- Part 2 -
Performers of a secret plan
“Suppose,” says the prosecutor, “that the whole operation was planned in advance. Joseph takes Nicodemus as accomplices. He takes the body to a cave, embalms it, wraps it in a shroud. This is seen by unsuspecting women. Then he escorts them, but does not close the door. Because he intends to return to the coffin for the purpose of kidnapping.
- Why such difficulties? - I wonder. - Joseph and Nicodemus could immediately hide the body in a secluded place.
“We couldn't,” the prosecutor argues. - Everyone knew that it was Joseph, with the permission of Pontius Pilate, who undertook to bury Jesus. Joseph would have been immediately accused of kidnapping. Moreover, what kind of resurrection could later be discussed if it became known that the body was not in the coffin? No, it was necessary to bury it. And with witnesses.
The next step is to steal the body. But in such a way as to divert suspicion from oneself. You need an alibi. The accomplices go to the Jews. Joseph is put into prison. Nicodemus remains in plain sight. Then - on Saturday - someone secretly releases the prisoner. He returns to the cave and alone carries the body to another place.
- Why didn't you close the door? I ask.
“I could just not have time, noticing that the guards were approaching the tomb,” the prosecutor replies. - Overlaps happen even in well-planned operations.
Customers of the abduction
Blessed Theophylact believed that the burial tissue, impregnated with aromatic resins, should have retained the shape of the body, even if the body itself was no longer under it.
Sly … But here's the question: didn't the people who came to seal the coffin check if the body was in place? The answer can be found in the blessed Theophylact, who lived in Constantinople at the turn of the 11th - 12th centuries and was famous for his interpretations of Holy Scripture. In his opinion, the shroud, impregnated with burial ointments of myrrh and aloe, retained the shape of the body even if there was no body under it.
In other words, by the time Joseph returned to the coffin, the aromatic compounds might have already dried up and the tissue might have hardened. The body had already been taken out of it, and a kind of voluminous cocoon remained in the cave. That also misled the members of the "delegation" who arrived at the cave later.
“On the other hand,” says the prosecutor, “it is possible that there were conspirators among them who confirmed the presence of the body. Joseph and Nicodemus could be assigned the roles of performers. And the customers, it seems, were the high priests, most likely Anna and Caiaphas and, possibly, Pontius Pilate, who joined them. It is unlikely that anyone else, besides them, would have been able to secretly release Joseph from the dungeon, and then act out extreme amazement and convince the others that he had disappeared.
Promotional video:
Priests' Conspiracy The version is really unexpected. It follows from it that Jesus - a wise preacher, healer, Teacher, but a man, not God - was killed on purpose in order to then play a hoax with his resurrection. In fact, they were sacrificed for the sake of some "high" goal. Nonsense.
“Well, if they started to rave,” the prosecutor continues, “why not assume that by that time a split had ripened in the Jewish leadership. After all, debauchery and complete disregard for morality and ethics reigned in society around. Some might have decided that a new "ideology" was needed. And for her - a miracle with the resurrection. Here are some representatives of the ruling caste of priests and conspired. And a hoax.
By the way, something similar is found in modern politics. Recall that the split in the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee eventually led to Gorbachev's perestroika. And after the dubious Janayev putsch, in which many also suspect a hoax, the political structure of Russia has completely changed.
