RELIC OR ICON?

Sworn To Secrecy:
A Factual Approach to the Supernatural.

The middle of the fourteenth century was a time of crisis for medieval France. At war with England, and racked by famine and plague, the country was beset with problems. Against this backdrop, at the tiny church of Lirey in central France, what we now know as the Shroud of Turin was first exposed to a troubled public. Portraying the image of a scourged and crucified man, it was claimed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. But was it real … or a clever fake designed to earn its owner, the Middle Age knight Geoffroi de Charny, confidant and protector of King John the Good of France, fame and fortune?

In this extraordinary book, Geoffroi de Charny has been posthumously charged with murder – of killing an innocent victim in order to create the image on the shroud. Or, in the alternative, did he fraudulently acquire Christ's burial cloth, obtaining for himself the clearest confirmation of Jesus's resurrection? His trial calls on expert witnesses to examine the case, combining modern scientific evidence with insights into the religious and cultural background of first century Israel, and new understanding of the symbols on the shroud and concealed messages in the New Testament. The author takes a scholarly approach in presenting the judicial process, revealing new information regarding the history of the most precious relic of the Christian faith and the reasons why its early custodians were Sworn to Secrecy.

This detailed legal exposé puts the onus firmly on the Turin Shroud's present custodian, the Pope, to put the record straight by allowing new scientific tests, in particular using two currently available methods that could be deployed without causing further damage to the shroud. This approach should settle the matter once and for all. The significance would be immense for a fractured world plagued by competing world views. It could serve as a definitive sign of Jesus's second coming at the end of the Age, as prophesied in the Old Testament Book of Daniel by The Man Clothed in Linen.

STURP (Shroud of Turin Research Project)

With the question of authenticity still unresolved, in October 1978, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) carried out an in-depth scientific examination of the shroud in question, using what were then some of the world's most sophisticated instruments and equipment. The investigative group members were chosen only based on their skills, not because of their religious persuasion or faith, and the aim of the study was to determine how the image on the shroud was created. The team's principal findings, quoted in STURP's final report of 1981, concluded that the shroud image is that of a real scourged, crucified man in a state of rigor mortis, whose image has unique, three-dimensional information encoded throughout front and back sides. The report added that no physical, chemical, medical, or biological methods could adequately explain the formation of the image! Micro-chemical scrutiny of the fibrils of the shroud linen found no evidence of pigments, paints, dyes or staining to suggest the shroud was a work of art.

However, evidence by way of radiocarbon dating performed in 1988, dated the shroud to between 1260 and 1390 AD with 95 percent confidence. The results were bandied with fanfare across the world, declaring the shroud an ingenious 14th century fake. This was despite the earlier conclusions of STURP, and the reasonable doubts that the dating samples cut from the shroud were actually part of the original linen: rather they may have been contaminated by shroud repairs using different materials for reweaving a damaged area towards the edge of the cloth. Such repairs are known to have occurred, particularly after the shroud was damaged by fire. These issues are central to the controversy that lingers to this day: what proof do we have of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the very foundation of the Christian faith?

Since the 1988 radiocarbon dating, science and scholarship have moved on. Scientific results have been re-examined, new information has come to light, and new understanding of the early history of the Christian Church may have a bearing on the issues at hand. With these factors in mind, a reassessment of the shroud's authenticity is now possible. So, to break the lingering deadlock, I have sought a way to present the latest evidence. Rather than straight written statement, I have imagined that the School of Law of the high-profile Research University of California, Los Angeles, has put forward a submission to its Board of Directors to bring the matter into the open. (The University of California, Los Angeles, one of the top public research universities in the United States, is known for its beautiful architecture and campus in a rustic setting – with ideal facilities for such a project.) The submission urged the Board of Directors to go public by way of a mock trial to be organised on campus, in which Geoffroi de Charny stands accused of either murder (for the shroud held a body at some point) or fraud (for the way in which the knight acquired the shroud). The recommendation was (of course) accepted as part of the 2024 academic year.

