Seven Arguments For the Historical Resurrection of Christ-Part II

We continue with the seventh argument which addresses the physical evidence of Christ’s resurrection from the dead that is still in existence today. (To read Part I)

In John’s Gospel, when Peter and John ran to the tomb, Peter entered the tomb first; he “saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place” (Jn 20:6-7). These two separate cloths have names and are still in existence today. They are referred to as the Holy Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo, respectively. Not only that but they are both dated to the time of Christ and have origins in the Middle East.

The Sudarium is the cloth they placed over the face of our Lord at the time of his death while on the cross. For Jews at that time, to look upon a dead person who had been put to death made one ceremonially unclean, and ineligible to participate in Temple worship. A ritual had to be performed by a priest to make the person ceremonially clean in order to resume Temple worship. Recall the parable of “the Good Samaritan”. In that parable, a priest and a Levite walk to the other side of the road to avoid coming into close contact with someone they thought had been murdered for just this reason. As a result, they would customarily cover the deceased person’s head immediately upon death. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus removed the Sudarium when they arrived in the tomb with the body of Jesus and set it aside just as Peter had found it.

The Holy Shroud, which is the burial cloth of Jesus, has the image of a crucified man on it bearing the nail marks in his hands and feet. But it also reveals the marks of the scourging which are clearly visible by the human eye. In point of fact, there is no record of anyone in recorded history who was crucified after first being scourged other than Jesus Christ. Recall, it was Pilate’s intention to punish Jesus severely, in the hopes of avoiding his crucifixion.

Now let me cover three facts these two cloths have in common. First, both cloths contain a rare blood type, AB+, which only 5% of the world’s population has. If as some claim, these cloths are forgeries, the odds that these ancient cloths would both have such a rare blood type before blood types were discovered, is a quarter of one percent (5% times 5%)!

Furthermore, scientists have superimposed the blood stains from the Sudarium onto the face of the Holy Shroud and made a startling revelation. There are twenty points of correlation found from the blood stains appearing on the two cloths. In any court of law in the world to submit corroborating physical evidence into court there must be 8 to 10 points of correlation between the pieces of evidence, the Shroud and Sudarium have 20!

Secondly, both cloths contain two types of blood, pure blood and blood mixed with a watery substance. Moreover, the blood mixed with a watery substance was in identical locations around his nose and mouth on both cloths. This blood mixed with water was seen, by eyewitnesses, when the soldier pierced the side of Jesus with a lance and blood and water flowed out (Jn 19:34). This results from what the medical profession refers to as pericardial effusion. A condition where a person has lost a significant amount of blood and suffers hypovolemic shock that causes fluid to gather in a sack around the heart and lungs.

But how did this blood mixed with a watery substance come out his nose and mouth, and how was it found on both cloths? One plausible explanation to the first part of this question has to do with the manner in which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus removed Christ’s body from the cross. If he were removed while the cross remained erect, one of the two would have draped Christ’s body over his shoulder while on a ladder. And if his nose and mouth were below his heart, which would presumably have been the case, to balance the weight of his body, any remaining blood mixed with a watery substance would have been excreted out of his nose and mouth and onto the Sudarium.

Now for the second part of that question. How did this blood mixed with a watery substance end up on both cloths? I’ve given you a plausible explanation for its appearance on the Sudarium but what about the Shroud? Again, one must make a reasonable supposition here. We know that Good Friday was the Jewish preparation day (Jn 19:42) and that the daylight remaining when Jesus died would have been, in all likelihood, no more than three hours. Jews had to be in their homes by sunset for the Sabbath.

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus would have first gone to Pilate to request the body, and Pilate presumably would have required verification of Jesus’ death before granting their request. Once approval was obtained, they would have required the tools necessary to remove the nails securing Jesus’ body to the cross. Then they would have had the difficult task of removing the nails, that pierced his hands and feet while avoiding further trauma to his body. Then they would have carried his body to the tomb that was nearby, removed the Sudarium from his head, and hastily wrapped his body in the Shroud. Then they would have had to roll the stone in place to secure the tomb. Lastly, they would have returned to their homes by sundown.

That is a lot of activity in a very short period of time. Hence, no time for washing his body. This point is borne out by a passage from Mark’s Gospel, “when after the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that might go and anoint him” (Mk 16:1). This would explain why remnants of the blood mixed with a watery substance is found on the Shroud of Turin as well as the Sudarium of Oviedo.

The third and final piece of commonality between the two cloths is, that they both have pollens on them that went extinct in the first century, and these pollens only had a common habitat within a thirty-mile radius around Jerusalem! Now if these ancient clothes are forgeries how does one explain this?

And now to my last point concerning the miraculous image on the Shroud, scientists have recently determined that the energy required to imprint the image of Christ’s crucified body onto the Shroud would be equal to all the electrical power generation that exists in the world today. Imagine that!

Well, there you have it. Seven strong arguments in support of the historical reality of the resurrection of Christ from the dead! They include written eyewitness testimony; twelve Old Testament prophecies, concerning the Messiah’s resurrection from the dead, written hundreds of years before Christ’s incarnation; the behavioral change in the Apostles from before and after the resurrection; that Roman legionnaires would not have fallen asleep while posting sentry duty at the tomb knowing the penalty of doing so; that no known burial site of Jesus exists other than the empty tomb; the passage of time; and lastly the physical evidence from the two cloths found in the tomb after the resurrection that corroborate one another and that the Shroud bears the image of the scourged and crucified body of Christ!

I began this article by saying that, in the present hour, Christianity is under attack. This attack, while multi-pronged, focuses considerable energy on undermining the historical reality of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. The attack is insidious, as the average person doesn’t recognize the extent of the attack on our faith. Frequently, they humanize Jesus’ miracles, at other times they suggest that Jesus had intimate sexual relationships. It was hard for me to type that, but a number of movies have been made over the last several decades suggesting it, as though it were true, with absolutely no evidence to back up their vile insinuation. All done to humanize Jesus so as to deny his Divinity. With no Divinity, there is no resurrection and hence no redemption! So central is the resurrection of Christ as an article of our faith that undermining it weakens the entire structure of the Church.

It’s said that knowledge is power. May the knowledge, of these seven arguments in support of the historical resurrection of Christ, help to empower you to evangelize those whose faith is wanting with respect to the resurrection of Christ. After all, as our beloved late great pope said, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth, and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth”! May these words echo in our hearts and minds in search of God’s truth! And may we receive the grace to defend our faith when called upon to do so!