation will account for them all," the authors conclude.

For instance, the authors noted the Shroud's frontal and dorsal body images are "encoded with the same amount of intensity, independent of any pressure or weight from the body," such that the bottom part of the cloth that bore all the weight of the crucified man's supine body is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.

"Radiation coming from the body would not only explain this feature, but also the left/right and light/dark reversals found on the cloth's frontal and dorsal body images," the authors note.

In arguing that the source of light that created the body image on the Shroud came from within the body, the authors observed that "neither the outside or inside of the tomb, nor the outside or inside of either the front or back sides of the cloth" are found on the Shroud's image.

"This means that the source of light does not originate outside of the body, the cloth or the tomb, but with the body itself," they write. "The weave of the inner part of the cloth containing the frontal and dorsal images is not even part of the distinctive images, which they too, would have been, if the light came from anywhere outside the body."

Antonacci and Lind ask, "What if the man's body became insubstantial or dematerialized instantly leaving behind some energy in the form of the basic particles of matter, such as protons, neutrons and electromagnetic waves, such as gamma rays?"

They answer that the part of the cloth that was originally closest to the body would have received the most radiation, while the part originally farthest away would have received the least – a phenomenon that "would result in true three dimensional information being encoded onto the two dimensional cloth," precisely as is found on the Shroud.

"The evidence acquired from more than a century of scientific, medical, archaeological and historical examination of the Shroud is not only consistent with its authenticity as the burial garment of the historical Jesus Christ, but with every element of his passion, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection as described in the Gospels," they concluded.

WND previously reported on the work of graphics artist Ray Downing to produced a computer model of the face imprint on the Shroud of Turin, leading to a two-hour History Channel special presentation, "the Real Face of Jesus?"

Mark Antonacci is the founder and president of the non-profit Resurrection of the Shroud Foundation and author of the book "The Resurrection of the Shroud."

Arthur C. Lind, Ph.D., is a physicist who created Lind Scientific after retiring from the Boeing Co. in 1998; he obtained a doctorate in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1966.

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