Tag: Jesus

4 min read

Church Teaching

Christology 101: What Is the Hypostatic Union?

Father Harrison Ayre

May 4, 2023 7:14 am May 4, 2023

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4 min read

One of the core teachings about the person of Jesus is traditionally called the hypostatic union. This term developed in the early Church, whereby the word “hypostatic” was used officially…

One of the core teachings about the person of Jesus is traditionally called the hypostatic union. This term developed in the early Church, whereby the word “hypostatic” was used officially at the Council of Chalcedon as a way to express the union of Jesus’ two natures. Simply put, it means that in the Person of Jesus are two natures — divinity and humanity — in complete unity without mixture, change, division or separation, as the Council of Chalcedon famously said.

The Church worked toward this teaching over centuries based on a couple core questions: How is it that in Jesus both God and humanity come together? Does this entail that both humanity and divinity are kept intact, or does Jesus lose some of his divinity or humanity in the Incarnation?

These questions are central because how we answer them has an effect on how we understand the salvation that comes from Jesus. It is for this reason that the Church fought so vigorously over the centuries to defend both the full humanity and the full divinity of Jesus. If Jesus is not fully God and fully man, then, simply put, we are not saved, and we are still in sin.

Believing, then, that Jesus is fully God and fully man at the same time means he has everything that we have in our humanity except sin as well as everything that belongs to the nature of God. Chalcedon’s declaration that these two natures exist without mixture, change, division or separation tells us, in a mysterious way, how the two natures are in union with each other.

The Divine Person of the Son is the bond between these two natures. The humanity and divinity of Jesus do not mix — that is what the Church fought against when it battled Arianism. There is no change to either nature: the humanity does not change at the moment of the Incarnation nor does the divine nature change in that moment. They are not separated or divided: the power of the divinity is always in union with the human actions of Jesus.

Such statements may cause one to scratch his or her head in confusion, yet it is usually a sign that one is entering the mystery. The humanity and divinity of Jesus are united without mixing, different without being separated or mingled.

While no analogy perfectly holds, a glimpse of this is found in marriage. There two people, different and distinct, come together in a communion so deep that God pronounces it to be a one flesh, even though two people are present. They are not mingled together, nor are they so separate that they do not work together.

Another image that can help us begin to comprehend the mystery of the hypostatic union, and is worth praying with, is the image of the burning bush at the beginning of the Book of Exodus, where the bush is on fire and yet not consumed.

The reason why the Church stops here in clarifying the relationship between the two natures of Jesus is to respect the mysteriousness of the union. No human mind can perfectly comprehend this mystery. This does not mean we do not seek to understand the relationship between the humanity and the divinity of Jesus, rather it means we have a healthy respect for the uniqueness of the event and the limitedness of our nature.

What is offered here is, ultimately, meant to be guideposts to help navigate a way into the mystery. Meditating on these truths is worthy of our prayer because, as we delve into this mysterious union, one fact becomes abundantly clear: In Jesus God does not destroy, overwhelm or annihilate our humanity. Rather, he enters into our nature and lifts it up to a dignity hitherto unknown. In Jesus we see that humanity is most itself when it is nearest to God.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison.

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9 min read

Scripture

What We Believe, Part 30: The Vision of Christ

Father Joshua J. Whitfield

April 18, 2023 12:28 pm April 18, 2023

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9 min read

Clearly, from the Catholic point of view, Scripture and Tradition should fit together, work together for the sake of presenting, without error, the “mystery of Christ,” so that all people…

Clearly, from the Catholic point of view, Scripture and Tradition should fit together, work together for the sake of presenting, without error, the “mystery of Christ,” so that all people might hear the “summons to salvation” (Dei Verbum, No. 1). The purpose of the Scripture is to show us Jesus, to teach, to sanctify, to change us.

The Church we’ve been talking about is the Catholic Church, the Scripture is the canonical Scripture, the Tradition is apostolic tradition centered on Peter. These are real things, not just ideas. And that’s because all of it points to the real Christ — who isn’t just a concept either. Rather, he’s a Christ we can see, whom we can touch and even taste.

