The Michael Knowles Show - May 11, 2025


New EVIDENCE： Head Cloth of Jesus FOUND？ The Sudarium of Oviedo ｜ Michael & Pt. 2

Hosted by
Michael Knowles
Mentioned
Shroud Michael Doug Powell Hallow Gary Habermas Pilate Bruno Barberis Joan Vion Golgotha Lazarus Peter Jesus Christ Mel Gibson Doc Brown Crucified Jeremiah Basileus Hadrian Aramaic Sabbath and 4 more
Ep. 1732 - Pope Leo XIV Elected： Everything You Need to Know Ep. 1733 - Pope Leo XIV Keeps Looking Better and Better

Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

173.1

Word count

6,323

Sentence count

616

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

17

sentences flagged

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Shroud of Turin is one of the most famous burial artifacts of all time, and it's been around for over a thousand years. But some have long believed that the image on the Shroud is Christ's face. And if so, how did it get there? And why did it stay there for so long? This week on Conspiracy Theories, host Alex Blumberg and co-host Michael Hyatt take a look at the Shroud and try to make sense of the mystery behind it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 This Men's Mental Health Month, CAMH is confronting a silent crisis.
00:00:04.380 Do you know men account for 75% of all suicide deaths in Canada?
00:00:07.960 Many struggle alone, held back by stigma.
00:00:10.540 But there is hope.
00:00:11.740 CAMH is on the front lines pioneering breakthroughs
00:00:14.100 and expanding access to compassionate support.
00:00:16.600 Your donation fuels this vital work
00:00:18.540 so no father, son, brother, or family is left behind.
00:00:21.480 To join us in building better mental health care for men across Canada,
00:00:24.760 visit camh.ca slash support men.
00:00:27.040 That's C-A-M-H dot C-A slash support men.
00:00:30.740 This debunks the Carbon 14 dating.
00:00:33.540 This is a replica of the Sudarium of Oviedo.
00:00:36.960 Jesus dies at around 3 p.m. on the cross.
00:00:39.680 He's hanging there. He's dead.
00:00:41.380 That is when they wrap his face with the Sudarium.
00:00:44.880 It remains on his face until they bring the body in the tomb
00:00:48.580 where it is taken off and Jesus is wrapped with the shroud.
00:00:51.540 Or you already have your mind blown further, Michael.
00:00:53.580 The shroud is not the only burial relic of our Lord.
00:01:00.680 The other one, the other big one, is the Sudarium of Oviedo.
00:01:04.340 Yes.
00:01:04.740 And this is the head cloth.
00:01:06.760 But I remember reading that the Sudarium of Oviedo
00:01:10.160 does not actually go all the way back to the first century,
00:01:14.580 that actually it's just from the ninth century,
00:01:16.980 according to radiocarbon dating.
00:01:18.440 But what's a real rub for this claim
00:01:22.080 is that we have a definitive history of the Sudarium
00:01:26.000 going back to the sixth century.
00:01:28.160 Yes.
00:01:28.320 So we can actually just trace it in documents and in history.
00:01:32.340 So then you say, well, hold on.
00:01:33.820 If the radiocarbon dating was that wrong,
00:01:36.960 and we know with certainty at least until the sixth century,
00:01:41.340 then why do I believe the radiocarbon dating from the 80s,
00:01:44.200 especially when there were all of these other methodological problems with it?
00:01:47.300 Exactly.
00:01:48.040 And we've brought the Sudarium, a replica of it,
00:01:50.740 for your studio, for this program.
00:01:52.540 Oh, marvelous.
00:01:53.220 Can we not on set right now?
00:01:53.820 Absolutely.
00:01:54.720 Thanks to my friend Doug Powell.
00:01:56.480 It's coming right now.
00:01:57.480 Thanks to my good friend, scholar Doug Powell,
00:02:01.180 who has brought his replica for us.
00:02:03.800 This is a replica.
00:02:05.740 And I've never seen this until today, Michael.
00:02:08.220 This is a replica of the Sudarium of Oviedo.
00:02:11.760 And I want you to meet Doug Powell.
00:02:13.440 Doug, hey, how's it going?
00:02:14.520 Michael?
00:02:15.000 Nice to meet you.
00:02:15.440 Yes, you as well.
00:02:16.140 Thank you.
00:02:17.080 Wow, this is good.
00:02:18.040 Who else did you bring back?
00:02:18.920 Yes.
00:02:19.220 Do we have any other relics or anything back?
00:02:22.080 It's like a clown car of scholars.
00:02:23.760 That's right. 0.59
00:02:24.120 That's right.
00:02:24.580 I should have known, though,
00:02:25.680 that if one travels around with a full-scale replica of the Shroud of Turin,
00:02:31.520 probably he's going to be the kind of guy who has the Sudarium of Oviedo.
00:02:34.240 That's right.
00:02:34.660 That's right.
00:02:35.100 So, okay, this is supposed to be the headcloth.
00:02:38.280 My first question, when I even learned about the headcloth, which was kept separately from
00:02:46.300 the Shroud, and they kind of have made their ways all around the world, why would Christ's 0.97
00:02:53.000 face be on the Shroud?
00:02:54.760 Wouldn't it only be on the headcloth?
00:02:56.560 Isn't the fact that Christ's face is on the Shroud an argument against the Shroud?
00:03:01.580 It's not.
00:03:02.180 Doug, go right ahead.
00:03:03.620 Well, if you read John's account of the discovery of the Shroud, they also find the headcloth
00:03:11.940 in a separate place.