From that day on they decided to kill him
Here Dan Brown would hint that there is a secret society that keeps the secret of Jesus' death. And he hides from everyone an ancient parchment with the minutes of the meeting of the conspirators found in some Qumran cave. And with an exact indication of the place where Jesus is actually buried. I will not lie. There is no such document. In any case, with us. But there are strange words of Caiaphas, quoted in the Gospel of John: “… he predicted that Jesus would die for the people, and not only for the people, but so that he would gather the scattered children of God together. From that day on, they decided to kill him … "And Pontius Pilate, according to the testimony of Nicodemus, generally wrote a letter to the Roman emperor Tiberius, in which, in fact, he confirmed the miracle of Jesus' resurrection from the dead:" … and they buried Him dead, and sent the guard to guard His tomb … And although His tomb was sealed,on the third day He was resurrected from the grave …”At the end, Pilate emphasized, they say, if someone lies, that this did not happen, then one should not believe. - Nevertheless, - says the prosecutor, - I do not pretend to be true at all. I just built a logical chain. And I tried to link it with possible motivations. In addition, we relied on all the evidence in the "case". Not knowing which ones are known to be false. However, here we are saying goodbye to the prosecutor. Because further amazing events that unfolded on Sunday - on that very third day - will require the help of not lawyers, but rather ufologists. And I tried to link it with possible motivations. In addition, we relied on all the evidence in the "case". Not knowing which ones are known to be false. However, here we are saying goodbye to the prosecutor. Because further amazing events that unfolded on Sunday - on that very third day - will require the help of not lawyers, but rather ufologists. And I tried to link it with possible motivations. In addition, we relied on all the evidence in the "case". Not knowing which ones are known to be false. However, here we are saying goodbye to the prosecutor. Because further amazing events that unfolded on Sunday - on that very third day - will require the help of not lawyers, but rather ufologists.
BTW
The third day
Why was the resurrection scheduled for the third day? Critics of Christianity see this as "rigging." In Judea, it was customary to open the coffin and see if the buried person really died. They came just on the third day, when signs of decay were already noticeable. At the same time, additional embalming was carried out. They might not have come on another day. And there would be no one to witness the miracle of the resurrection.
HISTORICAL REFERENCE
Who are Joseph and Nicodemus?
Unlike the apostles - mostly ordinary fishermen - Joseph and Nicodemus were rich and noble people. Both were members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the very council that sentenced Jesus to death. That is, they were representatives of the elite - the ruling religious and political organization. Joseph was considered a secret disciple of Jesus. He was friends with Pontius Pilate. Nicodemus was not among the students at all. But he secretly came to Jesus at night and inquired in detail about his teaching.
The Apostles - The First Journalists
The apostles Matthew, Mark, John and Luke themselves did not see what was happening at the tomb. They only retold what they had heard somewhere. Like journalists. Like the current ones, who write about all sorts of miracles from the words of eyewitnesses. For example, about aliens emerging from "flying saucers". It happens that there are several eyewitnesses. And the journalist is not alone. Then wonderful stories can appear in different editions and with different details.
It may be a sin to compare with our brethren of the apostles. However, the analogy is visible. And later it was their chosen "reports" that entered the Bible. And, in fact, the majority of theologians explain the discrepancies encountered in it. Like, this is not a reason for doubt. On the contrary, this is proof of the sincerity of the "reporters": no one invented anything, just everyone wrote down what they considered important. And so, as he himself understood. But from whom did you find out?
Demons beguiled
John mentions the only eyewitness - Mary Magdalene. Who "comes to the coffin early, when it was still dark, and sees that the stone has been rolled away from the coffin."
Matthew, Mark, and Luke work together to bring the number of women eyewitnesses to four.
And only Matthew remembers about the guards at the tomb, but somehow in passing: "the guards came in awe and became like the dead."
Many centuries later, John's “reportage” and the lines torn from Mark about the fact that Jesus expelled seven demons from Mary Magdalene became the basis for a critical version: they say, the woman suffered from some kind of mental disorder, burdened with hallucinations. What is there to be surprised at? Some ten years ago, those who saw UFOs were considered psychos. Especially alone. Although if the observations were massive, then psychosis was also called massive. But it was hard to believe in this - less than in the UFO itself.
Witnesses and eyewitnesses
According to John, events developed as follows. Mary Magdalene, noticing the rolled away stone, immediately runs after the apostles. Then with Peter and someone else unnamed - back. They see an empty tomb and "some sheets lying" (the shroud, which retained the shape of the human body). The surprised apostles leave, but Mary remains. And, crying, looks into the cave. Let me remind you that it was dark outside, and even more so inside. However, the woman sees "two Angels sitting in a white robe, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the Body of Jesus lay." They seemed to emit a kind of radiance.