Which brings us — to conclude our discussion of the Scripture and Tradition — to the final purpose of it all. And that is, simply, the vision of Christ. That’s what encountering the Scripture through Tradition within the communion of the Church does for the believer: it offers the vision of Christ. Such is what we mean when we talk about the “mystery of Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 80). That’s the event of revelation. And again, that’s a real encounter, a real vision. And that’s because it’s a sacramental vision, Eucharistic and holy.

Firstly, what we mean here is that the vision of Christ is granted in the Eucharist. We see this in Luke’s Gospel, in the story of the risen but hidden Jesus who walks and talks with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Starting with “Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures,” Luke writes. Which causes the men to desire this mysterious figure. “Stay with us,” they beg him. It’s a prayer that gathers the three around a table. And there, Luke says, “they recognized him” in the breaking of the bread (Lk 24:25-32). Jesus opened Scripture to them, so they would see him in the Eucharist. This is what Scripture does: it helps us recognize Christ in the Eucharist. We see in this story the basic twofold shape of the Mass — the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. In the Liturgy of the Word, we hear the Scripture proclaimed and preached. In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we encounter Jesus just as these two men did in the breaking of the bread. Our eyes are opened, and we recognize him.

For the present purpose, we should notice that this twofold pattern of Word and Eucharist is found throughout Christian history. In the writings of St. Justin Martyr, for instance, we find a description of the Eucharist as celebrated in Rome in the second century, and, in it, we see the same pattern found in Luke is the same found in the Mass today. “And on the day called Sunday all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen” (“First Apology,” No. 62). That’s the same pattern as found in Luke 24. That’s the Catholic Mass today. The Scripture helps us see Christ in the Eucharist. That ultimately is what the Scripture is for. It’s to help us find Christ and to receive him — in the Eucharist.

But the vision of Christ given us through the Scripture is not just Eucharistic. It’s not just about seeing Jesus. It’s also about seeing like Jesus. It’s about seeing the world through the eyes of Christ. If you think about it, that’s what the Revelation to John is. Swept up in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, John heard a voice, “Write on a scroll what you see” (Rv 1:11). The Scripture not only helps us see Jesus, it also gives us a way of seeing, a way of looking at the world and at history much the same way John saw the world in the vision given him at Patmos.

But it’s not a way of seeing in some sort of silly magical sense. Rather, I mean what David Bentley Hart, a Orthodox theologian, means. He said, “the Christian should see two realities at once, one world (as it were) within another: one world as we all know it, in all its beauty and terror, grandeur and dreariness, delight and anguish; and the other world in its first and ultimate truth, not simply ‘nature’ but ‘creation,’ an endless sea of glory, radiant with the beauty of God in every part, innocent of all violence. To see in this way is to rejoice and mourn at once, to regard the world as a mirror of infinite beauty, but as glimpsed through the veil of death; it is to see creation in chains, but beautiful as in the beginning of days” (“The Doors of the Sea,” No. 61). That’s what it means to have the vision of Christ, to see all things as Jesus does. Being people of faith, seeing Jesus, formed in the idioms of Scripture and in the rhetoric of the word of God, it transforms the way we view things. It helps us see things differently, at a different angle — from a spiritual and ultimate perspective.

The Scripture is its own idiom, training believers to see the world a certain way. And that’s because the Scripture itself describes reality in a certain way. Scripture gives us a new way of seeing — the vision of Christ, seeing like Jesus. This actually is the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, that the purpose of the revelation of God in Christ is “to make known to us the hidden purpose of His will by which through Christ, the Word made flesh, man might in the Holy Spirit have access to the Father and come to share in the divine nature” (Dei Verbum, No. 2). That is, the purpose of the Bible is not to explain the universe scientifically, to be for us some sort of cosmic manual. Rather, the purpose of the Bible is to show us God’s heart, his salvation; and from that, to see everything else differently.

What I mean by this different way of seeing — given through the Scripture — we see most clearly in the lives of the early Christian martyrs. In them, we see powerfully what Christians look like when they see the world with the eyes of Jesus. As when martyrs like the priest Pionius — as so many others did — rejected pagan gods for the “God who is almighty … who made the heavens and the earth and all the things that are in them … the God we know through Christ his Word” (“The Martyrdom of Pionius,” No. 8). These people saw things differently. “Why do you rush towards death?” Pionius was asked. “I am not rushing towards death, but towards life,” he answered. Because in Christ he saw things in a radically different way — the way Christ does. Such is the moral and spiritual result of being a scriptural person. It gives us the eyes of martyrs.