00:03:13.280 So there are other cloths than the burial cloth around Jesus.
00:03:18.860 And so the fact that there is a headcloth means there's another cloth, and the fact that
00:03:24.240 there's no face on it means that it wasn't in contact with whatever made the image on
00:03:30.060 the Shroud when the image got made.
00:03:31.800 And so it's separated at some point.
00:03:34.020 And this is what is believed to be that cloth.
00:03:37.040 And what I might add is, so when was the cloth wrapped around his face?
00:03:41.900 Jesus dies at around 3 p.m. on the cross.
00:03:44.820 He's hanging there.
00:03:45.720 He's dead. 0.82
00:03:47.000 Jewish sensitivities are such that even the blood that's dripping from the body would want 1.00
00:03:51.940 to be collected and not just out on the ground.
00:03:54.760 So that is when they wrap his face with the Sudarium, is when he's still on the cross, 0.97
00:04:01.660 coming down from the cross.
00:04:03.040 That remains on his face until they bring the body in the tomb where it is taken off
00:04:07.940 and Jesus is wrapped with the Shroud.
00:04:10.380 Does that make sense, the timing?
00:04:11.520 That does make sense.
00:04:12.860 I've never, I've just never figured it out.
00:04:16.660 That's never been presented to me before.
00:04:18.800 But yeah, I suppose that would make sense because then you would also say, well, hold
00:04:23.480 on, if it were just on the whole time or if it was just part of the wrapping, why isn't
00:04:27.880 there an image?
00:04:29.540 3D image like there is on the Shroud?
00:04:31.540 Why isn't there one on the Sudarium?
00:04:32.580 And Doug, I wonder if you would talk about the correspondence of the blood type.
00:04:35.900 Are you ready to have your mind blown further, Michael?
00:04:38.020 I am.
00:04:38.500 Okay, well, what you're looking at here is it's oriented so this particular stain, you
00:04:48.840 can see there's three areas of stains.
00:04:50.660 You have this one, this one, and this one.
00:04:51.980 This area right here was in direct contact with a face that matches exactly the face on
00:05:00.480 the Shroud.
00:05:00.960 It's a one-to-one correspondence.
00:05:03.440 And if you line up the nose, if you register the nose, then this kind of concentrated area
00:05:09.740 of blood is right around the mouth and the beard area.
00:05:13.560 And you can see how it kind of hooks around like the beard does.
00:05:17.200 And then this vertical area goes right down the bridge of the nose.
00:05:21.240 And this would be on the forehead right here.
00:05:24.560 This epsilon shape right here is the edge of this.
00:05:28.660 And then you can see this blood stain corresponds here.
00:05:31.500 And there are a number of other ones.
00:05:33.080 That one corresponds there.
00:05:35.100 And so if you do an overlay, like if you outline this and you put it right onto that, it's an
00:05:39.740 exact match in size, not just in size, but in blood type as well.
00:05:46.560 First of all, scientists have been able to recreate this stain right here by taking ahead
00:05:56.520 a glass head that is filled with blood mixed with pulmonary edema, which is the fluid that's
00:06:04.920 generated in the lungs during asphyxiation or other kind of torture or duress.
00:06:10.280 And that's the blood mixture that is on here.
00:06:13.900 And that's also the blood mixture that you see in different places on the Shroud, like
00:06:18.540 here.
00:06:18.920 It's six parts pulmonary edema to one part blood.
00:06:21.980 So that's what's coming out of the lungs.
00:06:23.580 And so that's what's coming out of his mouth, of the man who had the sudarium wrapped around
00:06:31.420 him.
00:06:32.120 So it matches like that.
00:06:33.260 It's also type AB, which is also the type on the Shroud.
00:06:36.760 It's also postmortem blood.
00:06:38.840 And type AB is the rarest blood type.
00:06:42.680 It's about three times more common in Mediterranean Jews than it is in Europeans.
00:06:48.620 The Eucharistic miracles.
00:06:50.080 Same.
00:06:50.400 The type is always AB.
00:06:51.780 AB.
00:06:52.360 Pretty amazing.
00:06:52.980 So the idea is that the sudarium was affixed to the back of the head here.
00:07:01.820 And if you look really close, you can see these holes where pins were put through to the hair.
00:07:09.740 There is a ponytail-shaped funnel right here of his hair.
00:07:14.340 And this is where it would have affixed to.
00:07:17.760 And this butterfly shape fits right onto the ponytail.
00:07:21.820 And then you can see these little pinpoints of blood wounds match this exactly.
00:07:31.080 And then it would wrap around the front.
00:07:33.160 So it gets around to the front and makes contact with the face.
00:07:36.620 But it's not wrapped all the way around the head because the face, scientists have figured out, is lulled forward and to the right like this.
00:07:44.880 So they can't get it all the way around when he's on the cross.
00:07:47.120 So they double it back, and that's what creates that stain.
00:07:51.180 So now it's folded back, and they have determined his head was in this position for about 45 minutes to an hour.
00:07:57.500 And then the body is taken down and laid face down with the feet slightly elevated, which causes the blood to go down and up the nose or down the nose and pull onto the forehead, which is what makes that.
00:08:10.680 And he's in that position for 45 minutes to an hour.
00:08:13.340 And so that gives enough time for Joseph of Arimathea to go get permission to bury the body.
00:08:18.360 And then the body is flipped face up for about five minutes.
00:08:21.660 And there are actually finger marks where somebody has reached over the back of the head to pinch the nose shut to hold the blood in.
