(Newswire.net — April 16, 2014) Colorado Springs, CO —
Every Easter Christians celebrate the main miracle of their faith, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, for teenager Bailey Packard it went deeper. “If what I believe in is really true, then there should be some historical evidence to back it up.”
To look for evidence, she went to where any teen would go, the Internet. Bailey was determined to prove Easter was more than bunnies, colored eggs, and a church service. She discovered new evidence on the web that was not in Sunday School…something called, “The Shroud of Turin“.
The Shroud of Turin is a very old piece of linen cloth that is 14 ½ ft long by 3 ½ ft wide. Many experts claim it is the most studied and controversial artifact in human history. The Shroud is an ancient burial cloth bearing a dramatic and gruesome picture of Jesus after his crucifixion. The Shroud has only been on display 5 times in the last 100 years. But the faithful and skeptics alike can see the Shroud in Turin, Italy, in 2015.
After careful study, Bailey believes that The Shroud of Turin is the most compelling piece of physical evidence that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. And she wants her generation to know about it.
Bailey said, “While The Shroud is well known among Catholics, I grew up as an Evangelical Christian and I’d never heard of the Shroud before. I was definitely a skeptic at first, but as I began to do the research, I realized this thing was for real. I saw evidence not only for the validity of the bible, but for the resurrection of Jesus as well.”
In 2010 Time Magazine named the Shroud of Turin the No. 1 Religious relic of all time. Scientific and religious debate about the Shroud heated up about 100 years ago when the first actual photographs of the Shroud were taken by Italian photographer Segundo Pia. The Pia photographs were remarkable because they revealed for the first time that the image on the cloth was actually a negative image. How could a negative image have been produced on a cloth before the invention of photography?
Bailey says her generation needs more than the religious traditions of their parents to strengthen their faith. She wants to share the new Shroud evidence with her friends.
There are volumes of articles written on the Shroud, and many good Shroud videos on Youtube. But Bailey says she could not find any video produced for her generation. so she decided to make one. In the video the Shroud evidence is compared to the Biblical passages about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
“As a teenager, I wanted to tell the story from our perspective but I needed some help.
So I worked with my dad, who is an award winning video producer, and a Shroud expert named Barrie Schwortz.”
Mr. Schwortz was a Shroud photographer for the STURP project. STURP scientists performed a set of experiments and analyses on the Shroud of Turin during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Bailey offered one example from the video. “The Biblical account clearly describes Jesus as being flogged by Roman soldiers. We’ve all seen it depicted in movies. Is there any evidence of flogging on the Shroud? Dr. Robert Bucklin has examined over 20,000 corpses in his work as a Forensic Pathologist. He states that, “Chronologically, the whip like injuries to the back would have occurred earlier than other injuries which the pathologist has found. The individual would have been upright and with his arms above his head at the time the whipping occurred since no whip marks are found on the upper extremities.”
Skeptics and believers have argued for decades about whether actual bloodstains on the Shroud are real. After actual testing of the cloth during the STURP examinations, Scientists documented actual blood and bilirubin stains that match the Biblical accounts.
Bailey reports, “The Shroud is a place where science, faith, and history collide in a beautiful way. Even with technology available today, there is no known way to reproduce the image on the Shroud with all it’s attributes. With all other options proven wrong, what are you left with?”
The latest Shroud experiments suggest some sort of intense radiation, like an X-ray from within may have caused the Shroud image. Italian scientists presented their findings at a Shroud conference in 2008. They stated: “The total UV radiation power required to color a linen surface corresponding to a human body is impressive, and cannot be delivered by any UV laser built to date. “
Historically, paintings of the face of Jesus on the Shroud can be found well before the 9th century. These conflict with carbon dating results done in 1988. Those tests led many to claim the Shroud was a forgery from the 12th or 13 century. Since then, the work of Microbiologist Garza Valdes and the statements of others, including Dr. Harry Gove, inventor of modern Carbon Dating all point to the potential contamination of 1988 Carbon dating samples.
Bailey says, “Discussion over the carbon dating tests are just one aspect of this mystery. If you are going to call it a fake then demonstrate how it was done.”
Bailey has put together her own resurrection website and Facebook page where her video about the Shroud is featured. She wants teens everywhere to see evidence for the resurrection and offer their opinions.
Coincidently, Pope Francis came out with his own Shroud video shortly afterwards. Bailey doesn’t think the two are connected but with the Internet, you never know she says.