But, of course, there’s even something more. When you become a scriptural person, Christ becomes visible in you. That is, people see Jesus in you. Again, we can see in the martyrs what I mean. We see this in St. Blandina, a second-century Christian slave who, in her dying moments, looked like Christ to her brothers and sisters. As the account of her martyrdom reads: “Blandina was hung on a post and exposed as bait for the wild animals that were let loose on her. She seemed to hang there in the form of a cross, and by fervent prayer she aroused intense enthusiasm in those who were undergoing their ordeal, for in their torment with their physical eyes they saw in the person of their sister him who was crucified for them, that he might convince all who believe in him that all who suffer for Christ’s glory will have eternal fellowship in the living God” (“The Martyrs of Lyons,” No. 1.41). Blandina believed in Jesus and loved him and knew him because she responded to the Gospel that was delivered to her. And in that love, she followed Jesus, obeyed him and lived like him. She saw the world as Christ did. And for her, that meant she had to go to the amphitheater and die. But in her faithfulness and adherence to God’s word, not so much intellectually but in love, she died brutally. But those who saw her saw Jesus. They saw Christ in the “person of their sister.” Which is the final result — this side of heaven — of being a person shaped by the Scripture. For Christ to become visible in you. If you want to be a scriptural person, that’s the goal. To be that sort of person who sees Jesus, sees as Jesus; and then by grace, to be the sort of person in whom others see Jesus. Which, of course, is to become a saint.

And that’s how we Catholics view the Scripture.

Father Joshua J. Whitfield is pastor of St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and author of “The Crisis of Bad Preaching” (Ave Maria Press, $17.95) and other books. Read more from the series here.

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4 min read

Church Teaching

Christology 101: The Humanity of Jesus

Father Harrison Ayre

April 7, 2023 9:45 am April 7, 2023

4 min read

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4 min read

It is too often the case that when people talk about the divinity of Jesus, they imply that his divinity either overwhelms, supplants or destroys his humanity. Often, in fact,…

It is too often the case that when people talk about the divinity of Jesus, they imply that his divinity either overwhelms, supplants or destroys his humanity. Often, in fact, people will defend their devotion to the saints because they are “not God like Jesus is.” Well intentioned, it is a way of speaking that too easily undermines a central tenant of the Christian faith: that being fully God, Jesus is also fully man.

This problem was the subject of many intense theological debates over the early centuries of the Church and still plague us in the context of certain modern questions. The issues surrounding this are: If God becomes man, what of man remains? Does the divinity in any way replace the human? Does the human in any way limit the divinity?

To answer this problem, the Fathers of the Church developed a principle that helped guide our understanding of Jesus: “That which is not assumed is not redeemed.” If there is anything of our humanity that Jesus does not possess, then that aspect is not redeemed. If he has no body, the body is not redeemed; no will, the will is not redeemed, etc. If there is an aspect of our humanity that is not redeemed, then Jesus did not really accomplish what he set out to accomplish. If Jesus has not accomplished our salvation, then we are still in our sin, and more pitiable because of it.

Perfect harmony and communion

It is for this reason the Church confidently affirms the full humanity of Jesus and applies the following principle when speaking about Jesus’ humanity and divinity: The humanity of Jesus in no way limits his divinity, and his divinity in no way overwhelms, destroys or sublimates his humanity. They are in a perfect harmony and communion. The divinity dwells in his humanity as the burning bush appeared to Moses: It was aflame but not consumed or destroyed. The divinity is always greater, but never in a competition with creation. No, God himself is always seeking to lift creation to its perfection.

Thus we must affirm that Jesus does have a humanity exactly like ours. He has a body, soul, mind, memory and will just like ours. If we believe that the divinity being united to humanity in some way makes us less human or less ourselves, then it betrays an unbiblical view of God. The biblical view, definitively revealed in Jesus, demonstrates that humanity is most itself when it is closest to and rooted in God.

