WHOA That's Good Podcast - Answering Skeptics of The Shroud of Turin | Sadie Rob Huff & Christian Huff | Dr. Jeremiah Johnston

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Last week, Dr. Jeremiah Johnston explored the history and significance of the Shroud of Turin. This week, he answers the skeptics — taking live, challenging questions and confronting the strongest objections directly. From doubts about its authenticity to questions about its meaning, nothing is off the table. This Episode of WHOA That's Good is Sponsored By: https://go.goodranchers.com/WHOA — Get free meat with every order and $25 off your first order with my code WHOA at checkout! http://shop.taylordukeswellness.com/whoa — Get 15% off sitewide anytime + for the next 48 hours, you can also unlock 2 free gifts with any full-size protein purchase! https://timtebow.com/tree-whoa/ — Get your copy of If the Tree Could Speak by Tim Tebow on Amazon today! - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are back with part two, and I'm so excited. We had to quickly rein it in because everybody was asking so many questions. I was like, but to start everything. Everybody, you mean me. No, not to see you. Everybody was talking. Everybody scattered and started talking. Which also, when I walked outside, can I just say that the song that was playing,

it was the cross has the final word? Amen. Let's go. So everybody in this building is really stoked and really fired up. I wanted to start with the crown of thorns, which looks maybe a little different than we imagined it. I want you to talk about the things. that you brought because this is so crazy to see and also, again, lines up with what we see on the

shroud. So tell us a little bit about the things that you brought. And I invited Christian to come up here. We're going to get to the audience and everything and all the questions, but I knew Christian was going to be really excited to hold some of these things. Well, it's so great to be back with you. Thank you for having me back. When I look at the crown of thorns and I study it, these are three-inch Bethlehem thorns. In fact, Christian, do you mind just picking it up? up and I want you to hold it while I describe it because it's so moving to me. And it's interesting, they will prick you. They're sharper than nails when they dry out. But it's important that we hold it. There's something about touching it. This is a reproduction, of course, but the scriptures

say that, and this puts the shroud beyond all doubt for me. Because we only have evidence of one person in antiquity being crucified with a crown of thorns. And because of medieval art, we've thought it was something like a wreath or like a sweatband. No, we have 30 to 50 puncture wounds on the head and the scalp of the man crucified on the shroud, who I believe is Jesus. And like just, I mean, try to like touch the edge of them too, Christian. I mean, it's very sharp. It's very sharp. And I'm just putting myself the first time that I saw the helmet of thorns. And notice I'm using that terminology helmet, because it was a helmet. It was a dome. It was a cap. It was not a little wreath, cutesy, wreath. He would have had blood all over his head. And that's what we see on the back of the

shroud. There is tons of blood in the back of his head. Can you imagine? So I want to put, I want to remind you, Jesus survives somehow 700 scourges. And then he is brought before the crowd. And in Latin, this is when Pilate says, at Joe Homo, behold the man. Remember that part of the Gospels? He says, behold the man. And the crowd yells, crucify him. And at that point, they slam this crown on his head. They twist it.

And you can just imagine having that impressed on your skull. And so it took my breath away, Christian and Sadie. The first time I saw this. I mean, I have a PhD on, you know, PhDs know a lot about a little. The little I know a lot about is Roman crucifixion, but I had never seen it like this. Wow. And I love to hold that cross because I need a reminder every day

how much Jesus loves me. I need reminders because the enemy will lie to me that you've sinned, he doesn't love you anymore. Wow. Yes, he does. What manner is love? Yeah. And so it wasn't the nails that held Jesus to the cross.

It wasn't the crown of thorns. It was his love for you and me. That is the hope of Easter. That's so good. That's so wild. There's something interesting about whenever you read it, how there was a headcloth and the arrowcloth. Yes. And whenever I saw you and one of your friends that was with you, that was crazy that all of it lined up the same.

But can you explain how the shroud was like laid, how he was wrapped in the headcloth? And again, this is, so you're talking about we have two artifacts. They're not relics because they can be studied by the physical sciences. And my good friend Doug Powell is an expert in what's called the Sudarium of Oviedo. And in John 20, it says that they see the body of Jesus, they see the linen cloth, the athonia, the cindin in Greek. But then, do you remember in the gospels it says the face cloth, the face napkin is in the corner of the tomb? That's consistent with Jewish burial traditions. So I want to make sure and make this very clear.

Because some people, these are great questions you're asking. So many believers are like, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't line up with the Bible. I want to explain it. And so when Jesus is dead on the cross, okay, remember, I mean, it was like dark outside. Remember this. His body, in Jewish burial traditions, the body is so sacred that they don't even want the blood to hit the ground.

And so the first thing that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus would have done while he is still hanging dead, so put your mind's eye there, they would have wrapped his face at that moment, will he still on the cross with a cloth just out of respect? He's bleeding everywhere. In my book, Doug Powell has written an incredible contributing chapter because you can see all the bloodstains. Now, there's no image on the pseudarium, okay, because that came, remember, at the moment of resurrection, we even have, we even have evidence from the pseudarium that this is touching you guys in a lot of ways. They pinched his nose, taking him off the cross. there's an impression there because they didn't,

I mean, blood was coming out of his body everywhere. And so they want to honor that. It was sacred. The life is in the blood. Think of those Old Testament passages. And so they wrap his face. He's otherwise completely naked, as my friend say. He is totally naked.

They cover his face out of dignity. They carry his body. And then they lay his body on the shroud, the linen cloth, at which time they were. remove the face cloth. And then they cover the body with the shroud. So there's no image on the Sudarium, but the consistency is amazing. Same blood type on both articles.

We didn't mention this last week. It is type A, B, blood. It is human blood. It is blood, not of an animal. And it's type A, B, blood, which is Semitic blood. The fewest people on earth have type A.B. blood. In fact, in some of my events, I've met a few people that have Semitic type A-B-blood. If you're watching, if there was ever like a priestly bloodline, it would be type A-B-blood. Isn't that fascinating?

Wow, that's crazy. And so you have the Sudarium of Oviedo, which is in Oviedo, Spain, that is likely, in my opinion, the face cloth that was found in the tomb. Wow. That's so crazy. Does the chronology, though, makes sense? Because a lot of people are like, why isn't there an image on the facecloth? And what's that thing in the corner? You have to understand the chronology. They had to do this very fast. They had three hours, and there were no Walmarts open at the time. So Joseph Veramathia does something really powerful, and this shows, again, his heart for Jesus.

He had already purchased this fine linen. This is a herringbone weave. Now, Christian, the only reason I know what a herring bone weave is is my wife shows the most expensive back splash you can get in our kitchen, and it's a herring bone. That's the only reason I knew what that was. It was the most expensive one. So there's a herringbone weave to the shroud. And this was for Joseph Verminthea, a rich man, a wealthy man, who in the quickness of, it's three o'clock, oh my gosh, we've got to get them buried by six.

We got to do that. And we got to ask pilot for the body. We'd go back and forth. I mean, these men were probably rushing to get our Savior in the two. Wow. And it's just touching to think the humanity of it and the dignity that they still ascribe to the Lord of Glory. Wow. That's beautiful.

That's so crazy. And there's no decay on the, we need to talk about this. And maybe in the question, there's no bodily decay. Remember, it says your body will not see decay. Wow.

So we believe Jesus is in the tomb for 39 hours. His body's in full-on rigamortis. And so there's no bodily fluids. There's no decay on the shroud because he had physically resurrected. Wow. That's crazy.

Oh, yeah. We're just getting started. Wow, that's crazy. Okay. Welcome to the shroud world. I better open it up. to the audience now so we can start asking some questions because I know everybody has a lot. So who wants to go first over there?

Okay, so you mentioned there's hundreds of other shrouds that we have. So can you explain a little bit more about the historical, like how do we know that this, was this one known as Jesus' shroud in all of time? Or was there a point where they were all of a sudden like, oh, this is it? I know you mentioned the photograph, but they knew that it was already known as the shroud before that moment. So what's the kind of historical path of this shroud and the knowledge of it being Jesus? That is a phenomenal question. And can you still hear me okay if I look towards you this way?