00:08:30.340 And the body's in that position face up for about five minutes.
00:08:33.620 And so if you've ever been to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the space between Golgotha and the tomb is more than enough.
00:08:41.020 You know, you can cover that in 90 seconds.
00:08:44.760 And so that's where all the stains, that's how to make sense of the stains here.
00:08:49.580 So, okay, we know the Sudarium comes from at least the 6th century.
00:08:55.040 No one disputes that.
00:08:56.080 It's been in Oviedo, Spain since Oviedo was founded at the end of the 8th century.
00:09:01.540 And so it's been in the documentary evidence is that it enters Spain around 7-11 ahead of the Muslim invasion.
00:09:12.180 Where was it?
00:09:12.840 Do we know where it was before 7-11?
00:09:14.300 Well, the documentary evidence actually matches the pollen evidence.
00:09:21.100 And you'll get to the pollen evidence on the Shroud.
00:09:23.340 But there's pollen on both the Shroud and the Sudarium.
00:09:26.120 And the pollen on the Sudarium is from, so Oviedo is in the very northern part of Spain, kind of in the center of the coast, about 15 or 20 miles inland in the mountains of Asturias.
00:09:38.720 So there's pollen from around there.
00:09:40.540 There's pollen from around Toledo, right in the middle of Spain.
00:09:44.420 And then there's pollen from North Africa, probably the area around Alexandria, which is where the documentary evidence says it was after Jerusalem and before Spain.
00:09:54.680 And then there's pollen evidence from Jerusalem.
00:09:59.020 So all of this, at the very least, we would have to say, not only from knowing where it was in the church, but even beforehand, the pollen and the documentary evidence, that we're firmly in antiquity.
00:10:11.360 Oh, yeah.
00:10:11.760 And call it whatever, you know, whatever I've read, the 6th century.
00:10:14.220 Though, many people would say, no, no, it actually goes to the 1st century.
00:10:19.620 Right.
00:10:19.900 But I guess my point is, if we know for a fact that we can place this in antiquity, and the skeptics of the Shroud of Turin are arguing that it's a medieval forgery, then how do the images match perfectly?
00:10:35.520 Did some medieval forger know about the Sudarium, maybe, and then just, even if it were possible to create the image through artistic techniques, just manage to match it perfectly without anyone figuring it out?
00:10:51.480 That's the fascinating thing.
00:10:52.980 This may be the key in the case against the medieval dating of the Shroud.
00:11:01.240 The final piece of the puzzle is connecting these two things, because we know of the existence of this definitely 600 years before the earliest date within the radiocarbon dating.
00:11:13.740 So, once we show this correspondence, and it's, like I said, it's an exact match, that totally blows apart the idea that the Shroud was created 600 years later.
00:11:24.300 And, Michael, I want your audience to appreciate, I know of no other program that has a Shroud museum-quality licensed authentic replica along with the Sudarium that we're comparing right now that's going to live forever.
00:11:37.000 This is so helpful.
00:11:38.280 I wish when I began learning about the Shroud, I could have seen a video with two Shroud scholars comparing the two.
00:11:45.160 This debunks the carbon-14 dating.
00:11:48.660 Were you always Shroud-pilled, for lack of a better word?
00:11:53.380 No, I was always interested in it, but what I was unsure of was what the credible evidence was for it.
00:12:02.500 And I studied in a master's program under Gary Habermas, who's one of the leading experts in the historical evidence for the Resurrection.
00:12:11.040 And one day, he just went off talking about the Shroud, and he started listing all of these evidences that I've never heard before.
00:12:18.560 And so he became my guide into the credible evidence, and Jeremiah's a good friend of Dr. Habermas as well.
00:12:26.300 And so he was an early advocate for it.
00:12:29.460 In fact, one of the members of the STIRP team wrote two books with Dr. Habermas, who was not on the STIRP team,
00:12:37.500 as kind of the theological guide for understanding the scientific evidence.
00:12:42.920 So he goes all the way back to the STIRP team without being on it, and he's been in from the very beginning.
00:12:49.520 So he was an excellent guide.
00:12:50.900 I do find people who make really strong arguments, not all the time, but sometimes they started out as real skeptics.
00:13:00.500 Absolutely.
00:13:01.200 You know, and it kind of gives them a bit more zeal.
00:13:03.880 Doug, I'm sorry we don't have a chair for you, but in any case, thank you for coming on and joining us.
00:13:08.040 You're welcome.
00:13:08.580 Who else do you have back there?
00:13:09.720 I know.
00:13:11.640 Peter's going to come out next from the pearly gates.
00:13:13.860 Stay tuned until the end of the broadcast.
00:13:16.180 Right now, go to hallow.com slash Knowles.
00:13:18.760 Parents, let me tell you about something that can transform bedtime at your house.
00:13:23.700 Have your kids discovered Hallow's children's section yet?
00:13:28.060 Have they?
00:13:28.920 It is an incredible collection of faith-based content that your children can look forward to.
00:13:33.840 It captures their imagination while deepening their faith.
00:13:36.740 The Saints Alive series is a particular favorite.
00:13:39.280 It presents these amazing faith heroes in a dynamic, relatable kind of way so that your kids are inspired.
00:13:46.320 You can finally see that holiness is not some boring, unreachable concept out there in the ether.
00:13:51.220 It's something exciting that is good for them that they can aspire to have themselves.
00:13:56.560 Bedtime completely revolutionized thanks to Hallie's Bible Stories for Sleep. 0.72
00:14:01.520 The gentle narration paired with soothing music and scripture creates this peaceful atmosphere where they can drift off feeling loved, safe, and connected to God.