There is one thing we have that Jesus lacked: sin. “For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin” (2 Cor 5: 21). We might respond to this by saying: “This makes him difficult to relate to” or “Then he really isn’t like us, then.” But instead of the earlier error of overemphasizing the divinity to the neglect of his humanity, we now fall into the opposite error of over emphasizing his humanity to the neglect of his divinity. It is because of sin that we are, in fact, less human!

Perfecting

Sin destroys the image of God in which we have been made, it makes us subject to corruption and death and it dulls our mind towards God. But if God is the source of our dignity, freedom and identity, it follows that the more God is present, the more human we are. In Jesus we find God most relatable because he is most human. When we buy into the idea that Jesus is difficult to relate to because he is without sin, we are giving power to the forces of sin and death and see God in a competitive, instead of perfecting, fashion. The humanity of Christ is of supreme importance because it shows us both what true humanity looks like and gives us a pattern and way to follow, but it also is in the humanity of Jesus that we are born into a redeemed humanity. Without this humanity, we have no hope of eternal life, because it is in the humanity of Jesus that we are truly alive.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison.

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1 min read

Jesus

Unbroken Legs and the Crucifixion

Msgr. Charles E. Pope

April 6, 2023 8:27 am April 6, 2023

1 min read

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1 min read

The breaking of the legs hastened death by bringing on asphyxiation rapidly. Crucifixion involves a lot of physical pain, scourging and often being nailed to the cross (rather than just…

The breaking of the legs hastened death by bringing on asphyxiation rapidly. Crucifixion involves a lot of physical pain, scourging and often being nailed to the cross (rather than just tied). But the real manner of death was to stretch out the arms of the man on the cross and have the weight of his body drag him down. This weakened the muscles of the arms and chest and breathing became shallower. For a while a person could push up with his legs and take some of the weight off the arms and chest, which would prolong life and lead to deeper breathing. But eventually the lungs filled with fluid, breathing was labored and asphyxiation caused death. To break the legs removed the option of alleviating the arms and chest and death came much sooner.

As for Jesus, his legs were not broken because he had already died. That is the practical reason.

According to the Gospel of John: “For this happened so that the scripture passage might be fulfilled: ‘Not a bone of it will be broken.’ ” (19:36). John thus sees the fact that Jesus’ bones were not broken as a fulfillment of Psalm 34 and its Messianic reference to the just man: “[The Lord] watches over all his bones; / not one of them shall be broken” (Ps 34:21). It was also said of the Paschal Lamb, “You shall not break any of its bones” (Ex 12:46). Thus Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; as the Paschal Lamb for us, none of his bones are broken.

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8 min read

Scripture

What We Believe, Part 2: What Scripture Says of Jesus

Father Joshua J. Whitfield

February 8, 2023 8:12 am February 8, 2023

8 min read

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8 min read

To know what we believe, we must read Scripture. But what does the Bible say about Jesus? One way to answer this question is to examine the names and titles…

To know what we believe, we must read Scripture. But what does the Bible say about Jesus?

One way to answer this question is to examine the names and titles of Christ. In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church takes this approach (see Nos. 422-455). Theologians both Catholic and Protestant have done this for centuries. Simply put, it’s an easy way to explore how Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament — by studying his many titles. Examining only a few will be sufficient.

The most emphatic and repeated thing Scripture says of Christ, as Peter preached at Pentecost, is that he was crucified and killed, but that “God raised him up” (Acts 2:23-24). That is, Jesus is the Risen One. Such was the disciples’ most profound experience and what compelled them to preach to anyone who would listen.

Believing that central message, however, only inspired more questions — biographical ones. Like, where was Jesus from? Who were his parents? What did he do and say? Jesus was a teacher, clearly. He was also recognized as a prophet and acted like one. But how was Jesus different from other teachers and prophets? The Gospels were written to answer just such questions — to meet faith’s curiosity, the desire to know more — just as Theophilus desired to know, the one for whom Luke wrote his Gospel (Lk 1:3-4).