I want to make sure don't lose me in the mic. First off, we have shrouds from the land of Israel. And there is an amazing, I do this very quickly in my book, Jesus Discoveries, but one of the ways that we recently dated the shroud was comparing it with a shroud found at Masada. If you've been to Masada in Israel, you know that fortress there near the Dead Sea. They have a shroud there that's dated to 80-70. So this would have been during the Jewish Revolt. They compared that shroud to the shroud of Turin to prove that the shroud, both shrouds

have been getting old for 2,000 years. It's called Waxus wide angle X-ray scattering. I've had to learn all kinds of things with the shroud. And this is from the Institute of Crystallography right outside of Rome. They publish their findings in the heritage scientific journal. This is free. You can go download their peer-reviewed study. So that is a comparison of the two shrouds that show that they're growing old.

To your excellent question, the shroud has been known by different names throughout history. I'm from Kansas City. I am a massive Kansas City Chiefs fan. I love you, Chiefs. Chiefs Kingdom. Okay. But the chiefs were not always known as the chiefs. They were actually known as the Dallas Texans because they started that way and then

these silly Dallas Cowboys came to town. So I use that as an example that in history, it's only known as the, and Christian and I were talking about this. Christian's my shroud guy now. This guy's going on the road with me for the shroud. Anywhere I go, I'm bringing Christian now. I'm a shroud. So he's a shroudy.

It was known as the shroud of Turin, not until the 16th century when it went to Turin, Italy. I've seen it. It's beautiful. You can fly into Milan and hang out in Milan and then take the train an hour up to Turin and it is an wonderful experience. Before that, it's known under different names. It's known as the image of Edessa in eastern Turkey. It's known as the Mandelian, literally the face cloth. Last summer at the International Shroud Conference, I was presenting texts from the second, third, and fourth century that talk about this and you have seen the face of our Lord. in the image of the shroud. I don't believe this, but exegetically. So my area of expertise, Corey, is exegesis.

That's what I was studied in, like, writing Bible commentaries. There are a lot of people who think Galatians actually gives a nod to the shroud. I'm not totally convinced on that, but in Galatians, it says, the Lord who was crucified before your very eyes, they actually apply that to the shroud. I think that's a little bit of a stretch. I don't really need it anyways because I trust Eusebius, who talks about the image of Edessa, the face cloth. So we've known about it, and it's been, the proper term is it's been venerated since the very beginning. So we should not question like this is a, just like the sacred spot of where Jesus was buried.

We know that spot. It is ground zero. That was a place. They didn't worship it, but they worshipped there. Why not? That's the place where he was resurrected. Does that make sense? Wow.

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That's free meat with every order and $25 off your first order with my code Woe, when you start your plan on good ranchers.com. Again, that's good ranchers.com American meat delivered. Since you mentioned where Jesus was buried, we've been to Israel and there are two places that they say. So what? Hold my coffee for a minute. I have to say, I saw your thing on this.

I was like, oh, man, because when we went, I was like, it's got to be the garden because it, you said this. You're like, people are. It's so great. It's so magical. And I was like, that was me. Okay. All right.

Well, let me say this. in my body of proof book, I have a 2,600 word chapter where I try to make it very clear. I love the garden tomb. I lead tours there, Lord willing, I'm going to bring my children there. We'll do communion there because it approximates everything we know about what it would have been like in that garden in the first century. The problem is, I have to always be honest evidentially. That tomb at its earliest was there 250 years before. Jesus. It may be even from Isaiah's period. It's too old. And we don't need it. And there are a lot of reasons I could get into, but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, when you walk in, everything seems aesthetically wrong about it. It's like a complex. You mean Jesus was crucified 200 feet away from

where he was buried? Yes. Yes, he was crucified outside of the city. We know that the city walls were not expanded until under Agrippa in 8044, 11 years after Jesus being crucified. Remember our date? April 5th, 8033. And here's how this happens. Hadrian, and I'm going to use my coin. Christian, can you hold this coin or say, do you hold it? Yeah. I'm going somewhere with this to your excellent follow-up. Man, Corey, you are a great questioner. She's a shroudy. She's a shroudy. This is a Byzantine coin I have from the second century, and it says Alia capitalina on it. Why is that important? Hadrian, because of his hatred for the Jews and the Jewish people, and he just saw Christians as another sect of Judaism. He saw no distinction. He levels Jerusalem.

He renames it to Alia capitalina. So coins are like the social media of the time of Jesus. I mean, that's pretty cool. Like if you and I could go in time right now, we just grab as many coins as we can't. Oh, okay, this is the name of the city now. Oh, this is the local deity. Oh, this is who's in power. here's who's subjugated. The coins would be our real. This is my social media, real, all these coins. They're telling me so much about the life of Jesus. So here's what Hadrian does. He knows that there is this really weird spot where these Jews who worship Jesus, they go there on Sunday morning and they say it's the spot where we crucified him and it's the spot where he came up from the dead. These people are crazy. They're morons. This is Hadrian. So he levels it and he puts in a pagan temple

to Zeus and Jupiter, thereby unwittingly preserving the spot of the resurrection. 200 years later, people didn't travel then like they do now. Families lived in the same place for generations. 200 years later, Constantine's mom goes there and they said, oh yeah, that's the spot. It'd be like me. If I took my triplets, my boys, I'd be like, hey, ignore all these crazy pagan temples. You know, that's that lunatic emperor who thinks he's God. No, this is the place. Do you see where Venus is? That is the spot where they killed the Lord of Glory. 200 feet away, that's the tomb of Arimathea, and there's other tombs around it. And so the archaeology is beyond question that that is ground zero. the church of the whole, even though it all seems off to us, because it's been built over and there's a whole

history behind it. But without a doubt, every Bible scholar, every archaeologist knows based on the evidence, that's the spot of the resurrection. Sorry for the long answer. I will do shorter answer. No, that's great. It's good. It's good. I think the scientific explanation is amazing. So thank you for explaining that. I think on the heart level, so when you were just talking about the Church of Holy Sepulchre, Sepulchre, sublisher, we went there. I was with Sadie, we actually went there, and I'll never forget when we went into the church, there was a woman, and she was just weeping over the stone where they laid Jesus' body. And she was taking out all of these things from her purse and just trying to, like, just touch them on that so that the blessing of that would come on

to her things. And I remember looking at that and just thinking, like, she's so sincere, but the power is in Jesus, not that. And so I think, like, for me, when I look at this, I'm like, that's amazing. But what's the rightful place for something like this in our lives as a Christian? And I grew up in a community that had a lot of Catholics, a lot of Greek Orthodox, where I would go to my friend's house, they would be, like, kissing the photos and the rituals were so, large. And when I saw that in Israel at a place that I was like, this is a place for Jesus, and it felt like it turned into a ritualistic location again. And so then I start to look at things like this and it mirrors that moment where it feels ritualistic. What would you say to

us as Christians regarding this in its place in our life? First step, I really appreciate your sincere heart for the Lord. And that is an excellent question. And if I could add to it, some Christians are worried that we're violating the Second Commandment when we look at the shroud of looking at a graven image. And so I want to first respond to that. This, a graven image by definition, is man-made. When a man makes, you know, a tree and carves something into it and worships it, we don't believe the shroud is man-made. We believe it is a miracle of the moment of resurrection. Secondly, I've never seen anyone, and I've been all over the world with it. I've actually knelt and prayed in front of the actual shroud. I wasn't.

praying to the shroud. I was praying, Lord, make me a greater defender of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was like it was a moment of, it's like going to the Holy Land if you've been there. You read your Bible at a different level. It's a stone of remembrance. So, and I share

I'm going to say it differently. I get an allergic reaction to relics of any kind. Catholic, Islamic, Audrey and I were leading a tour in Turkey. And I remember being an iconium. conia, modern day conia, iconium in the New Testament.

And supposedly they have Muhammad's beard there. And I saw women weeping, physically shaking, pressing their babies up against the glass that supposedly had Muhammad's beard hair in it. So I've seen that and it's like, you know, that emotionalism, wanting something sincerely to be true doesn't mean it's true.

So that's the first layer of the answer as I understand the context. The second answer I would tell you, though, is what is the rightful place of the shroud? What is the rightful place of any evidence? It should bring us closer. This is why my book, this is all about for me

being closer face to face with Jesus. All I can tell you in my own life is studying the shroud has let me understand at such a deeper level how much God loves me. I've never worshipped it. And guess what?