Luke reports that three women entered the coffin without running after anyone. And there "… suddenly appeared before them two husbands in shining clothes …"
Mark says that the women were horrified when they saw only one young man in the cave. And Matthew - about the fact that “… there was a great earthquake: for the Angel of the Lord, who came down from heaven, came rolling a stone from the door of the tomb and sat on it; His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes are white as snow …"
Even if this whole story is a hoax, then why was it necessary to introduce angels and shining youths into it? Explicit brute force. It was quite possible to get by with the appearance of the resurrected Jesus, who, according to John, appeared before Mary Magdalene after the angels.
What if eyewitnesses really observed some mysterious creatures?
German painter Matthias Grunewald (1475-1528) read the Bible poorly. With him, Jesus is resurrected from a tomb in the form of a box, which was covered with a lid on top. That is, not all old paintings can be trusted.
Three came out of the tomb
To the authors of the apocryphal Gospels, Nicodemus and Peter, information seems to have come from the "military" - the guards who then guarded the coffin.
Nicodemus from the words of a certain soldier: "… the earth trembled, and we saw that the angel of God rolled away the gravestone and sat on it, and his appearance was like lightning, and his vestments were like snow, and from fear of him we were like the dead …" At Peter's, the warriors “… saw how the heavens opened and two men who came down from there, radiated radiance and approached the tomb. The stone that had been rolled against the door, having fallen off by itself, moved aside, and the tomb was opened, and both young men entered."
Then Peter reports: three have already left the tomb. The guards saw “… two people supporting one, and a cross following them. And the heads of two reached the sky, and the one who was led by the hand had a head above the sky."
These are aliens
Theologians believe that Peter clearly boasted about head to heaven. Ufologists have a different opinion. They know how to interpret these words. They say that the observers saw energy beams that reached down to those who left the cave. With the help of such rays, aliens move objects, take people, and each other on their spacecraft. Nowadays, contactees who have allegedly been on "flying saucers" tell about such miracles.
“For the first time, the version that Jesus himself was an alien,” says the famous St. Petersburg ufologist German Mikhailov, “was put forward by our philologist Vyacheslav Zaitsev back in 1967. Then they fell in hundreds. And they differed only in the plots in which Jesus was assigned roles from the messenger of the Supreme mind of the Universe to the ship's doctor. The essence is the same: all the miracles were performed by aliens. And you never know what they are much? Probably, they know how to resurrect. And they own some kind of teleportation.
- And how to explain that the resurrected Jesus was sometimes recognized, then not recognized, he appeared, then disappeared, passed through the walls? - I am interested. - And these strange words addressed to Mary Magdalene, when she wanted to touch him: "… do not touch Me, for I have not yet ascended to My father …"
“Some of my colleagues will easily explain that it was not Jesus himself who appeared, but his holographic image, which was broadcast from the alien ship,” says Herman. - Perhaps with interference. But personally, I strongly doubt the extraterrestrial origin of Jesus.
These are not aliens
“It is known that seismic processes sometimes generate unusual glow in the atmosphere - flashes, fireballs, shining clouds,” says geophysicist Andrey Brazhnikov. - In a word, UFO. And those, in turn, generate very strong electromagnetic radiation. And they affect the temporal lobes of the brain. At the same time, as the experiments of neurophysiologists show, people sense someone's presence, hear voices, see ghosts. These hallucinations are so intense that they seem completely real. Like waking dreams. Such phenomena were recently investigated by Kenneth Ring, a professor of psychology in the United States. And he explained to them why some "eyewitnesses" say with full confidence that they had seen aliens or had been on "flying saucers". They are not crazy - they just fell under the radiation of UFO flashes.
Luminous objects, the scientist continues, can appear both before and after tremors. And most often - near faults in the earth's crust, quarries and caves. And now let us remember the words from the Gospel of Matthew: "there was a great earthquake." And suppose: "luminous youths" and angels near the cave and inside were seen as a result of exposure to electromagnetic radiation caused by seismic processes.
The Mystery of the Burial Cloth
There are plenty of versions, of course. You can fence any, relying only on the words once said and written down by someone. In fact, there is also a material evidence - the same shroud that was wrapped around the dead body of Jesus. And now there is no more mysterious subject on Earth than her. After all, even physicists are sure that this linen fabric still retains traces of some supernatural effect.