Such desire, such curiosity, is fundamental to the Gospels, and it carries us into the whole world of the Bible. “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked. “The Messiah,” Peter answered (Mt 16:16). This makes sense only in light of the Hebrew Scriptures, as is true of almost all that’s said of Jesus in the New Testament. For instance, the word “Messiah,” the Greek translation of which is “Christ,” simply means “anointed.” In the Old Testament prophets, priests and kings were “anointed.” The Messiah for whom Andrew longed, as did the Samaritan woman, was imagined as a sort of king, like kings of old — the regal fulfilment of God’s promise to David that his kingdom would never end.

So Jewish meaning, you see, gives meaning to Jesus. Such is true even for his name — “Jesus.” The angel Gabriel gave Mary this name (Lk 1:31); it’s the same name as “Joshua,” transliterated also sometimes “Yeshua” or “Yehoshua.” Succeeding Moses, Joshua led the people into the Promised Land. Jesus, in a sense, did the same. The name also evokes the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, the four consonants that are in the Hebrew Scriptures, the unpronounceable, and at times unwritable, name for God. “Jesus” simply means something like “YHWH saves.”

The Jewish web of meaning also helps us understand titles like “Son of Man,” which is how Jesus often spoke of himself. In one sense it simply means “human,” for we are all sons or daughters of “man” (Ps 8:4). Yet, in another sense — and especially as Jesus spoke of the “Son of Man,” say, in Luke’s Gospel — it evokes the enigmatic figure found in the Book of Daniel, the “son of man” presented before the “Ancient One” at the end of history given “an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away” (Dan 7:13-14). “For just as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day” (Lk 17:24). Jesus here was not simply employing a colloquial term for “human.” Rather, he was placing himself within the destiny described in Daniel. When Jesus talked about his death and resurrection, or about the end of the world, or when he said the “Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth,” it’s likely that this mysterious passage from Daniel came to the minds of his listeners, certainly to the Gospel writers (Mt 17:22-23; Mk 2:10-11). It is as if that is what the evangelists wanted us to understand about Jesus, about who he is and what happened to him, that we should understand him in terms of the eternal victory Daniel mystically saw.

Another term used of Jesus was “servant.” Peter called him “servant Jesus” (Acts 3:13). Paul said Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:7). Early on for Christians, talk of Jesus as servant evoked the Songs of the Servant found in Isaiah. In the so-called fourth Song of the Servant, for example, an enigmatic servant is “spurned” and “pierced for our offenses.” Yet, by “his stripes we are healed,” the text says (Is 53:3-5). It is easy to see how early Christians interpreted these passages from Isaiah in light of Jesus, as prophetic images of his death and resurrection. Such is how Philip explained this passage to the Ethiopian eunuch, for instance (see Acts 8:32-35). It also, along with imagery from Exodus, makes sense of what John saw in the Book of Revelation, the living triumphal “Lamb that seemed to have been slain” (Rev 5:6).

Jesus was also called “Son of God.” In the Old Testament a “son of God” was sometimes an angel or a king (Job 1:6; Ps 2:7). In the Gospels, however, more is meant. Mark’s Gospel, as it reads at the beginning, is the “gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). The whole story Mark tells leads to just this realization, voiced in the words of the centurion. “Truly this man was the Son of God” he says at the foot of the cross (Mk 15:39). But what does that mean? To call Jesus “Son of God” in one sense doesn’t immediately suggest Jesus’s divinity. When, however, Jesus prays to be glorified with the glory he shared with the Father from “before the world began,” we begin to see that “Son of God” means something more. Rather, it describes the unique relationship Jesus claimed to have with God, whom he called “Abba” or “Father” (see Jn 5:17-18) and which, adopted by the Holy Spirit, believers also have (Rom 8:15). Jesus, in this sense, is the “firstborn” of God’s many children, those in whose hearts the Holy Spirit is poured (Rom 8:29; 5:5).