We have so much evidence for the shrouds for the shroud, for the resurrection of Jesus, if the shroud turned out to be false in some distant future, which it won't, it wouldn't rock my world at all. I wrote a whole book. It's hilarious, called Body of Proof. And the only reason I bring that up is I gave the seven best reasons to believe in the resurrection. I never mentioned the shroud one time because the resurrection evidence is that great. But I don't want to ignore it either. And I don't want to project someone else's experience, which may be very sincere to them. I've seen the work of Christ. Audrey and I were in

China together working with the underground church, the persecuted church. And I'll never forget the man who took us in an unmonitored bus. It took two days to get an unmonitored bus with the PRC. And I don't want this video to get throttled. So it took two days. And he said everything you read about in the Book of Acts is happening right now in the underground church. And so I would encourage you to open to it because I'm telling you I live in a world where new evidence you know they just opened the pilgrim road in Jerusalem there there is new evidences coming to light every single day and all that does is just put another rock in the wall or excuse me another stone in the wall of your faith that's the whole point I want to keep building up the wall of faith and let's just keep putting one brick after

another and so that's the rightful place for it my faith doesn't hinge on it but it's been encouraged by it It's good. I love that. So I've listened to podcasts that you've been on before and think that you do such a good job at like proving and really explaining from like the scientific point. But one question I had is like, what is the biggest skepticism about the shroud and what would you answer to that? Because I feel like I've heard you talk and think it's you do such a good job at it. And it makes me wonder like what is the biggest skepticism? What are people saying? Could I answer it in a two-part way?

Could I share you the biggest skepticism from believers? And then could I share the biggest skepticism from like just skeptics who aren't believers? Can I take both? Is that all right? Believers who are so great at reading the Bible. And this is where I never get impatient with them because I was there. They will point to certain texts that they take out of context and they project that on the world of Jesus. There is a passage in the Corinthians about men not having long hair.

And they say, oh, the shroud is not accurate because he has long hair. So I have to actually answer that in my book. Wait a minute. Every Jewish dude had long hair in the first century. Paul is not writing to a Jewish audience. I've been to Corinth. It's not Jewish. Okay?

So, I mean, I've had to answer that. I've had to answer sincere questions from believers that they read Isaiah 53, which, by the way, I have a replica of the great Isaiah scroll. I was reading column 44. Check my social for that. Isaiah 53 says his beard will be plucked. and they see like your beard right now. What's interesting is what the gospel writers are not doing

is saying that Jesus was clean-shaven that they plucked every single beard hair. I bet if I just tried to pull one out, you would jump in pain right now. I believe that would be the case. We actually have the front end of the shroud image. The beard has actually been ripped. Can you imagine the front of your beard being ripped out

because it has this vertical inverted V. And so it is very clear the most prominent part of his beard has been ripped out of his face. That doesn't mean he's clean-shaven, though. So we find Christians just take it a little too far. The other one that I want to really correct that, again, my area is exegesis. They pull out John 20 versus 5 through 7. These are Christians who doubt the shroud. And they say, it says linen cloths, linen cloths, linen cloths.

You know, that's a cloth. That's not cloths. And so in their mind, and I mean this respectfully, because they don't read in the language of the Bible, they project things on the Bible. And this is where you have to, this is where, again, I appreciate your show and the clarity in which you speak so much biblically and when you preach. In the New Testament, the answer is both. Jesus is wrapped in a singular sendin. So if we didn't have the gospel of John and we only had Matthew, Mark and Luke. I don't want to lose anyone, but this is a technical answer why a lot of believers, I already answered the Graven Image one. That was another one too. We would not even have seen linen cloths plural. Matthew Mark and Luke, what we call the synoptic gospels, they only say that

his body was wrapped in a fine linen sundin. And I've got this in the book. It's John's gospel that says linen cloths, which is a different word. It's a thonia. And so people think Jesus was like a mummy, that he came out and must have had hundreds of strips around him. Well, the problem is Jews didn't practice embalming. They did not embalm their dead. That's why you had to bury him the day of their death. That's why they collected the bones a year later after the body had decayed, and that's when they would put them in the bone boxes,

and that's why you see all those bone boxes around Israel. A year after death, the body is collected, or excuse me, the bones, and they're put literally in a family bone box. Christian, you and I were talking about seeing those bone boxes when you saw them on the Mount of Olive. So you know what I'm talking about. So no one embalmed the dead. That's Egyptian.

And so the answer is both are true. The body of Jesus would have been wrapped in a singular cloth and then had linen cloths around it to secure the hands and the feet of the bodies to, again, dignify the body. Does that make sense? So that's all the skepticism from Christians. Sorry for the long answer.

The skepticism from skeptics who are not believers is they try to use the carbon dating because they're not, they don't have facility in the current science is what I would say. They use a YouTube statement. There's some guys we both have talked about that have kind of off the cuff, discarded the shroud, which that's unfortunate. I used to do that. Don't ever say something not based on evidence just because you feel it.

And there's some Christian people that pass wrong information about the shroud because they've never actually read the academic disciplines. And so skeptics will take a sound bite and then create substance around it that is so reversible. It's like, oh, if you just read this report, it would answer that. The carbon dating is the number one reason that skeptics doubt it. That's been answered. We answered that for the benefit of our audience in the previous episode. And then secondly, they just hate Jesus.

They hate the gospel. They don't want it to be true. This is why I believe the British Museum suppress the data of the shroud for nearly 30 years. People hate Jesus. I do believe it's been suppressed. I do believe that there are people and powers. I mean, the guy that announced, I mean, this is legit stuff. Can I be transparent on your podcast? I mean, one of the guys who wrote it was a medieval forger, he got a $5 million endowed chair, five million pounds after he did that. So I mean, there's a lot of interesting things around the skepticism with the shroud and then suppressing the raw data. That's not

scientific. Scientific is like, hey, we want everyone to be able to study this. So does that help? Sorry again for the long answer. Something about this time of year just makes me want to do a little reset. Not anything extreme, just simple habits that actually make me feel better day to day. You know, I can always tell when my body is like, hey, let's get it together again. And now's that time. And one of the easiest things I can focus on is just getting enough protein. It is just such a simple theme, but it makes a huge difference in how I feel, my energy levels, and all the things. things. In the Huff House, we're all about Taylor Dukes' One is protein. I love it because it is made from 100% grass-fed bone broth, but you would really never know that because it doesn't

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Plus for the next 48 hours, you can also unlock two free gifts with any full-size protein purchase. Check it out at shop.teladukswellness.com slash woe. I have a question about like the Catholic Church is, Like, I know the Catholic church has, like, a lot of relics as they believe, but I know that they don't back, they don't back the shroud, right? It's a great question. Yeah, but it's interesting because even, like, whenever I've talked to people that, like, I'm going to have you on my podcast, and we're talking about this.

You're like, oh, like, it's such a controversial thing to say you believe in it. Or just say you think it's real. Like, why is it so controversial? What's the fear of saying this is real that it will turn out that it's not? And then you'll be like... Well, I think people think I've gone Catholic. That will never happen. I thank God that the Catholic Church has protected the shroud.

But one thing I want to make clear is the Catholic Church did not take possession of the shroud of Turin until the 1980s, Sadie. And so people that think this is some Catholic relic that the Catholic Church has always had, that didn't happen until the death of the family in Italy who literally bequeath the shroud to the living Pope. Now, I happen to be in Turin during Conclave when they were selecting the next. knew. So the shroud was an orphan at that point because there was no living Pope. And so what I would tell people is the shroud belongs to the unified church. That's what I would say. I thank God that the

Catholic Church has protected it. I thank God that the Eastern Orthodox protected it. Big time at a time when Christian things were being destroyed. I mean, I want to show you a cool coin if you don't mind. This is a fun story. One of my good friends, he met me before church on Wednesday night. And he said, you know, I have this coin. I was into gold during COVID. And he said, can you just look at it? And so he hands me this coin. I was like, bro, do you see the face on this coin?

I was like, this is the face from the shroud. This is, I'm holding in my hand, the Justinian Roman solidus. I want you to look at this. That is from, this is back to your question. That's from the seventh century. Whoa. This is the first coin that has the image of Jesus on it. And Justinian did that as an act of boldness.

He did it as an act of defiance. And do you know that there's over 200? Like, I had to study, do you guys remember, like, in a criminal case, like, they'll do sketch artists of what the criminal might have looked like? Alan Wagner from Duke University pointed out that there are 200 points of correspondence between the face on that coin and the face from the shroud. That's crazy. Again, that's from the 600s, way before the carbon dating. And so it goes way beyond what's acceptable in the court of law to say, oh, you're the bad guy. You look a lot like this sketch artist.

I think it's like 50 or 60 points of congruence. And so isn't that cool? Wow, that's crazy. That's why I thank God for the unified church protecting the shroud. That's really cool. I love that. Willie Robertson from the Duck Commander Daily. Amen.