SCANDAL DOCUMENT
What Hormisius saw
In 1993, the Russkiy Vestnik magazine, published in New York, published fragments of the so-called Beletskiy report. How he got to the United States is unknown. But there is a legend that at the end of the 50s of the last century Academician Alexander Ivanovich Beletsky (1884 - 1961) was summoned to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. And in order to strengthen anti-religious propaganda, they instructed him to prove that Jesus did not rise again. It turned out quite the opposite.
The scientist studied the "Dead Sea Manuscripts" - manuscripts discovered (since 1947) in the caves of Qumran. And among these documents, dating back to the 1st - 2nd centuries AD, he allegedly found the story of a certain Gormisius, the official biographer of the rulers of Judea, who, early Sunday morning, on his own initiative, went to the grave of Jesus.
And this is what he observed there: “… suddenly it became very light. We could not understand where this light came from, but soon we saw that it was coming from a shining cloud moving from above. It went down to the coffin, and above the ground a man appeared there, as if all composed of light. Then there was like a thunderclap, but not in heaven, but on earth. From this, the guard who was at the coffin jumped up in horror, and then fell. At this time, a woman was coming down the path to the coffin to the right of us, she suddenly shouted: “It's opened! Opened! - and at the same moment it became clear to us that a really very large stone lying on the coffin, as if by itself, rose and opened the coffin. We were very scared. Then, after a while, the light above the coffin disappeared, and everything became as usual. When, after all this, we approached the coffin, it turned out that there was no longer the body of the person buried in it”.
Atheists consider all this to be a fake, impudently attributed to Beletsky. But no arguments, except emotional ones, are given. Church periodicals publish the "testimonies of Gormisy" with might and main. What makes ufologists happy. In the "shining cloud moving from above," they finally recognized the "flying saucer", which was so lacking for the alien versions.
BTW
Believed in aliens and hanged themselves
Imagining Jesus as an alien isn't all that harmless. Americans Marshall Applewhite and his girlfriend Bonnie Nettles organized the Heaven's Gate sect. They preached that Jesus was an alien sent to Earth in a UFO to collect as many souls as possible and give them new bodies. But to get them, you have to die. Then, three days later, God first raises the dead to Himself on a shining cloud, and then resurrects them in a new guise. As a result, in March 1997, 38 believers put plastic bags on their heads. All died of suffocation. Police found their bodies three days later.
In the Italian city of Turin, in the Cathedral of John the Baptist, there is an impenetrable sarcophagus filled with argon. It contains a linen cloth 437 centimeters long and 111 centimeters wide. Allegedly, the same - the funeral in which the dead Jesus was wrapped. On the tissue - blood and the imprint of the human body. His? "And whose else ?!" - say researchers who find traces of some kind of supernatural effect on the fibers.
"All of this is drawn to support the myth of the resurrection of Jesus," - say skeptics. An expensive funeralWe only know about the burial cloth of Jesus that Joseph bought and brought it - “a rich man from Arimathea”. In the canonical and apocryphal Gospels, fabric is mentioned in different ways - shroud, shroud, shroud. But the essence is the same: the body was wrapped in something. That canvas from the Cathedral in Turin, now called the Turin Shroud, fits in size. Woven using Middle Eastern technology - “ribbed” - on a machine. The threads are linen, which were spun by hand. Archaeologists and garment makers assure: the fabric is expensive, imported - most likely, Syrian. According to some estimates, its cut cost Joseph the equivalent of almost a kilogram of gold. By the way, during recent excavations in Israel, a canvas was found, about which it is precisely known that it belongs to the 1st century AD. The fabric is one to one like the Turin Shroud. Medieval icon
Those who believe in the authenticity of the Turin Shroud call themselves sindonologists from the word sindon - shroud in Greek. And they received the most painful blow in 1988. Then the Vatican allowed to determine the age of the tissue by radiocarbon dating. A piece of a few square centimeters was cut off from it. They were divided into three parts and sent to specialists - to the geophysics laboratory of the University of Arizona (USA), to the joint laboratory of archeology and art history at the University of Oxford and the British Museum (Great Britain), to the Institute of Physics in Zurich (Switzerland). At the same time, samples were taken from spots on the fabric - presumably bloody.