What follows is the narrative of that fictional mock-trial and examines and cross-examines prosecution and defence expert witnesses called to highlight the substantial new evidence that is now available to us from recent studies. That evidence is presented and tested by judicial process before a jury of twelve, with prosecution and defence counsels seeking the truth by questioning. While the characters involved are fictional (any resemblance to real persons is entirely coincidental), the evidence they present and discuss is real, and the conclusions they draw may be considered valid …

The Man Clothed in Linen.
A Fascinating Journey Through Time:
CHAPTER 2 Philosophical Premises

(Does God exist? Who 'created' God? Circular phenomena; the nature of light; the DNA code). Do heaven and the universe come together in one theory of everything? The enlightened writer Emily Brontë made an inspiring proposal: Even if earth and man had disappeared, and seas and universes ceased to exist, and You remained alone; Every existence would exist in You.

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking enjoyed massive public attention and admiration as a renowned cosmologist and for his indomitable spirit. He suffered from an early, slowly progressing form of motor neuron disease that gradually paralyzed him, against expectations, allowing him to continue his work and communication about it for more than five decades. His first book, A Brief History of Time, was a groundbreaking bestseller and was followed by numerous other commercially successful works. His lifelong quest can be seen as an attempt to verify the unification of general relativity and quantum theory through a mathematical model, leading to a "theory of everything."

Along with Roger Penrose, Hawking developed propositions suggesting that, as long as the universe is governed by general relativity, the existence of a beginning is in fact inevitable. Hawking himself admitted that a weak point in his mathematical model was the use of imaginary numbers in his equations. But the irrefutable evidence that the universe began with a Big Bang came in 1992 from the extraordinary images taken by NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, showing the afterglow of the explosion—a constant torrent of microwaves.

The imaging carried a baby picture of the universe. The cosmic background radiation actually constitutes almost 99.9% of all light particles currently flowing through the universe, a faint whisper of the cosmic explosion 13 billion years ago. Stephen Hawking himself said: "Almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the Big Bang." The fact that there was a beginning aligns with the Bible (Gen 1:1). Based on philosophical reasoning, God could, once He had created the universe, enter the time from which there was once timelessness. If there was a beginning, this implies the necessity of a cause that transcends time, space, energy, matter, and the laws of nature. That cause must be responsible for the fine-tuning of the expansion process, for without laws the universe would descend into chaos. It was Stephen Hawking's idea to map out these laws in a mathematical model that would explain everything back to the proven beginning. But he posited that, if everything must have a cause, the question is: "Who created God?"

This leads to a commentary on Stephen Hawking's last book questioning: "Is there a God?" Since he accepted the evidence of the Big Bang, it is clear that there is 'something' that goes back to eternity 'before' this event. This naturally leads to the notion of 'being', a personal infinity that has always existed before the creation of everything else. This means that intelligence and communication must be intrinsic. We know this from human experience: we conceive something in our thought world and then bring it into the outside world, i.e., from conception to materialization. That summarizes the fundamental mystery. It has been clear from the beginning that Hawking's theories did not encompass the many faculties of learning, such as philosophy, psychology, biology, theology, chemistry, etc. In essence, he was able to mathematically describe the physics of the Big Bang as the origin of the universe but questioned the existence of a causal Intelligence.

He suggested that, given the assumption that everything that begins to exist has a cause, what then caused the existence of God? The philosophical answer to that question is that the transcendent existence lies outside the domain of time and space. As humans, we understand that the mind, and the thoughts it generates, are a product of conscious self-awareness. The mind is the seat of personality, intellect, linguistics, musical and artistic abilities, and has the capacity for introspection and abstract thinking. From a philosophical and theological perspective, the imagination and visionary ability of the mind indicate that it is not a product of biology. Clinical research has determined the intertwining of the mind, which, however, is not part of the brain. This means that the mind is a transcendent capacity, capable of virtual design as a preparatory step in the process of manifesting tangible things in time and space. A unique aspect of the mind is its moral capacity: the ability to distinguish good (light) and evil (darkness). It is a "knowing" that is acquired through life's experiences. The mind and spirit of a person are called the "soul," the immortal element within.