You've answered a few of my questions already. So I was going to ask about the British. and what you thought they were up to and the opposition. I think I would like to speak to my colleague from Michigan. I think sometimes we, it's difficult. We're thinking in Christianity we should have this like homogenous attitude. But I was thinking when you asked the question, like it's probably like in our marriages, like Corey and I treat each other one way.

Other people treat each other another way in their marriage. And then if you go across the globe and see marriages in Japan or Russia, and so there's, I think sometimes we may question things, but there's all sorts of different flavors and how this relationship with Jesus is. So true. I did just want to speak to that. One question, at the Shroud Conference, are there teams? t-shirts made that say I was at the shroud conference of 2025. No, I need live original to produce it.

That was interesting to me. They would just put shroudy live original and it'll sell out. So from the tomb, from Jerusalem, do we know where it went next? And how would you guess that it goes from there to, did you say it ended up in Turkey and all these other, like how does, who grabs it? Who, you know, how does it end up? What's your, since you've studied this more? I've thought about that a lot.

I believe Joseph Veremethy and his family keep the shroud because it's his family to him. It's technically his property. I believe ultimately, you know, the church moves to Antioch, so it probably goes through Antioch. That's the home base of the church in the Book of Acts. And then it's probably there, truly, until the era of Eusebius, when Eusebius, when Eusebius is writing, you know, he's, you know, near the council of Nicaeus, and now we're in the fourth century.

and he's talking about this face cloth, this image cloth, it ends up then the next, and I can only speak to what we have. You know, I mean, it's sparse. We do have these second and third and fourth century texts that talk about, they venerate this, you've seen the face of our Lord, and that's a written text. And then it goes eventually to Edessa, and that's where we have it, I mean, in plain as day. And it's there for hundreds of years. It's re-found in Edessa.

They actually lost it. And so that's my response of how it got there. And then from then, it's without question, goes to Athens and then to France, and then ultimately to turn where it's been since to this day. Do you think it was held by church people? Yes. I believe believers. They just knew it was there.

They weren't aware of the face on it. Well, actually, they were. They were aware because they could see it. And this is something I'm working on right now. Mr. Robertson, I believe that the shroud, the face was glowing in John 20. When John comes in and he says, he saw, what is he seeing? If you take it in context, the linen cloths. He said he saw those cloths and he believed.

So he saw something in the burial cloth that caused him to believe. The burial cloth would not have moved because Jesus' body just elevated through it. but I believe it left a light signature on it that they could see. And this is interesting because the shroud is actually the image is fading. And I think it's been fading for 2,000 years. This is the biggest question that I had because it's held in a box. There's a company in Turin, Italy, that builds all of the equipment for the International Space Station. And they built what's called the reliquary where the shroud is.

It's 99% argon gas, 1% oxygen. The two greatest enemies right now are oxygen and light of the shroud. but the shroud image is fading. Wow. And you said that he would have gone in the morning. Yes. So that's why you think that. Yeah, it was dark.

It was dark in the tune. Like what did he see? Yeah. Yeah. And another cool thing I would just tell you all that we haven't had a chance to speak of yet is what kicked off all of the scientific research was in 1976.

Two professors from the Air Force Academy have what they call a VP8 image analyzer. This gets crazy. And I haven't really had a chance to talk about this. in a lot of interviews. Because we have to ask ourselves, what was the spark that ignited the science?

Well, the first spark was the photograph in 1898, when people immediately were like, oh, this is a fraud. Did you manufacture this photo? Well, we all just did in our last episode. You can see it as plain as day, even on a replica.

The next spark was Eric Jumper and John Jackson take a picture of the shroud and they put it through this analog machine called a VPA image analyzer that was produced to study the effects of the atom bomb on the surface of the earth. So it detects light. And if you put an image of your kids or your grandkids through it,

it'll be garbled. And they put the image of the shroud into the VPA image analyzer. And there is a 3D, there is 3D information encoded. It looks like a hologram. Wow. There is 3D information in the shroud that these scientists are like, what is this? So that's 1976, and that's what caused all of these scientists to come together in 1978 to study the shroud.

Isn't that cool? So this might not be accurate, but this could have been AI that I saw because I told you, I went on a kick. But there was something and it said that it was on this trail of thinking with the 3D image and how they were making it into like a, you know, they took it and then they were making it into a, what would that be called, like a monster? model like a man, but it was crazy because all of the numbers lined up to where it actually formed like a man. Yes. Instead of like if you took any other paint and you like tried to make it a 3D model or actual model of a person like the math wouldn't work. Like it wouldn't create like a perfect image of a man, but this did. Is that true? Yes. And what's amazing is this VPA image analyzer shows that. You can see and you can see light where there shouldn't be light.

It shows that the body is literally coming to life on the shroud. I mean, that's amazing. So again, we're not talking about a death cloth. We're talking about a resurrection clock that is the moment. I can't make this clear enough. It is an image of the moment of Jesus' physical bodily resurrection. That's crazy. And again, because that's what got me, like,

it's not like other people who died have images on the cloth. No. They only have an image on the cloth because something came to life. Nuclear event occurred. Real quick, speaking out, because I have so many questions, but because you've kind of talked about how it's razor thin if you took a razor.

So hypothetically in that sense if you like scratched the cloth together could, is the image there or could you do? Oh, you could remove it. Absolutely, yeah, with a razor if you went, because it's, and it's, I mean, not to get so technical,

it's only on a few of the fibrals, you know, a thread has several little pieces you know that make up the weave and it's only speckled in a couple of those so you could absolutely take it off with a razor. Because I was thinking about because all the fires

has been in, it's like if the smoke accumulates over time. Yeah, that's why we have carbon on the... If that slowly, like, you know, loses the image.

If the smoke gets in the... It's had water. There are water stains. I mean, it's amazing. The image is still there. Yeah. We have all the blood on there, which, incidentally,

can you pick up the spear, Christian? Yes. This, you got, and it's got some weight to it. It's got some heft to it. So I wanted to make sure our audience,

we didn't talk about this in the last episode. That is a replica of a Roman spear. We had that made in New Zealand, by the way. Pretty cool. And Jesus, not a single bone on his body is broken. That's fulfillment of messianic prophecy, by the way. Not a bone on my body would be broken.

But also, don't forget, my body is pulled out of joints. We do believe his shoulders were separated. That doesn't mean broken. So we actually have on the shroud the place between ribs four and six where Jesus is stabbed. And the gospel say that blood and water came out. And you can actually see the very spot and you're holding exactly the diameter.

That's what the length would be of the incision, if you will, the stab into Jesus's side. And the blood is actually separated from the water. And we see that signature on the shroud. Isn't that amazing? Wow. That's one of the most evident things you can see with your eye. That's crazy.

that and the nail. Yes. Well. You know, sometimes stories become so familiar that we almost forget what they cost. And I think that can happen so often with the story of Easter. We know it. We've heard it. We love it.

But sometimes we don't always pause and really feel it. That's why I'm really loving Tim Tebow's new book, if the tree could speak. It's challenging me in the best way this Easter season. It walks you through Jesus' crucifixion from a perspective no one has ever heard before, the wooden cross itself. The closest witness to that day wasn't a man or woman, but the tree that held him. And reading the story through that lens is such a powerful, fresh way to experience it. The cross in the book begins as feeling ashamed of what it has been turned into, a symbol of

execution, but the tree soon discovers it's actually holding the Savior of the world. And that shift is such an amazing and moving reminder that Jesus can take what seems hopeless and turn it into something that changes everything. The beautiful illustrations also hold your attention as you dwell on the, the word. It's not a book you're going to want to rush to read through. It's one that you want to sit with and reflect on, one that helps you experience Jesus' sacrifice more intentionally long after the easer season has come and gone. I also think it's really cool in this episode we're talking about the shroud and just the evidence of Jesus' resurrection. And so it's so

cool that we're sitting here talking about the crucifixion and the cross itself and the witness to that. And so as we just reflect on all of these things, I think this would be an amazing book to couple alongside the studies that you're about to go on. So let's let's just be. step into the story this eastern a deeper way. Order if the tree could speak by Tim Tebow on Amazon or check out the link and the show notes today. That's if the tree could speak by Tim Tebow, available now on Amazon.

So I encountered the shroud first in college back in the 1970s. Wow. And really became skeptic because of the scriptural John's account. I said it says strips a cloth. This isn't strips of cloth. he had the head wrapping

there's no hand wrapping here so you know just pretty well wrote it off right then you've explained that earlier but I still have make it clear about the face covering because if they took it off before they covered him with the shroud and laid it over there

then that would have been there when the people who, the women before he resurrected, it would already be sitting over there. So it seems like there's a, wow, and there's also that over there.