The method of radiocarbon dating is based on determining the amount of the radioactive isotope carbon C-14. The smaller it is, the older the sample.
As a result, scientists determined the age of the Turin Shroud (with an error of plus or minus 30 years): Arizona - 684 years, Oxford - 788, Zurich - 714 years. It turned out that Jesus could not be wrapped in it. And the shroud itself is not a material evidence of the resurrection, but a kind of icon.
The shrine was saved by the Russians
The shrine was actually "saved" by Russian scientists from the Sedov laboratory of biopolymers. Dmitry Kuznetsov and Andrey Ivanov proved that linen fabric, when heated strongly in smoke, absorbs "extra" carbon, which seems to rejuvenate it.
“Carbon,” says Kuznetsov, “could have been added by the fire that the shroud survived in 1532, while at that time in the monastery church of the French city of Chambéry. And almost burned out.
Russian scientists conducted model experiments, in which specialists from the Higher Engineering and Technical School in Moscow and their colleagues from France participated. They helped replicate the conditions of the Chambery fire exactly. And ethnographic museums in Italy and Uzbekistan provided samples of ancient linen fabrics from a thousand to two thousand years old. Under the influence of model fires, the content of carbon isotopes increased in them. And the more, the older the fabric was.
The researchers recalculated the dating results, taking into account the amendment. The age of the Turin shroud was close to two thousand years. It turns out that it is genuine? And on the fabric - not drawings, but still traces?
Traces of torture
The image on the fabric is also distinguishable with the naked eye, like the figure of a naked person, as if imprinted from the front and from the back. But it is more noticeable in photographs taken at different times. Especially with the help of methods used by forensic scientists - shooting in infrared, ultraviolet rays, polarized light. One can see, according to Professor Carleton Kuhn, the features of the face "belonging to the Semitic type." A small beard, mustache, hair, individual strands of which are braided in pigtails, are noticeable. And here's another thing - the left eye is slightly open. Strange for an "icon"?
The face is all beaten. According to doctors, the blows were inflicted with a stick about 5 centimeters thick. Wounds on the back, forearms and legs. Of these, 98 are very characteristic. The researchers checked: these are the ones that leave the flagrooms - ancient whips with strips of hard leather, to which metal pins are tied.
There are multiple - 30 - punctures on her head, as if she were wearing something prickly with long sharp spines. And under the heart - a slot in the form of a narrow oval measuring 44 by 11 millimeters. It looks like from the wide blade of a spear.
Four nails
In the Middle Ages, to which, as skeptics assure the Turin Shroud, it was customary to depict Jesus crucified on the cross with his hands nailed to the crossbar through the palms. And with his feet pierced with one nail. On the fabric, something completely different was printed.
There are two wounds on the left leg - one on the ankle, the other on the foot. And the right foot is punctured in one place. In other words, at first the left leg was nailed to the vertical beam with one nail. Then the right foot was pressed against it, into which the second nail was driven. He passed through his left foot. Anatomists believe that only such an arrangement of the nails prolonged the torment of the victim, allowing him to lean on them.
A through wound is also noticeable on the left arm. It was left with a sharp object of a small - 8 square centimeters - section. But not on the palm, but on the wrist. The right hand is not visible - it is covered.
French surgeon Barbet proved that it is pointless to drive nails into the palms of your hands. Under the weight of the body, they will be torn apart. Only in the area of the wrists there are special gaps between the bones, allowing you to hang. And recently, during excavations in Israel, the skeleton of an executed on the cross was found around the 1st century. With similarly punctured wrists and feet.
In short, the Sindonologists make an unambiguous conclusion: the totality of the injuries found on the body print corresponds to the torture and torment of Jesus described in the Gospels. Hence, his imprint. And blood too.
God has blood group IV
American chemist Walter McCron found iron in stains on tissue. Which, in his opinion, was part of the medieval paint. Like, she painted blood. But such skeptics are few. There are hundreds of Sindonologists. They unanimously state that iron is part of hemoglobin. Moreover, they refer to numerous researchers who have examined red blood cells in the spots. That is, real human blood. Even its group, IV (AB), was allegedly identified.