Now, all this thus far simply speaks to the hope of Israel, and that Jesus fulfills it. He was, however, called other things that say more. For instance, calling Jesus “Lord” as both Peter and Paul did (Acts 2:35; Rom 10:9; Phil 2:11) was perhaps the most radical thing one could say of him. Calling Jesus Lord carried both religious and political meaning. Religiously, one could argue, it identified Jesus with God himself. Whenever Jewish scribes came across YHWH in the Hebrew Scriptures, for instance, out of respect they often replaced it with “Adonai,” which is translated “Lord.” And politically, of course, Caesar was “Lord.” Thus, to call Jesus “Lord” was blasphemous to some and seditious to others. Which is why, for Christians, calling Jesus “Lord” was so charged and also dangerous.

And no less daring, at least philosophically, was to call Jesus “Word.” That is what John said of him, that Jesus is the Word that “was with God” and “was God” (Jn 1:1). This should be read in light of Isaiah where God speaks of his word that goes forth from his “mouth” (Is 55:11), but also in light of all the words of God and the Law, which Moses begged Israelites to keep and pass onto their children (Deut 32:46). It also evokes the word spoken by God at creation (Gen 1:3). The Greek mind, though, would have read “Word” a variety of ways: as speech, as concept, as the rational organizing principle of the cosmos. Philo, the Jewish philosopher, understood it to be the divine reason of things. This makes John’s statement startling, that in Jesus the “Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Here we’re talking about not simply the fulfillment of Israel’s hope, but something more. It is a unique claim that Nicaea would summarize only a few centuries later — that the Father and the Son are “consubstantial,” that Jesus is “God from God.”

Now, this is but little of what is said of Jesus in the New Testament. There is, of course, so much more. John said as much at the end of his Gospel (Jn. 21:25). St. Athanasius said the same, that trying to learn about Jesus was like trying to count waves on the sea (On The Incarnation, No. 54). There is, indeed, much more. Yet, one must start somewhere, and Scripture is the best somewhere to begin. Because what we believe is found in the Bible, and it is also where you will be found if you keep reading. For the truth is, we are all sought by what we are seeking. So, keep reading until you are found.

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12 min read

Relics

Shroud of Turin: Evidence of Jesus’ Resurrection?

Father Robert Spitzer

February 6, 2023 7:00 am February 6, 2023

12 min read

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12 min read

The Shroud of Turin is a burial shroud (a linen cloth woven in a 3-over-1 [3:1] herringbone pattern) measuring 14 feet 3 inches in length by 3 feet 7 inches…

The Shroud of Turin is a burial shroud (a linen cloth woven in a 3-over-1 [3:1] herringbone pattern) measuring 14 feet 3 inches in length by 3 feet 7 inches in width. It apparently covered a man who suffered the wounds of crucifixion in a way very similar to that recorded for Jesus of Nazareth.

The cloth has a certifiable history from 1349, when it surfaced in Lirey, France, in the hands of a French nobleman — Geoffrey de Charny. It also has a somewhat sketchy traceable history from Jerusalem to Lirey — through Edessa, Turkey and Constantinople. This history is confirmed by the pollen grains found by Max Frei, the coincidences between the Shroud and the Sudarium (facecloth) of Oviedo, and the coincidences between the Shroud’s seven unique facial features and those attributed to the Mandylion — the Holy Image of Edessa.

The Shroud has undergone considerably more scientific testing than any other relic in human history. The 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) investigation and subsequent investigations were remarkably thorough, and with the exception of the questionable 1988 carbon dating, all the evidence points to it being the burial cloth of Jesus, including the following:

I. Four contemporary dating tests: The vanillin dating test of Dr. Raymond Rogers, the two spectroscopic analyses (of professor Giulio Fanti, et al.), and the compressibility and breaking strength tests (of Fanti, et al.) date the Shroud to a time commensurate with the life and crucifixion of Jesus.

II. Three kinds of extrinsic dating evidence: (A) Testing of pollen samples by Dr. Max Frei who collected dust samples from the Shroud during the 1978 STURP investigation and later classified 58 pollen grains by comparing them to pollen grains in the largest botanical museums around the world. His conclusion was that the majority (45) were from the region of Israel (specifically from sedimentary layers from 2,000 years ago near the area of the Sea of Galilee), with six grains from the eastern Middle East (two grains from Edessa, Turkey, and one growing exclusively in Istanbul/Constantinople). The remaining grains came from France and Italy. Importantly, 13 of the pollen grains are unique to Israel and are found at the bottom of both the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. (B) Roman coins on the eyes of the image on the Shroud, which give evidence that it’s highly probable that the image of the man on the Shroud of Turin has two Jewish lepta, minted in A.D. 29 by Pontius Pilate in Judea at the time of Jesus, on his eyelids. (C) One-hundred twenty coincidences of blood and fluid stains between the Shroud and the Sudarium of Oviedo give evidence of a date and location of the Shroud’s origin similar to that of Jesus.