Well, they should have already known that was over there. So how do you reconcile the apparent John making it like that's also an evidence because of the that's over there. It should be on his face, and it's not. It's over there folded up. Yeah, no, I think what he's giving it, these are great questions. And I shared at one time your skepticism, again, based on scripture. And so what we have in the chronology, we know that the women come to the tomb Sunday morning. The women are not involved in the burial on Friday afternoon.

So the women are coming Sunday morning. Christian and I were talking about this. Why? Because when someone died and you were Jewish in the first century, you would mourn the dead for seven days at the tomb. All Jewish tombs, I've been in hundreds of them throughout the land of Israel. You go inside and first you go in, it's usually a meter square. I hate to use meters, but that's what they would do over there. So it's not a big tomb because they normally put the body in horizontally. So it's not like the garden tomb where you just walk in if you're six foot tall. Now, 20% of the tombs that we have found in Israel have the huge stones.

Those were for the rich. And so only about 80% or 80% are the more smaller versions. but you would go in any case inside the tomb, and then there are these burial niches where bodies are put for your family, and you would pray inside. So you would literally go into the tomb, you would pray, they would pray standing,

they would sit Shiva, that's what they call it for seven days. And so the women simply are going there Sunday morning, expecting to perfume the body. They want to clean all of the remaining blood off the body. When the Bible says they washed his body, we shouldn't think that they like gave it a shower and body scrubbed it and got every mark off,

they're burying him in haste. So I want to make that really clear. So what we see is consistent of Jewish burial tradition. So Joseph of Arimathea Friday and Nicodemus go to the tomb. They take Jesus's body. They place it. There's a Roman guard there. The women, when they discover the tomb empty in John 20,

that is when they see the shroud. And that is when they see the facecloth in the corner, indicative that all of the Jewish burial tradition had been followed. His body's been treated with respect. He has not been buried in honor. I would say he's been buried properly, according to Jewish burial traditions. And so in my mind, there's really no contradiction as far as the timing of it, because they would have expected to see that face cloth. They would have been thankful to see it, that they didn't just let his body, you know, leave a trail of blood as it were from his face, the 200 feet from the cross all the way to the tomb, that they

treated his body with dignity. I think that's what they're signaling there. And that's why that image, as I mentioned, is not on the Sudarian because they unwrapped that and they put it in the corner and then they finish the burial process. And so this is where hindsight is so helpful knowing something about Jewish burial traditions, how they mourn the dead, how they buried bodies, how bodies were treated with sacred honor. It really is helpful. So I hope that helps a little bit with the chronology. I think you cleared it up for me because I thought even in the John's gospel that they were trying to, he was trying to say the fact that it was laid over there as one of the proofs of the resurrection. Actually, that's not a proof of the resurrection. That's a proof that they did it properly.

They buried him according to, bingo. Jewish tradition. He was buried. And of course that was over there. It had no do with the resurrection. Right. This has to do with the resurrection. That's exactly right.

I thought that to you're saying. I thought it was like, oh, that's in another. place now as if like when he got up he threw it to the other side. That's what I thought too. Like I literally thought he resurrected and like yeah no he came through the clock which is consistent with his what we call appearance tradition. He can appear in different places. His body has new capabilities just like our resurrection body will have different capabilities according to 1st Corinthians 15 and here's the cool thing about this fun Q&A do you all realize what we're doing right now? We're doing Bible study which is awesome but we're doing what John 14,

19 says. John 1419, Jesus says, because I live, you will live also. So every shred of evidence we're discussing right now for the physical bodily resurrection is evidence for those of us who are in Christ to follow Jesus of our own future resurrection. So good. Why, it's fun to do this. Amen. Well, I am no longer a skeptic. Let's go. I can leave now. I've done my job. I've never been a skeptic to a shoddy. I've never been a skeptic of the resurrection and the truth of Jesus. But I questioned that, but no longer. Welcome to the club. That was epic.

I love it so much. You mentioned you were a skeptic at one point. So I'm curious what you were really skeptical about and then what kind of shifted for you. And then on the other end of that, I'm curious what excites you about what you're learning. Like what was that piece of evidence that was like, wow, this really just like it all clicked for you. Right. This was it. because I think when I had no knowledge of this coming into this podcast.

So I was excited to just really soak in and learn. And when I think about studying, I'm like, man, that would be so fascinating. There would be so much. But like, what's that one thing that made you go, wow, Jesus, like, this really is it? This really was you. This really happened. So cool. So it was a process for me, kind of like you.

Like I remember speaking at our Friday morning men's Bible study at Prestonwood Baptist Church when my pastor's like, hey, get up and just share about what you're learning about the shroud. And even in that day, I'm like, now, I am not willing to stake my academic reputation on this, but let me just share what I'm learning. And you could almost see the Holy Spirit working on me more than even through me as far as that goes. I'm like convincing myself of it. Like, wow, this is really powerful. So what turned me, I would call Barry Schwartz on the phone. This is where I so appreciate this podcast. Questions are welcome in the Christian faith. There are, Jesus asks over 300 questions in the Gospels. It is not a sin to question.

question our faith. If everything we believe is true about our faith, God can take our toughest questions. He's a big boy. He can do that. There's over 3,000 questions in the Bible, by the way. There's over 7,000 promises in the Bible. I think it's cool. We have two promises for every question in the Bible, but that's for another day. So what's awesome for me is I would call Barry Schwartz, who is the documenting photographer of the shroud. If you pull up the TED talk on the shroud, he's the dude who gave it. So, like, he is the man. He did the TED talk on the shroud. And he would listen to my questions and he would just so gracefully answer and say, oh, I understand it. By the way, he took a picture of the shroud in 78, didn't believe it was authentic until 17 years later.

And it was the blood that caused him to move from skeptic, even though he was there, saw it, took pictures of it, published it, gave all the shroud talk. He's Jewish, by the way. It was the blood that caused him to believe, oh, yeah, this shroud belonged to Jesus. So for me, it was that process. It was talking to Barry. It was investigating it for myself. I learned from everyone, but I don't let anyone think for me. That's what I can, trying to pass on to my kids. Learn from everyone. Don't ever let anyone think for you. And so I try to, I'm a lifelong learner. And so the Bible is inexhaustible. Its promises are new every morning. I love studying the Bible because of its inexhaustibility. So seeing that no scientists in the world can explain how

this is there, that was huge for me. That's what took me from skeptic to shroud believer and defender. And then what was the other part of your question? There was another part of your question. The skeptic. And then when you're, when you were learning about it to become, you know, a believer in it, what was that pivotal moment, that point where you're like, wow, this is the evidence that really shifted your perspective on all? I was in Jerusalem right before the Hamas attack, just weeks before it, less than a month. And I had a day off in Jerusalem. I've never had a day off in Jerusalem. And I remember thinking, wow, there's so many places I want to go by myself and just check it out. I went to the dome of the rock.

I went to the southern steps. I was looking at, I got like 40,000 steps in that day. But I ventured into the Athonia Shrout of Turin Museum, which is at Notre Dame in Jerusalem outside the Christian gate, the Christian, the new entrance. And I'm going through so much of this evidence. And no one's there. But guess what?

The Holy Spirit is good at his job. And the Holy Spirit is with me. And I'm seeing maybe like you all today for the first time. I mean, I have a PhD. I felt like when Jesus looked at Nicodemus and was like, you're the teacher of Israel and you don't know this stuff? Like, that's what I felt like

it was a humbling experience for me to be like, there's so much I thought I knew that was wrong. And when I saw the phlegrum, when I saw the nails, and by the way, they didn't have an authentic one like this. When I saw the crown of thorns,

it literally took my breath away. And so I'm taking pictures. I'm seeing this hologram, VPA image analyzer thing. And I walked out of there and I thought, and truly, Romans 5-8 came to my mind.

It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to use this in ministry someday or it wasn't like, oh, this is a great tool for me to be more effective. I was overwhelmed that God loved me that much. I have four sons. I would never give my son, as much as I love being here with y'all, I would never give my son for any of you. The thought that God gave his best for me when I was at my worst and that he allowed his son to, and that's the cost of my sin.