00:14:10.280 No more bedtime battles.
00:14:11.520 They're learning scripture while falling asleep.
00:14:13.400 It's a win-win.
00:14:14.160 It's so simple.
00:14:14.760 I love Hallow.
00:14:15.800 People come up to me out of the blue at different events, tell me how much they love Hallow.
00:14:20.100 And obviously, I've partnered with Hallow for years.
00:14:21.840 Right now, in a world of endless screen options, finding content that is engaging and faith-filled can be a real blessing for your family.
00:14:29.600 If you haven't given it a try yet, now is the time.
00:14:31.400 Go to Hallow.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S, for three months free.
00:14:35.080 The first thing that I want you to hold, this is very rare.
00:14:38.500 This is not a reproduction.
00:14:40.340 Don't let this get lost in your pocket.
00:14:43.060 This is the temple tax coin.
00:14:47.140 This is 14 grams.
00:14:48.720 This is a full shekel.
00:14:50.260 This would have paid for the temple tax for two.
00:14:52.220 The temple tax was a half shekel.
00:14:53.880 I want you to hold this.
00:14:55.180 That is Tyrian silver, my friend, dating from the time of Pontius Pilate.
00:15:00.740 In other words, that was in circulation from 26 to 36 A.D.
00:15:07.120 If you were a Jew or a God-fearer coming to Israel, and by the way, this program is airing at Passover. 0.70
00:15:14.640 Yeah.
00:15:15.340 So this could not be more relevant.
00:15:18.160 You had to change your currency into the temple tax, which was the Tyrian silver coin, 14 grams.
00:15:26.280 And Jesus has the whip.
00:15:28.440 He goes, and he sees the money changers.
00:15:31.260 And it's just like you and I, we would never change our money in the airport because the rates are always bad.
00:15:35.480 It was that times 100 at the southern steps of Jerusalem.
00:15:39.980 That right there, also, Judas has paid 30 of those.
00:15:46.560 This is it.
00:15:47.400 This is the coin.
00:15:48.280 That is the Tyrian silver coin.
00:15:50.920 Also, when Jesus performs a miracle, and he says, he tells Peter to catch a fish, and there is the temple tax in the fish's mouth.
00:15:58.080 It could have been that one.
00:16:01.380 That and my Torah scroll are the two most valuable artifacts that we have in our possession of our organization.
00:16:06.880 I wanted you to hold that because coins were the social media of the day, Michael.
00:16:12.880 This is where, if I have my triplets with me who are eight years old, and I'm trying to kind of answer your question about the artifacts, and this shows us that what the scriptures say matter.
00:16:22.780 It really did happen.
00:16:23.920 Had we been there that day, we would have seen them.
00:16:26.120 This is not just kind of make-believe.
00:16:27.540 Like the quotidian details of this coin.
00:16:30.760 Yes.
00:16:31.300 It's amazing how well-preserved it is.
00:16:33.220 I know.
00:16:33.720 That's what makes it exceedingly valuable as well.
00:16:36.580 I have nickels that aren't as well-preserved from like 2004.
00:16:39.960 And that's a full shekel at 14 grams.
00:16:42.820 And so if you go to the southern steps today, to the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, you can hold that in your hand and then imagine in your mind's eye what was happening during Passover that weekend,
00:16:52.640 and all of the factions and cultural fractions helping as well.
00:16:56.340 I have another coin.
00:16:58.380 Hold on to it.
00:16:59.320 Just keep it over there by you.
00:17:01.200 Now, in a hundred years, I can use this coin to prove the resurrection of Jesus from a location standpoint.
00:17:09.880 Okay.
00:17:10.360 The Holy Sepulcher Church, without a doubt, archaeologically speaking, is the place where the eticule is inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is the very spot where Jesus walked out of the tomb alive.
00:17:23.520 How do we know that?
00:17:24.400 Well, we need to thank Emperor Hadrian.
00:17:26.680 I want you to hold this bronze coin.
00:17:29.560 That's bronze.
00:17:30.380 That was silver, Tyrian silver.
00:17:31.840 This is bronze.
00:17:32.940 I can tell because it's got, you know, it's a little more around.
00:17:35.700 And this is also very well-preserved.
00:17:37.400 This, again, not a replica.
00:17:39.380 This is an actual from the second century bronze coin.
00:17:42.280 This is currency.
00:17:42.880 So, Michael, if we time traveled and we went back to the second century right now, it would be a whole different era.
00:17:48.480 And if we're in the city of Jerusalem, we would have to say, Michael, let's get the coins.
00:17:52.620 We've got to figure out who the God is.
00:17:54.020 What's this town even called?
00:17:55.380 Where are we?
00:17:56.280 So, the coins teach us so much.
00:17:58.560 Well, guess what?
00:17:59.220 Hadrian, because of his hatred of the Jews.
00:18:01.620 And he saw Christianity as just a Jewish sect. 0.73
00:18:04.340 He wipes out Israel during the Jewish uprisings. 0.96
00:18:08.180 Remember, there are three great Jewish revolts culminating, of course, in Bar Kokhba. 0.90
00:18:11.740 But prior to that, Hadrian, this is why I never use the word Palestine.
00:18:17.800 Palestine, which is a pejorative term against the Jews, was coined by Emperor Hadrian, no pun intended, and literally imprinted on that bronze coin as Aaliyah Kapitalina.