III. The blood stains on the Shroud: The blood stains tell a story very similar to the highly unusual crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth — they were imprinted on the Shroud before the image was made (the opposite of what would need to be done by a forger). The Shroud has deposits of real human blood, according to the experts who studied the blood flecks gathered on the STURP tapes in 1978. They determined that the blood on the Shroud is real. Some researchers have found that male DNA and an AB blood type are also present on the cloth. Though genetic testing confirms these findings, there is no guarantee that they belong to the man on the Shroud.

IV. Formation of the image on the Shroud: The image was not formed by dyes, chemicals, vapors or scorching. The only known explanation for the formation of the image is an intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation (equivalent to the output of 14,000 excimer lasers) emitted from every three-dimensional point of the body in the Shroud.

The combination of the above evidence is exceedingly difficult to explain in any way other than the burial cloth is that of Jesus of Nazareth. Moreover, the formation of the image by an intense outburst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation is suggestive of a resurrection event similar to that described in the Gospels. The above scientific evidence requires that a new carbon-dating test be done which observes the standard protocols for sampling. When these protocols are observed, it would be surprising if the result was not similar to the results of the four new dating methods mentioned above — approximately A.D. 50. If this result is obtained, it would indicate that the Shroud of Turin is very likely the burial shroud of Jesus Christ with evidence suggestive of His resurrection in light.

Evidence?

While we currently do not have a definitive explanation for how this unique and mysterious image was created from the body of a deceased man, the most plausible current hypothesis comes from a combination of two teams of researchers.

Dr. John Jackson’s team studied the Shroud and proposed the vacuum ultraviolet radiation hypothesis in 2008.

According to Jackson, an intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation produced a discoloration on the uppermost surface of the Shroud’s fibrils (without scorching it), which gave rise to a perfect three-dimensional negative image of both the frontal and dorsal parts of the body wrapped in it.

Currently, we know of no natural explanation for the seemingly unique occurrence of such a burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation from either a decomposing body or the geological/atmospheric conditions within a tomb. Though this is suggestive of a possible supernatural origin of the radiation — perhaps as a part of Jesus’ resurrection — we cannot prove this scientifically, because we cannot construct a scientific test for a supernatural cause — all we can do is eliminate every known natural cause of this seemingly unique radiation. The uniqueness and current inexplicability of this phenomenon gives us reason to believe that God has given us evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. This belief can be strengthened by further understanding of the light phenomenon that seems to be the source of the image as well as the continued elimination of natural causes for it. The most convincing seems to be the hypothesis of Jackson.

Research

The research of the 1978 STURP investigation, as well as subsequent research of Jackson, Fanti, Paolo Di Lazzaro and their teams, shows the likelihood that sometime after the blood deposits had dried on the Shroud the decomposing body in the Shroud emitted a short intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation that led to a dehydration and discoloration of the frontal and dorsal parts of the Shroud, giving rise to a perfect photographic negative image. Jackson’s research also suggests that the body inside the Shroud became mechanically transparent and emitted light evenly from every three-dimensional point within it. This allowed the frontal part of the Shroud to collapse — creating an image (of both the inside and outside of the hands) as well as a double image on the frontal part of the Shroud.

Currently, the known laws of physics cannot explain how a decomposing body can emit an intense burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation. Furthermore, they cannot explain how such a body could become mechanically transparent and emit light from every three-dimensional point within it.

So, where does that leave us? If Jackson’s explanation continues to be the only one to explain away the enigmas, and if future articulations of the laws of physics cannot explain how a decomposing body could become mechanically transparent and evenly emit vacuum ultraviolet radiation from every three-dimensional point within it, then we are left at the brink of a trans-physical or metaphysical explanation. Under these conditions, it would be both reasonable and responsible to believe that a trans-physical cause interacted with the decomposing body to transform it into an intense burst of light.