It was so powerful to me. And then I thought, these are great. And so now I have found that using these kinds of evidences, being able to hand people coins and replicas and, I mean, we're just beginning. And to be able to give just sound bites. You know, we can share our faith quickly. It doesn't have to be a boring hour-long lecture. I can hand you dice and say, boom, I can hand you this needle right here, which we haven't

discussed yet. Hold that, Sadie. When Jesus says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. That's a Roman needle from the first century in Jerusalem. Look how small the circular hole is. Couldn't get a camel through there. And remember his society?

I was like, okay, Lord, who can be saved? And Jesus says, when man, it's impossible, with God, all things are possible. It was a cue to his grace. He's like, all you need is my grace. And so what I just did there, see how quick that was? I handed an artifact from the first century, gave a little gospel faith lesson, And I found that to be just so effective. It's cool.

I think we've so, like, lost the awe of just scripture in itself, too, and, like, what scripture says. I agree. It's funny, but, like, John 316, like, that's my favorite Bible verse. But people think it's funny when I say that because it's always like, oh, yeah, John 316s, everybody's favorite Bible verse. Like, that's, like, the one people know even if you don't. But it's like, but think about what it's saying.

If that's true, that changes everything about. Well, and I want to say this. Sadie, when it was written, John 316, that had never been written before in the history of any religion. God didn't love people. The gods of Rome and Greece were capricious, vindictive. They would get back at you. They would kill you. You had to appease them. So for under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for John to write, for God, Hothaeus, Curias, literally loved the world that he gave his own. This was a message that no one had ever heard before. You mean God love? loves me? What does that mean? I mean, this was a new truth in the first century. So we, again,

we scream right by, oh, God loves you, brother. Nobody was walking around saying that. When Paul's in Athens getting ready to go up to the Aeropagus, and he says, you guys have a God for everything here. You even have a God for the unknown God. And he said, you're full of idols. And his heart was burning within him. But none of those deities were saying they loved you. They certainly wouldn't die in your place. You had to please them. You had to make sure they were okay all. the time, very superstitious. And so I love the fact, I didn't know that, I love the fact that John 316 is your verse because nobody had heard that message when it was written. It was a new truth. And that's why it changed the world so quickly and turn the world upside down.

Well, it literally just became like my favorite verse this past year because I think I just started like, it was almost like I read it for the first time, you know? Kind of like you walking in there and going like, whoa, like, I'm learning this for the first time. It's like, I've heard that in my whole life. And it almost felt like God loves you becomes like almost like a cheesy thing to say when it's like, no, that's like, that's a revelation. That's something that like is wild to comprehend and to think of. And so, yeah, it's really powerful.

What were you going to say? Two super quick questions. So would the nails have been different with the wrist versus the ones in the feet? Great question. Because it wouldn't have been the feet, right? would have been like the... Yeah, this is awesome. Like, put your legs together.

Second question, I'll do them both at the same. Second question was, you talked about if they reused the nails. Yeah. Because I don't know how blood stuff works, but if there was blood on the nail from a previous person who was crucified, would that have showed up there on the shroud too?

Or does blood sample stuff not work like that? Yeah, great question. So first one, on one of my other interviews, I said this wrong, and every medical doctor in the world, came at me, so I'm sorry that I don't know how all the medical pronunciations of everything. So let me see if I can get it right for my next door neighbor, Ronnie, who's a medical doctor. Jesus is crucified through the calcaneus.

I hope I just said that right. Calcaneus is how I said it before. Calcaneus. You know, these doctors don't even know Latin and they want to at me. So he is crucified. This is really interesting. So yes, the same nail would have been used. Same length, same nail, whether it be the wrist or the or the or the or the or the or

the calcanius. And we actually have this. We have the heel bone of Yehohanan in the Israel Antiquities Museum, who is crucified under Pontius Pilate around 26 to 30 AD. So we have a Jewish man crucified under the reign of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. And he had to be buried so quickly before nightfall that it was like, you guys have ever had a nail like get fish hooked and you just can't get it out? well that's what must have happened with his calcanius and his heel and so finally they're like just bury him

with the nail already in there we can't get the dumb thing out and so it would go through the side okay let me do it for this and it would literally do you mind if I put my boot up there so it would go through there and so the cross beam is between the legs it's not like he's standing on a pedestal and that's what we see and that's consistent also with the shroud which makes it even more agonizing. So literally he was two nails. Exactly. And there's there is a wood washer. I don't know if we have any woodworkers in the audience, but there was an all of wood washer that I mean these people were experts at crucifixion. They used all of wood washers. And so when it's discovered in 1967, and I talk about this in my book, Jesus discovery, the wood washer was still on the nail between the nail and the

heel bone. Isn't that fascinating? It's crazy. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a interesting when you said that about the nails going through him that had gone through other centers. I was thinking about, because I told you I've been studying the woman at the will, and I like love that he asked to drink from her cup. And, you know, I've never been to, like, seminary or said, this is just from my basic knowledge of it. But, like, him doing that was him not afraid to, like, associate with the center because it would have been, like, so, if he would have drinking from her cup, that would have made him, like, unclean, you know. Yes, exactly. And so it's, like, so amazing to me.

that Jesus, like, continued to, like, drink the cup of sinners, like, let sinners nails that went through their hands, like, go through his. Like, it's amazing, like you said, what this should do is make you see the character of Jesus more, see the love of him more than compassion. Can I answer the second question that he had about, and by the way, I'm so excited for your new book on John 4. Thank you. I love that.

Jesus, let's say that nails were used before, which is likely, they probably would would have crucified other Jewish men. So the blood type probably would have been very similar. So I don't see any contamination issues there. And there's only one blood type on the shroud. And it's all type A-B blood. And that's consistent. But that is a really good question I've never been asked before.

So I like that. You're my guy now. I just had that thought when I'm looking up. Yeah, I love this. Your new Instagram bio. I'm a shroudy. That's right. Catch me on the road.

That's right. That's so funny. Does anybody else have any more questions? Okay. Great. I'm going to ask a quick one before my colleague from West Monroe. So it's 2026. I have been known to watch a few crime shows.

When he said that about the sketch, I legit you, I'm sure you know this. So we have a cloth, we have blood. Why not just DNA? Yeah. I mean, DNA has probably solved more mysteries in the past. Absolutely. A couple of decades than anything else. So is that possible?

great question I've been asked it so many times people want to clone Jesus from the blood on the shroud I asked Barry this myself who's part of the Sturtt of turn research team project um shroud of turn research project stirp um we can't the DNA would be unreliable because so many people have touched the shroud over the 2000 year history of it that every hematologist is like it would not be accurate it would be so contaminated with so much DNA on it from people just rubbing up their bodies against it. And literally, there's DNA all over the shroud more than just the crucified man. One thing I was just curious about just the scholarship in general. I love studying the recent scholarship in Resurrection Studies, which has been around, obviously, for two millennia.

But it seems like the last couple decades, there's been such a resurgence with Hoppermas and Wright and William Lane Craig. all these guys. But in reference to the shroud, it seems like most of these guys are either kind of silent or sort of acknowledge it, but just go, you know, we can't really depend on it and move along. Do you see in the conservative scholarship world people allowing themselves to engage with the shroud and having real conversations to add that to the ongoing kind of body of evidence that we have for the resurrection of Christ, do you see some of these guys coming around and what place do you think the shroud should have with our evidence is like a primary evidence or a secondary or it just kind of depends on the person?

Fantastic question. Number one, most biblical scholars are skeptics, just so you know. So I went to faculty of theology at Keble College where I did my Ph.D. in Oxford at Middlesex University. And I was conditioned that this was a fraud and a fake because they don't believe in any miracles where out of the school I come out of. So you have to understand. stand right there, so many Bible scholars are so, they're called minimalists. So they don't believe

in miracles. They don't believe Jesus was divine. Jesus, they'll say, if he even existed, you know, was married with a mortgage. You know, they have that kind of hyper-scepticism that they would never apply to anything else. Habermass is a dear friend of mine. He calls me Jeremy. That's how long we've been friends. And he's been, without a doubt, the leader and sharing about the shroud. But he has stood alone for a long time. And unfortunately, so many Bible scholars are just weak. They're weak need. And they don't want to ever come down too hard on anything. You know, they don't, they, there's a weakness to it that I just think is ridiculous. I'm being very candid in my, in my response to you. They're weak. And I'm, I'm sad. Now, this is coming around, though,

archaeologists, like my friend Scott Stripling, my academic mentor, Craig Evans, who's the finest Jesus scholar in the English-speaking world with 700 publications on Jesus is utterly convinced that it's the shroud of Jesus. So I am to answering your question seeing a resurgence, primarily from the archaeologists who are looking at it now and researching it, like Scott Stripling, like Craig Evans, like myself. But you know what's frustrating too? I could name names right now. I have a lot of great colleagues who are super amazing Christians. And they'll WhatsApp me back because it's overseas. I'm like, you know, I'm just kind of agnostic about I've never really looked into it.