“In addition to blood, traces of fluid released from traumatic wounds were found on the Turin Shroud,” says the famous American chemist and syndonologist Alan Adler. - This is ichor, or plasma. The fact that such a liquid exists in general, doctors became aware only in the twentieth century. Even the most skilled hoaxer could not have known that these marks should be applied to the fabric. She was in contact with a real body. And no more than 3 days.
But where did it - the body - disappear on the third day?
“It dematerialized,” says Tadeusz Trenn, professor at the University of Toronto, M. Sc. - The image imprinted on the fabric gives reason to assume this.
HISTORICAL SUMMARY
How the cloth got to Turin
It seems that there are documents from more than a thousand years ago, in which Jesus' burial canvas is mentioned. It follows from them that it was kept in Constantinople. But it was captured during the Crusades. The very first indisputable evidence of the canvas is dated 1357. Allegedly, the owner was the knight Joffrey de Charny, who lent the relic to the parish of the French town of Lirey to be shown to people. In 1453, Geoffrey's granddaughter Margaret sold the canvas to the Duke Louis of Savoy, who kept it in the temple in Chambéry. There, in 1532, it was badly damaged in a fire. In 1578, Louis's descendants transported the canvas to the new capital of the Duchy of Savoy in Turin. And they gave it to the church.
Passion of Christ It is
not easy to look at the image on the shroud - it is not a picture. But the face, hands and general outlines of the body of Christ are clearly visible.
First century negative
“How the image appeared is generally known,” says Alexander BELYAKOV, a former physicist, employee of the Radio Engineering Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and now the head of the Russian center of the Turin Shroud at the Sretensky Monastery. - The image is "applied" by the fibers of the fabric, in which the thinnest surface layer is charred. The mystery lies elsewhere - from what happened? What charred the fibers? Or, in scientific terms, caused their dehydration - darkening. And with photographic accuracy conveyed the smallest anatomical details. After all, the fabric, in fact, “worked” as if a photographic film.
Mysticism was discovered back in 1898, when the Turin Shroud was put on display. And the Italian amateur photographer Secondo Pia was allowed to take the picture. He did two. One photographic plate measuring 50 by 60 centimeters turned out to be illuminated for some reason. The second was developed on the night of May 28.
“I saw the face of God,” Secondo later wrote. The manifested image was not only much more contrasting. On the photographic plate, he looked like a natural shot. And not negative, as it should be. In other words, the image itself on the fabric was the negative. With this mysterious fact, which shocked many scientists, serious studies of the Shroud began.
Sweat of death
“They have been trying to solve the riddle of the image, which is still distinguishable even without a photo, for many centuries,” says Alexander Vasilyevich. - Back in the tenth century, Archdeacon Gregory from the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople suggested that the image arose "because of the perspiration of death on the face of the Savior." The hypothesis has been repeatedly tested in our time. They smeared statues and even corpses with sweat, rubbed them with embalming compounds, wrapped them in linen. They received prints, but they were so rough that they could not be compared with the shroud.
The sweat idea was quickly rejected. But assumptions that there is not a print on the fabric, but a picture of an unknown forger, are still widespread.
For example, American researcher Joe Nickel claims that the fabric darkened from the acid contained in medieval paints. Like, the forger drew an image with them. Subsequently, the "picture" crumbled, but the acid managed to be absorbed into the fibers and cause their dehydration.
- The paint could not disappear without a trace, - Alexander Belyakov comments. - And there are not even microscopic particles on the tissue. There is blood, but no paint. And it’s not a picture in its essence.
The body was given volume
John Jackson, an expert in laser optics, a physicist from the US Air Force Academy and head of the Turin Shroud International Research Center, compared the "painting" on the canvas with other works of art. For this I used NASA technology, with the help of which a computer converts flat images into three-dimensional ones. I started with photographs. They became "sculptures" with the correct proportions. But when I turned to painting, it turned out not people, but monsters. By gaining volume, human bodies became ugly. In other words, all the examined artists, including the genius “anatomist” Leonardo da Vinci, even when drawing from life, involuntarily distorted proportions. And the computer caught it.