00:18:30.600 He raises Jerusalem to the ground. 0.99
00:18:33.460 He renames it Aaliyah Kapitalina, the city of Jupiter, rather than calling it Jerusalem.
00:18:39.860 He learns of this early venerated site of this dying, rising God that early Christians, who he thought were Jews, worshipped.
00:18:49.500 And what does he do?
00:18:50.580 He actually demolishes it.
00:18:52.300 He puts a temple to the god Venus in Jupiter at the site of Golgotha in the tomb of Christ of the resurrection, thereby preserving it for us.
00:19:01.360 Helene gets there 200 years later, Constantine's mom.
00:19:05.160 So, I can use one coin to prove the resurrection.
00:19:07.500 That's called being hoisted with your own petard, I think.
00:19:09.560 Yes, that's right.
00:19:09.700 When you accidentally preserve the site.
00:19:12.260 Because that's another one.
00:19:13.000 Unintended consequences.
00:19:14.800 I want you to hold the replica of the crucifixion nail, nine inches long.
00:19:19.280 So, this is one of the most striking features that, again, smack of authenticity of the shroud.
00:19:26.180 In early Christian art, we have the holes in the hands right here in the palms.
00:19:30.760 But actually, of course, for the Greek scholars watching, which there are very few, God bless those of us who are watching,
00:19:36.640 the same word in Greek is hand, palm, and wrist.
00:19:40.560 The wrist, right, yeah.
00:19:41.620 The shroud gets it right.
00:19:43.940 Michael, I want you to see the shroud.
00:19:45.300 You can see the arms that are folded.
00:19:47.460 Yeah, yeah.
00:19:47.740 They come down in a V shape.
00:19:50.220 And the penetration is perfectly in the wrists.
00:19:54.900 Because a forger wouldn't have known this.
00:19:57.300 If you crucified someone, you put it through the hands, it's not going to support those ligaments.
00:20:00.240 Of course, because medieval art, renaissance art, really even art today.
00:20:03.680 It takes license.
00:20:04.600 Yeah, it takes license and places the wound in the hands. 0.95
00:20:07.900 But I remember even when I was a kid, this is some good catechesis, pointed out, you know, really, it's the wrist.
00:20:14.740 If it would have been the hands, it would have just fallen off.
00:20:16.960 And that is consistent with the nail prints, the scars, the wrists of the crucified man of the shroud, and the feet.
00:20:27.180 Wow.
00:20:29.560 I guess this is the recurrent theme, is if it were a forgery, this would have had to be,
00:20:38.020 I mean, it's sort of preposterous even to suggest, but it would have had to be the most detail-oriented forger ever.
00:20:44.200 To get exactly the right dust, and it would have to be a miracle forgery.
00:20:48.620 We'd have to go buy a lottery ticket, right, if we were that person.
00:20:51.460 And again, it just goes beyond the pale.
00:20:53.160 This is, again, how much information is enough to be convinced.
00:20:56.500 Yeah.
00:20:56.980 And we don't stop there, if I may, Michael.
00:20:59.640 Please.
00:21:00.940 The flagrum.
00:21:02.020 Flagrum.
00:21:02.640 Yeah.
00:21:02.800 I think it's the most understated verse in the New Testament, and Pilate had Jesus flogged.
00:21:12.660 That's all the verse says.
00:21:14.140 Yeah.
00:21:14.560 This is a Roman flagrum.
00:21:17.480 I wouldn't call it a cat of nine tails.
00:21:19.580 That's kind of a modernism.
00:21:22.080 This is a Roman scourge. 1.00
00:21:23.840 Yeah, yeah.
00:21:24.140 We know that the crucified man, a scholar, has counted up the amount of wounds.
00:21:30.180 This is going to blow your mind.
00:21:31.480 Yeah.
00:21:33.060 372 wounds.
00:21:34.540 Over 120 lashes.
00:21:37.100 Each lash would leave three impressions.
00:21:39.780 You see the lead barbells, the dumbbell-shaped bar, and you feel the weight of those.
00:21:45.020 Yeah, yeah.
00:21:46.320 Well, it's so that we know that it would have had three.
00:21:50.040 Right.
00:21:51.460 That's kind of fitting, isn't it?
00:21:53.040 Yes.
00:21:53.100 You know, the tripartite.
00:21:54.720 Exactly.
00:21:55.320 God.
00:21:55.760 So much of this is interesting.
00:21:57.000 Or rather, the three distinct persons in one divine unity of the Godhead.
00:21:59.820 Yeah.
00:22:01.100 So there's two executioners, as it were, scourging him.
00:22:06.880 And Michael, in our tour, who is the man of the shroud that we're doing across the country right now,
00:22:12.240 we have an image.
00:22:13.060 There is not a part of the body of Jesus that was not abused, traumatized, beaten.
00:22:22.540 Every aspect, front and back, even in the pelvic region.
00:22:27.240 We don't have the lateral sides in the image.
00:22:30.680 We only have the front and back.
00:22:31.880 And so I estimate 700 wounds from the flagrum alone on the crucified man of the cross.
00:22:39.640 Even Mel Gibson didn't really come close in the R-rated passion of the Christ.
00:22:46.160 That's how bad it is.
00:22:47.260 I don't think any of us could watch it.
00:22:49.220 So Jesus, again, I'm going somewhere with this as a New Testament scholar.
00:22:52.680 I'm not privileging this because of a religious bias.
00:22:55.400 I am taking this to what I personally know of Jewish burial traditions and Roman crucifixion and execution.