I'm a member of Society of New Testament Studies, which is 400 of scholars that are New Testament scholars in the world, S&S, NTS, and you have to be elected by two members to sit on S&S. I doubt, I mean, this is a speculative. I don't, this isn't scientific. I wonder if any of my colleagues in S&TS outside of Paul Foster, Craig, have ever even bothered to study the shroud? Because we have been so conditioned in a PhD program,

do you realize I did a, 93,000 word Uber Leifrongs gashista of resurrection. That means in the German, a history of resurrection belief in the Judeo-Christian motif. The man who examined me was a disciple of William Barclay. Everybody quotes Barclay's backgrounds. Like MacArthur quoted him all the time. Like Barclay's backgrounds are amazing. I have his book and my nightstand, but he didn't believe in the miraculous. He didn't believe in the Bible, but he was great on Bible backgrounds. And so his student examined me at Oxford, and I'll never forget what he said, you guys. We start out my Viva, my defense. And Professor Telford said, Jeremiah, do you actually believe the resurrection

happened? Or is that just imaginative storytelling? And I said, Professor Telford, the evidence leads me to believe, yes, Jesus physically bodily rose from the grape. I believe that with all my heart based on the evidence. He had this big British boat tied on. And he's a fine man, guys. But he sat back, He said, I don't see it that way. Let's begin your Viva. And so I'm just sharing that. He later passed me with commendation by God's grace. He had the power to kibosh me, and he passed me with commendation, so now I have a PhD.

But I'm just sharing that, like, there is a hyper level of skepticism towards archaeology, towards, and there's a weakness to it. And we are living in a time, we've got to get the gospel out. And we need to use every tool at our disposal, especially I've got a dog in the hunt. I have gen Alpha. I have three nine-year-olds. I have two teenagers. You better believe I'm going to unload the full arsenal to share the truths of Jesus.

That's why I wrote the Jesus discoveries. I want people to know we can prove 65 facts about the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus before I ever crack open the Bible. And these are exciting and they encourage us. This is why we need to read more. We need to not binge as much. We need to go to the land of Israel. We need to go on Bible lands tours.

We need to not bring a knife to a gunfight of skepticism because there's, is a growing level of skepticism. And the cool thing is, is you don't have to go to seminary. We have great voices like you're Sadie that God is raising up that can help us understand. So programs like these, I mean, they change lives. They empower people. And the whole reason I'm doing this is to embolden people in their faith to be more bold about sharing the gospel. Because the scales of truth tip in our favor. That's good. Okay, I got to read this. And then we can continue all the questions, but I want to make sure I read this because this is what we're talking about for everyone listening.

After I started listening to some of the interviews that you did, I went and read this. And it got me so excited to the point of like, we need to know the gospel because we're the ones called to share the gospel. That's what we are called to do. And I feel like what the women experienced at the tomb that day is really a representation of like what we're kind of experiencing to. And then what we're supposed to do with it. Because when you come face to face with the resurrection and the reality of a resurrection, then you're supposed to go tell. That's on you to go and tell the world.

And I want to read just the account. It says in Matthew 28. Now, after the Sabbath towards the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake. I think that's really cool. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came back and rolled back the stone and set on it.

His appearance was like lightning and his clothes white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. That's wild. But the angel said to the women, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen. And he said, come see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell the disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, he has going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. And so they departed quickly from the tomb. I love this. And I think this is probably how a lot of us feel with fear and great joy. and they ran to tell the disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid.

Go, therefore, and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me. And that gets me like so fired up for like what we're talking about. Because that's what scripture says happen. This is totally in line with everything we've talked about. happened and they were faced with having to believe in impossible situation too they just saw Jesus crucified they did see that and now they're seeing um you know he's not there and the stones rolled away and they're seeing the the cloths and they're seeing all this stuff from the other accounts and then they have to then go with this information from the angel that's like this is so crazy with all

the fear that they have and maybe skepticism i don't know but with great joy and then they run to tell the disciples. And then I love that Jesus doesn't even wait until they get there. He meets them on the way. And he's like, greetings. She's so wild. And then he tells him not to be afraid, but to keep going and tell everybody to meet them there. And then he does meet them there. And then he gives us, you know, the great commission to go, therefore, tell everyone, tell every nation, every tribe, every tongue. And baptize him in the name of the Father, send him the Holy Spirit. And behold, I will be with you to the end of the age. And so that is what we are called to do, we are part of that. And so you take this impossible situation believing that we serve a God

of the impossible, a supernatural thing happened, and we believe that that happened. And that's the hope that we have. And again, because he lives, we can live. And so this is what Easter's all about and how crazy that, yes, we have it in the scripture, but then we also have all of these things to just stoke our faith in that. And that gets me so fired up. I just have to say, wow, are you sure you're not a Bible scholar that your exegesis was incredible of John 20. Fantastic. It's exciting. Wow. Very exciting. I don't believe you that you haven't been to seminary. Hey, I love the word. I told John Luke when John, my brother, he was like, yeah, I read the first book in the shrouded touring in 2016 and the blah, blah, blah. I was like, really? He's like, you've never heard of it. I said, I'm a simple believer.

I got the Bible. I got the Bible. I did do one course. Thank you. No, I got the Bible. I love the word. And like you said, we got to stop scrolling, like stop, binge watching, stop going. Oh, that's interesting. Let me see what someone says about on TikTok. And go read the Bible because you're not going to get the fullness of it from just hearing a clip. Even from me, don't even just get my clips. Please don't. Go read the Bible.

And that's the thing. That's where you get that revelation. That's where God meets you. That's his word. That's his voice speaking to you. And so, yeah, when you read it, it's like, whoa, this is crazy. And then, again, like, be a deep thinker. Okay, there's this nuclear explosion.

Interesting. It says there's an earthquake. It's crazy. The women are talking about how are we going to roll. the stone away. Well, it was already rolled away. How'd that happen? By the way, the stone would weigh 2,750 pounds. And by the way, just mom and dad, great job on this one right here, this Bible scholar here. I mean, wow, that was awesome. Secondly, I just want to add a couple footnotes application-wise. We can't wait until all of our feelings are right to spread the gospel. Can you imagine if the

women waited until they weren't afraid anymore to speak up until the disciples? So if you're waiting for all the stars to align in your life before you share the gospel with your friend, you've waited too long. They knew enough. They knew enough to share Jesus with someone. And they still did it in spite of their fears. And so faith does not equal certainty. Faith equals trusting God through the uncertainty and acting and following the values of your faith. And so if you just keep on that way, listen, I was just at the World Economic Forum preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. There was a lot of fear there mixed with, wow. Lord, I'm going to be faithful today. I'm going to live in your grace today. And so thank you. Well, I love when you read that,

and it says the guards, it felt like dead men, the guards who are supposed to be the people who are securing the space were so terrified. Powerless. Fainted. So it's like... Do you think they ended up believing? Absolutely. And there's a lot of traditions. We actually have the name of the guard of one of the tombs and an extra canonical. But also, that's what happened to Satan as well. He was powerless. Paul says that Christ made a masquerade of him in Colossians. He literally showed off Satan thought he had won and God literally demolished Satan. He made a mockery of Satan trying to kill Jesus. And that's also what happened to the enemy.

Man, it's crazy. It gets me so excited. And when you said, like, shout out to mom and dad. Seriously, like, mom and dad, these are the kind of conversations I've grown up having in our house. And so I didn't go to school, but I come from a family who dad would ask us these questions, talk about these questions. And then my grandpa is here. My other grandpa is in heaven.

But I can just, I, people feel, would he not love this? He would be so fired out about this. I mean, his life was to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And like his life was evidence of a transformation, of a resurrection, a dead man that truly came to life. And so, you know, and then now that he's even passed, it's even more to me, it's like to keep going and to keep preaching that message because, again, like, if this isn't real and this isn't the hope we have, then what hope is there?

There isn't. There is no. So now it's like, okay, this is the gospel he lived on. This is the gospel we're carrying on. This is what the hopes in. And so I just wanted to make sure, and I want to make sure everybody's questions are answered who have come today. But I wanted to make sure for the podcast, we get that in there that like, this is what we're talking about. This is what we're excited about.