Finally, volume was added to the body, imprinted on the shroud. The computer drew a sculpture that was free of distortion. Drawn as if from a photograph.
“Jackson discovered another amazing feature,” says Belyakov. - The density of the image depends on the distance between the fabric and the body that it covered. The color intensity is higher where the fabric was closer. As if some radiation scorched her. But not voluminous, going in all directions. And directed upward - vertically.
And one more thing: those who defend the authenticity of the Turin Shroud have reason to assert that the body has disappeared from it, and was not taken out. Allegedly, evidence of this is traces of blood. They remained intact, although they should have dried and peeled off along with the body. And it itself, at the moment of disappearance, seemed to become weightless. In the image, the back muscles are not flattened …
After such discoveries, the hypotheses of quite serious scientists began to acquire a completely anomalous color.
Scorched by a miracle
Italian opticians, for example, have suggested that the body imprint may have originated from a corona discharge. It ignites in a powerful electric field that ionizes the atmosphere. That is, the body sparkled from something.
No, others say. It did not sparkle, but turned into plasma. And it went right through the fabric, slightly singing it. The point is in radiation, others believe, noticing that in some areas of the image … bones are visible through the skin. Therefore, the radiation could well have been X-rays.
Professor Kitty Little, a nuclear physicist from the UK, talks about nuclear reactions - decay, but suspects that there could be thermonuclear - fusion.
The German professor Eberhard Linder generally believes that complete annihilation of the atoms of the body took place. It was accompanied by the radiation of neutrons and electrons, the flows of which "painted" the shroud. The professor admits that annihilation occurs when matter meets antimatter. But where did the latter come from, he does not know.
And here is what a professor at the University of Toronto, physicist Tadeusz Trenn said in an interview on Canadian television, answering the question of what could have happened to the body of Jesus: “At some point it disappeared. Protons, neutrons in various excited states for a very short time interval - ten to the minus twentieth power of a second - were divided into pions, muons and electrons. They "hit the fabric" and produced a visible image.
It's up to the Vatican
- All hypotheses, - says Alexander Belyakov, - can be divided into four groups. An image is a painting. Or the result of direct body contact with tissue. Or a consequence of radiation. Or the transformation of the body into a kind of fiery clot. This is enough. The task is not to put forward new hypotheses, but to test the existing ones. Conduct additional research, model experiments. And then we can talk about the source of the power that left the image on the fabric.
The same Trenn, for example, is eager to carry out analyzes in the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. And look for traces of radiation exposure there. Our center would like to explore the Shroud itself - in its entirety. We believe that radioactive isotopes could have formed in it, and they could form some kind of invisible "radiation image" repeating the visible one. Others have extensive programs. It's up to the Vatican, which has not yet given permission for large-scale research activities.
So what is the strength?
It is easy to guess that there is no definite conclusion to date. As well as the answer to the question in the title. It remains only to believe. But to whom? Skeptics who are trying to prove that all the stories about the resurrection are fiction, and the shroud is a fake? But their arguments are not so convincing. And the enthusiastic scientists have not done very well either. Although the amazing and unexplained by science facts they cite testify in favor of a miracle. And they imply the intervention of higher powers.
Strange, but exactly the same vague doubts torment those who believe in abnormal phenomena - in UFOs, aliens, poltergeists, ghosts, in the Mind of the Universe, even in Bigfoot. Is this all there or not? Unknown - the truth is not given to hands. What if it is so specially arranged? So that humanity does not get bored. Brains did not stagnate, but always doubted in search of this or that faith. Maybe this is the power? In the possibility of choice.
UNEXPECTED TURN
Are you expecting the Antichrist?
Ten years ago, Victor Tryon, director of the Center for Advanced Genetic Technologies at the University of San Antonio in Texas (USA), announced that he had found human blood in the samples given to him by Dr. Leoncio García-Valdez (Italy), taken from the spots on the Turin Shroud. … And from it he isolated DNA molecules on which the legacy is written
- Part 2 -