00:23:00.700 No one was crucified the way Jesus was crucified.
00:23:05.080 He's crucified in a particularly heinous, demonic way that makes him utterly unique as our Messiah who dies in our place.
00:23:13.520 If you asked Pilate or, you know, some Roman centurion or something, hey, you know, how come you're crucifying this guy this way?
00:23:21.340 Right.
00:23:21.660 Especially after Pilate says, basically, this man's done nothing wrong and I don't, I wipe my hands of it and I don't, well, my wife's having nightmares and I don't.
00:23:28.680 You know, by the way, pious tradition.
00:23:30.460 Yes.
00:23:30.840 What says, what tradition says about the nightmare?
00:23:33.880 No.
00:23:34.400 That what, again, this is just tradition.
00:23:36.440 There's no, you know, there's no scriptural basis for this.
00:23:38.740 Educate me.
00:23:39.320 The pious tradition says that, so Pontius Pilate, who, you know, condemns our Lord to death, his wife has problems.
00:23:47.560 You know, I'm having dreams about this man.
00:23:50.260 Don't, you know, get washed of this man.
00:23:53.160 And the sacred tradition says that the dream she has is hearing her husband's name chanted in every church in the world for 2,000 years during the creed.
00:24:02.340 Wow.
00:24:03.060 Crucified under Pontius Pilate.
00:24:04.420 Under Pontius Pilate.
00:24:04.860 Suffered death and was buried.
00:24:05.940 Wow.
00:24:06.800 That gives me chills.
00:24:07.620 So, again, it's a pious tradition, but I like it.
00:24:10.880 Well, I point this out in body of proof that Jesus wasn't, why is he crucified?
00:24:16.300 Because these are excellent questions we have to ask critically.
00:24:18.880 What is it about Jesus that caused this particular hatred?
00:24:23.340 Well, sure, there's a demonic influence behind it without a doubt, but there's also historical influence.
00:24:28.620 Jesus is not the only messianic contender in the first century.
00:24:31.760 Yeah.
00:24:32.000 I actually list all 10.
00:24:33.380 We have 10 different men who stepped up and said, hey, I'm the son of God.
00:24:37.520 Follow me.
00:24:38.060 In fact, two of them are mentioned in the book of Acts.
00:24:40.280 They have much larger followings than Egypt.
00:24:42.260 Remember the one who went out in the wilderness in Egypt?
00:24:44.440 Another had a following of 4,000.
00:24:46.480 So, Jesus, though, I believe Pilate, who had a no-win job, by the way.
00:24:53.000 I mean, he would later get on the outs with Tiberius and die by suicide.
00:24:56.900 So, Pilate essentially takes out all of Roman anger on these messianic contenders in his mind that would come against the throne.
00:25:06.560 And, again, you have a lot of influence from the Essene Dead Sea Scroll community at this time as well.
00:25:11.700 Remember, the Dead Sea Scrolls prophesied that someday a messianic figure would come, would kill the Ketim, the Romans, would kill the Roman Empire, and then set up rule today, right now, in the land of Israel. 0.88
00:25:27.520 So, one can imagine why Caesar and Pontius Pilate were a little nervous.
00:25:32.440 Right. These were fighting words. And so, Jesus has put down the titulus.
00:25:37.200 Have you seen the titulus? In three languages, Iesus, Basileus, you die on.
00:25:44.060 Here is Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews.
00:25:46.260 Oh, yeah. Iesus, Iesus, Nazareneus, Rex, Judeorum.
00:25:49.700 Yes. In Aramaic.
00:25:50.980 I can't do the other ones. Only the Latin.
00:25:52.860 In Latin. I did the Greek, you did the Latin. Well done.
00:25:55.960 So, we just need an Aramaic now.
00:25:57.960 Do we have any ancient Jews in the building?
00:26:00.500 We only have young Jews in the building.
00:26:03.020 Another thing I would like to point out, with your permission, Michael, is the spear, the lance.
00:26:08.060 Doug pointed something out, and I want to make sure it's not lost on the audience.
00:26:12.520 Jesus, of course, Passover is happening. Jesus is on the cross.
00:26:15.820 Pilate is shocked that he was so soon dead, if you recall.
00:26:18.820 And yet, because of Jewish sensitivities, Pilate knows, I've got to get these dead bodies off the cross. 0.99
00:26:23.240 This is a high Sabbath. This is the Passover. This is a major Jewish festival. 0.91
00:26:29.000 Everything's at a powder keg. Go break their legs. 1.00
00:26:32.180 They go to break the criminal's legs. 0.99
00:26:33.800 They don't break Jesus' legs because they see he's already dead.
00:26:36.940 But just to make sure, if I may, I brought this.
00:26:41.020 It was so fun.
00:26:41.880 It was so fun getting this on American Airlines.
00:26:44.340 I can't bring my Bic lighting half the time. 0.99
00:26:48.240 I want you to hold this, the weight of this spear.
00:26:52.040 It's three and a half centimeters wide. 0.64
00:26:54.660 Just to make sure, again, back to the demonic way Jesus is killed.
00:26:58.960 Just to make sure he's really dead. 0.98
00:27:01.600 Let's just go ahead and lance him in the heart. 0.77
00:27:04.860 And what do we have on the shroud?
00:27:06.420 Jesus is pierced in the side through rib five and six.
00:27:10.280 It goes a few centimeters up.
00:27:13.360 It breaks through to the heart, the chamber around the heart, blood and water.
00:27:16.880 How would a forger know this, et cetera, comes out.