Before I knew any of this, I was just as excited about this. I'm maybe a little bit more excited now because I'm like, why not? It fans the flame. It's like, this is so cool. This is so awesome. And it goes, it doesn't, it all aligns. It all is going in the same direction, which is so cool. I have one more quick thing.

Just because I'll hear people that are way smarter than me. It's like off the cusp, like this, the academia or this, yada, yada, yada. Like what, because whenever I hear that, I'm like, I don't know where to, like, where would I go fine? And you're talking about your book, but like all these academic studies and scholars. and like to me it seems like an ethereal like I don't know how to practically go access these files and things like that are there like a couple of resources that oh absolutely are you talking specifically about the shroud yeah the shroud and just the historical things because are your papers absolutely my first thought would be like chatch EBT no don't do that this sounds so self-promotional but I would honestly say my book because you know my background in bible scholarship you know my background in skepticism of the shroud. You know my background, understanding the historicity of the death burial and resurrection. And one of my biggest frustrations, what took me so long to answer your question, I had to go find

all these studies, download them, read them, fact check them, call these guys on the phone. And no one else is going to do that. Like, they would have tapped out a lot. Very few people are going to do that. And so, and then I wanted to answer these great questions. So I think my book is excellent. Habermas has a couple great books on the shroud. They're a little dated by now, but he has like shroud that he did with Ken Stevenson. You can find it on a used bookstore. But we needed some new material from an evangelical perspective as well. And I'm sorry there's not more material. I think more's coming now. But that's what I would say. And then, you know, in my talks are all on YouTube. Like I'm very careful and precise. I have to be because if I say one thing wrong, there's 13,000 negative comments.

So we post and ghost. But at any rate, what's cool about studying this is, is then being able to put it out again in the cultural vernacular. And so when I speak on the shroud, I show all 102 academic disciplines that have studied the shroud. There's a great resource that my friend Joe Marino, Joe Marino, if you Google his name and his shroud website, it's all free. There are hundreds of articles on the shroud.

I mean, you will go down the rabbit trail. So that's another great free resource. And then go to Turin, see it. They have a shroud museum there. go shopping in Milan and then go up to Turin and see the shroud museum. I went there recently and actually took Glenn Beck with me and his wife for three days because they were really interested to see these things and we experienced it together. We interviewed these scientists who were there. It was during the Jubilee and I would encourage you, the museum there is marvelous.

And then here at Christian Thinker Society, this is what we're doing at Prestonwood Church and at other churches from time to time. We have an exhibit that we actually take these materials. It's all free. There's no tickets. This is just, we want to, we want people to explore this evidence on their own. And so that's why we ask, who is the man of the shroud and then who do you say I am? Jesus asked. Oh, I love that. That's cool. And for the chat GPT question too, I think this is really important in how you even respond to like, don't do that because that is what most of my listeners are going to do because that's what we're used to. We have chat GPT as access. But I think one thing you have to be really careful of a chat GPT is when he says don't be led by your

feelings, you know? You, like, chat GPT is going off your feelings a lot of times. So it's stoking, not just truth, but your feelings. Like, for me, Christian looked at my chat one night because I all of a sudden got super freaked out. And then he was like, well, what did you ask chat GPT? And it was something about my baby. I was concerned about a thing. And then all of a sudden, I'm terrified because it was, even the language it was talking to me was like very anxious and urgent and this and that. And so like, whatever you're giving it, it's, it's, it's, it's, you're, it's definitely influenced by the tone of what you're giving it. So it's not always like going to be accurate.

And I love, I think it is a challenge nowadays because it's so quick and easy to just ask that and not ask a person. But like you said for you, it was calling your mentor, asking him these questions, these conversations, doing the hard work.

I even love last night, Christian asked a question to us. That was like a simple question. I was like, what's the difference between a sheriff and a cop or something? And I was like, that could have been so easy to just get on chat, GBT,

But instead it created a conversation and then we could talk about it. And then it leads you to more. And so I think it's so important that we have these conversations. That's why I'm so thankful for the questions and you taking the time. Well, and I'm thankful for you having me and exposing the audience to this. So AI will what's called hallucinate. And I just was in a talk on this. AI will make up stuff.

They call it AI hallucinations. It happens in every AI. Proximity, Clod, Anthropic, Chat, GTP. And you have to understand there are people programming the answers. to this, but then it will hallucinate and tell you unfactual things. And so what I use is Logos Bible software. I have my own library and I,

and they have now fed in an AI feature in Logos where it only searches your library. And then it cites people like me with the answers. That's cool. So you know it can be trusted. It won't build your sermon for you. They've created that algorithm as well. But that's where you can

go for verified information. But again, the most verifiable truth, you know, I'm teaching as series right now on Wednesday nights with my colleague Jason called Stand for Truth. And all you have to do is study the word. When you know the truth, you're going to spot error immediately, the Holy Spirit inside you. And so again, we cannot improve upon absolute truth. And then I just want to quote Pascal, Blaise Pascal, a great thinker who died at the age of 39. He said, we have to present the truth in such a way that we make it attractive. We make good people want it to be true and then show them

that it is. And this is what you do so well. This is what you do so well. This is why your program is so powerful. You make truth attractive. You make people want to believe it, and then you show them why it's true. The Bible actually says we add cosmetics. You know, aren't you thankful I took a shower before I came on the set this morning? My, you know, my daughter and wife are. And, you know, we can add cosmetics to the gospel. Paul uses that term literally cosmetics. We're the aroma of Christ. We can draw people. We want to present the gospel effectively where people like sitting leaning in like I want this to be true so show me that it is. That's great. It's the ultimate whoa that's good moment. It really is. I have to, I'm like, don't say well that's good. It is. It's well, that's good. It's so good. Thank you for saying

that and thank you so much. I feel like this is a good like to stop the podcast, but I still want, and Elizabeth, I don't want to take your question if you had a question you wanted to ask him. You know, it's just so everything is so fascinating. I love how the body, Bible, it's the Old Testament and the New Testament are not two separate things. They are cohesive. Like St. Augustine said, the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. And one thing, I love your focus in study on your PhD on the life, burial, um, life death and burial Jesus and resurrection of Jesus. And one thing I've studied so much the last couple of years is just the parallels of like all the sacrifices and like down to the first Passover being like the land without

a blemish and then down to the where it had to be done once everything was put in place in the temple and the sacrifices and the the holy of holies and all these things and then thinking about just the crucifixion of Jesus and how every single aspect to a tittle like was like fulfilled down to like the broken bones like you mentioned and then none none were broken and then how but yet the thieves on the cross you know they did because like sundown was coming but Jesus had already died Can you just talk about the magnitude of him being the perfect lamb of God and like the ultimate sacrifice? Like it's just mind boggling, but yet it's like everything in the Old Testament is just a picture of everything that Jesus was and everything that he fulfilled. I think if we really could understand the gospel the way the Lord intended it, we would probably talk about nothing else.

Yeah. The book of Ephesian says that we're all going to go to graduate school in heaven someday on what it's, took what it costs to pay for our sin. It says it's going to take eternity for us to really grasp, which we never will, God's amazing love for us. And we see that. And so what's amazing, though, is it's so simple, my triplets could understand it and literally interrupt me eating salmon at our dinner table and say, no, Dad, we believe that. We want to get saved right now. And they were seven years old. It's that amazing truth. And so the deeper you go, it's so mind-boggling. be a lifelong learner. Never stop reading your Bible. Never stop growing in your faith.

Never stop asking the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to you and to be your, because that's what he is. He is our Hodego. He's literally our truth guide. That's what John 16 says. He will guide us into all truth. He's our truth to our guide. So keep asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to you his truth, to fill you with his spirit. And what's amazing is we are living, do you realize the exciting times we're living in? You look at these great Christians from hundreds of years ago. you mentioned Augustine, Charles Spurgeon, they didn't have all this evidence. The Dead Sea Scrolls weren't discovered until 1947. I mean, they did not have these tools.

And so we are blessed with these tools, and we need to use them to the maximum extent. So I would just, I can't improve on Paul from Ephesians. It's going to take all of eternity to understand the amazing grace that we didn't deserve, but that he still willingly gave. He paid the price we couldn't pay. and what a great that's why we call it grace it doesn't make sense the equation doesn't add up it is too good to be true that's how you know it's grace so good amen wow that was so powerful thank you so much thank you for having me such an honor seriously thank you so much