Evidently, we cannot scientifically prove a trans-physical cause, because science is restricted to the domain of physical causation. However, if the above conditions hold, we can reasonably infer the possibility and perhaps the likelihood of such a trans-physical cause. This is sufficient for reasonable and responsible belief.

Does this trans-physical explanation of the Shroud’s image point to the resurrection of Jesus? Jesus’ resurrection was not a resuscitation of a material corpse but rather a transforming event which gave rise to what St. Paul called a “spiritual body” — a body transformed in glory, spirit and power. Could this transformation of a material body into a burst of intense light signify a beginning point of the transformation of Jesus’ body from a physical one to a spiritual-glorified one? Though there can be no scientific proof of this, it is a reasonable inference from the parallels between the explanation of the Shroud’s enigmatic image and the testimony of St. Paul and the Gospel writers. In this sense, we might say that the image on the Shroud presents a clue — even a relic — of Jesus’ resurrection.

Conclusion

Why would we think the body in the Shroud was that of Jesus? As explained above, it is exceedingly improbable that the Shroud is a medieval forgery. First, there are no paints, dyes or other pigments on the Shroud (except for the small flecks coming from the sanctification of icons and paintings which touched it).

Second, the anatomical precision of the blood stains — which are real human blood that congealed on the Shroud before the formation of the image — are in precise anatomical correlation to the image itself. How could a medieval forger have accomplished this?

Third, it is exceedingly difficult to explain how pollen grains indigenous to Palestine appeared in abundance on a shroud of probable Semitic origin (if it originated in medieval Europe) and how coins minted in A.D. 29 in Palestine appeared on the eyes of the man on the Shroud. How could a medieval forger have duplicated these first-century Palestinian characteristics of the Shroud?

Fourth, the five enigmas of the image on the Shroud almost certainly preclude a forgery. How could a medieval forger have used vacuum ultraviolet radiation to discolor the cloth on the uppermost surface of the fibrils? How could he have created a perfect photographic negative image? How could he have created a double image on the frontal part of the Shroud? And how could he have known how to duplicate the interior and exterior of the hands in perfect proportion to each other? Thus it does not seem reasonable or responsible to believe that the Shroud is a medieval forgery.

Three Last Points

Beyond this, there are three probative kinds of evidence pointing specifically to Jesus’place and time of origin and to His unique crucifixion and resurrection:

The material of the Shroud, the pollen grains on it and the coins on the man’s eyes all have their origin in first-century Palestine — the place where Jesus was purported to have died.

The blood stains come from a crucifixion event identical to the one described in the four Gospels — which was very unusual, if not unique, in many respects — such as being crowned with thorns, being flogged and being pierced with a Roman pilum (spear).

The five enigmas of the Shroud’s image point to a trans-physically caused burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation from a mechanically transparent body. This is suggestive of the transformation of Jesus’ body from a physical one to a spiritual-glorified one (as reported by St. Paul and the four Gospels).

The spiritual-glorified transformation of Jesus’ body was unique to the Christian view of resurrection. It was not known in Judaism (which held to a resuscitation of the flesh) or pagan cults (which held to ethereal or ghostlike views of immortality). Thus the enigmas on the Shroud’s image point to the uniquely Christian view of resurrection implied by Jesus’ risen appearance.

The odds of this first-century Palestinian burial shroud — with the unique features of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection — being that of anyone else is exceedingly remote. Inasmuch as the image is not a forgery, and that it originated from a real person living at the time of Jesus, crucified in the unique way of Jesus, and producing a burst of intense vacuum ultraviolet radiation from his decomposing body, who else would it be? Given all this, we might reasonably infer that the Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus, which contains not only a relic of His crucifixion but also His resurrection in glory. If so, it shows both the truth of the most significant event in human history as well as the accuracy of the Gospel accounts of it.

Father Robert J. Spitzer, Ph.D., is a Jesuit priest currently serving as president of the Magis Center in Garden Grove, California. A prolific author, he also appears weekly on EWTN’s “Father Spitzer’s Universe.”

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