00:27:20.240 And as Doug pointed out, that blood in the side wound is post-mortem blood. 0.98
00:27:26.680 So if we wanted to fake it, Michael, let's just kill a guy in the process 0.95
00:27:29.900 to make sure we really get the forgery right. 0.99
00:27:32.640 In order, if you faked it, presumably it would be living blood from a living man.
00:27:38.640 Not post-mortem blood like this in the sudarium.
00:27:41.820 So are you seeing the trails I'm leaving right now of evidence?
00:27:46.260 I mean, it's hard to fathom.
00:27:48.160 This is why I say I believe in the authenticity of the shroud because I'm not irrational.
00:27:52.480 Yeah.
00:27:53.160 Yeah.
00:27:53.340 How much more?
00:27:54.520 It's like to those who have faith, you know, no evidence is necessary.
00:27:58.200 And to those without faith, no evidence is sufficient.
00:28:00.980 Right.
00:28:01.440 Exactly.
00:28:02.060 And I want to speak to that.
00:28:03.340 And this is where your program is so important.
00:28:05.040 The most dangerous place a person can get is when you stop seeking truth.
00:28:10.260 When you stop learning truth because you then insert your own truth, which is relativism.
00:28:16.140 Fascinatingly enough, Jesus performs his greatest miracle in the last week.
00:28:20.960 And he goes to Bethany each night during Passion Week, 1.8 miles from the city center of Jerusalem.
00:28:27.420 I filmed inside the tomb of Lazarus.
00:28:29.320 He performs a miracle in John 11, and he raises Lazarus from the dead.
00:28:33.820 And there are still truth deniers, Jesus deniers, people that hate God.
00:28:39.020 They hate the gospel.
00:28:40.000 They hate truth.
00:28:40.880 They hate salvation.
00:28:41.980 They love Satan. 0.99
00:28:43.000 And they say, oh, no, now we have to kill Lazarus and Jesus. 1.00
00:28:46.260 We have to kill them again. 1.00
00:28:48.040 Some people are so hardened in their disbelief. 1.00
00:28:51.300 Yeah.
00:28:51.580 No evidence is enough.
00:28:53.680 And that is a dangerous place to be.
00:28:55.500 So one of the outcomes or applications of this interview is we have to ask ourselves, am I still seeking truth?
00:29:01.640 Am I seeking truth?
00:29:02.640 Am I a truth seeker?
00:29:03.800 Or have I created my own truth?
00:29:05.400 Am I foisting on some false narrative on my life?
00:29:07.840 And why do I believe what I believe?
00:29:09.720 These are all very healthy questions.
00:29:12.260 Now, what I'm about to show you, Michael, leaves this question beyond all doubt, whether or not the man of the shroud is Jesus.
00:29:20.940 If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it must be a duck, right?
00:29:24.500 The crown of thorns, I was under the impression, was some kind of wreath, some kind of sweatband.
00:29:31.900 Yeah, in art, right.
00:29:32.300 It's just a little.
00:29:32.860 Yeah, just something, again, just for right or wrong, influenced by ancient Christian tradition and art mainly.
00:29:40.400 I'm in Jerusalem.
00:29:41.760 Here I've published 250,000 words on the resurrection.
00:29:44.940 I thought I'd learned everything there was to learn until I saw the crown of thorns.
00:29:48.840 It not only took my breath away, but Michael, I want you to hold this.
00:29:55.340 And at risk of maiming myself.
00:29:58.500 Yes, but it's worth it.
00:30:00.560 This is the helmet of thorns.
00:30:02.980 Yes.
00:30:03.520 So I had heard, I remember reading or hearing at some point that actually it's like 3D.
00:30:11.940 Or not just 3D, but it goes around the whole head.
00:30:14.680 The whole head.
00:30:15.280 And it's really like a helmet.
00:30:16.420 Like a cap.
00:30:17.260 A helmet.
00:30:17.860 And so what do we see the correspondence with?
00:30:20.480 These are three-inch Bethlehem thorns.
00:30:24.800 When they dry, they're as sharp as nails.
00:30:27.360 I'm going to say to you what I said to my triplet voice here.
00:30:29.420 Try to prick your finger on the end of one.
00:30:31.080 You can see.
00:30:31.700 I just did.
00:30:32.240 This crown of thorns, the Gospel of Mark, which is the earliest Gospel, it says,
00:30:40.580 and the Romans fashioned a crown of thorns and placed it on his head to humiliate him.
00:30:46.680 This is the king of the Jews.
00:30:49.120 They placed this on his head.
00:30:51.160 And what do we see on the shroud?
00:30:52.760 50 puncture wounds in the scalp.
00:30:55.200 It would have caused profuse bleeding. 0.97
00:30:58.320 And so when he goes, ecco homo, we hold the man. 1.00
00:31:01.460 Yeah, yeah. 0.92
00:31:01.840 You can imagine crown of thorns, bloodstained.
00:31:05.360 The scene would have been incomprehensible.
00:31:07.720 It also just occurs to me looking at this, for people who will find it unfamiliar,
00:31:13.580 that's not what the crown of thorns looks like.
00:31:15.420 This is what an actual crown looks like.
00:31:17.540 Exactly.
00:31:17.880 Actual crowns are not headbands.
00:31:19.500 Right.
00:31:19.680 If you've ever seen like the crown of St. Stephen.
00:31:21.440 Yes.
00:31:21.660 Whatever, you know, a crown in the UK.
00:31:23.140 Thank you.
00:31:23.300 They look like this.
00:31:24.220 Yes.
00:31:25.160 They cover your whole head.
00:31:26.760 Huh.
00:31:27.600 And isn't that fascinating?
00:31:29.620 This is what leaves it beyond all doubt to me.
00:31:32.600 Speaking from a historical scholar's perspective,
00:31:36.660 it could not be anyone other than Jesus of Nazareth.
00:31:40.100 My friend, Bruno Barberis, who I will be with in just a few weeks in Turin, Italy,
00:31:44.740 has assigned a probability to, is this anyone other than Jesus?
00:31:49.460 And he's published his findings.
00:31:51.060 Again, not a preacher, not a priest.
00:31:53.120 He's a mathematician at University of Turin.
00:31:55.160 The probability the man of the Shroud, according to mathematician Bruno Barberis,
00:32:00.020 is anyone other than Jesus is one in 200 billion.
00:32:04.460 So I guess there's still a chance for the skeptics.
00:32:06.740 Yeah, there is.
00:32:07.300 You're saying there's a chance.
00:32:08.280 But the connection being that the wounds from this particular crown of thorns match the man of the Shroud
00:32:20.420 in a way that, you know, a little laurel wreath or something wouldn't have.
00:32:23.520 And leaves it beyond all doubt it's anyone other than Jesus of Nazareth.
00:32:27.300 Because the other guys didn't get this.
00:32:28.820 No, no one did.
00:32:30.060 We know of one in history who was crucified.
00:32:32.680 This is one of one.
00:32:33.880 Utterly unique.
00:32:36.840 And again, you come back to the personal application of this is love in its most radical form for us.
00:32:43.540 That?
00:32:43.960 You know, when you handed it to me, I thought, oh, should I try it on?
00:32:47.560 Yeah, exactly.
00:32:48.400 Give it a try.
00:32:48.920 Actually, I'd prefer not to if possible.
00:32:49.900 And, there you go.
00:32:52.860 And I love that this is the centerpiece of our interview.
00:32:57.720 Yes.
00:32:58.460 Yeah, exactly.
00:33:00.300 What do you make of the claims of relics of the crown of thorns that go back a long way?
00:33:05.900 Like when Notre Dame de Paris burned down some years ago, a priest ran in because there was said to be a piece of the true crown.
00:33:13.900 Do any of those claims convince you or no?
00:33:17.460 They don't because they're unlike the Shroud in that you just can't test it scientifically against anything.
00:33:23.840 And so, I'm not discounting it, but this is kind of my skepticism also oozing out of me again in that when you ask me a historical question, I give you a historical answer, not a faith answer.
00:33:33.120 I don't privilege it.
00:33:34.080 And so, the interesting thing about the Sudarium in the Shroud of Turin is in the Catholic Church, it is both an artifact and a relic.
00:33:41.980 Yeah.
00:33:42.500 Meaning those are two of two.
00:33:44.360 Yeah.
00:33:44.500 There are no other relics that can also be scientifically studied.
00:33:48.500 Interesting.
00:33:49.040 Yes.
00:33:49.480 Because, right, so what you're saying is, you know, like if someone, if you found out someday, you get up to the pearly gates, you find out actually the crown, the thorns in Notre Dame, that actually was part of the crown.
00:34:01.260 You'd say, okay.
00:34:01.960 But what you're saying here is, you can know with certainty through natural reason that the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Orvieto are legit.
00:34:17.400 Jesus' grave clothes.
00:34:18.660 They're actually Christ's grave clothes.
00:34:20.920 Whereas, with the other relics, you think, oh, is this a piece of, you know, St. Anthony's bone?
00:34:27.080 Maybe.
00:34:27.540 Maybe it is.
00:34:28.520 But you just say, I can't test it.
00:34:30.660 Right.
00:34:31.100 Exactly.
00:34:31.800 And that is the fascinating thing about these two relics, the Sudarium and the Shroud.
00:34:36.860 You test them.
00:34:38.280 It is the moment of resurrection.
00:34:39.700 It's captured in history, blinding light in the laboratories, 34,000 trillion watts of energy in one 40th of a billionth of a second.
00:34:49.300 Otherwise, it would have scorched.
00:34:50.520 I mean, think about that.
00:34:51.680 This is what science can't reproduce, is how this flash happened.
00:34:55.840 I speak to young people all the time about the Shroud.
00:34:58.240 It's the equivalent of 6.4 gigawatts.
00:35:00.460 And you and I will remember the greatest movie of all time, 1985's Back to the Future.
00:35:04.540 Doc Brown, 1.21 gigawatts to go back in time.
00:35:07.580 So five times the amount of that energy to bring the body of Jesus back to life.
00:35:12.280 We just can't quantify it.
00:35:13.360 We can't reproduce it.
00:35:14.700 We don't know how it occurred.
00:35:16.140 We just see the effect of it.
00:35:17.440 Well, that's an amazing approach to it because I've come across a number of relics.
00:35:22.820 And some, you know, have really undeniable provenance.
00:35:27.620 Right.
00:35:28.040 This is St. John Vianney's heart.
00:35:29.940 Right.
00:35:30.420 It would be hard for them to fake that.
00:35:32.220 Yes.
00:35:32.580 Some, though, that go back to antiquity, I believe, as a matter of faith, I can believe in the relic.
00:35:37.580 And maybe it's got good sort of oral history and provenance to it.
00:35:41.600 But I can't, you know, as you say, I can't really test it.
00:35:43.640 You know, especially for the future of it, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you read, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write, you write.
00:36:01.640 Thank you.