EPISODE 12A PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND LIFE AFTER DEATH

EPISODE 12A PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND LIFE AFTER DEATH

From atheism to all other religious viewpoints, the most significant question they address is whether there is life after death. Subordinate to that issue is the question, “Does life have a meaning or purpose?”

            We will begin with physical science’s greatest evidence of life after death. Then we will turn a scientific proposition that verifies the evidence, its meaning and purpose, from the Science of Human Events.

Barrie Schwortz was an expert in digital photography. He was employed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the late 1970s. At the Lab he was approached by another scientist to be the photographer of an investigation of the Shroud of Turin, an ancient artifact purported to be the grave cloth of Christ. Barrie is Jewish and declined the offer, believing that the cloth was a fraud.

Then he was shown a photograph that grabbed his interest. A two dimensional photograph of the Shroud had been placed under a VP8 Analyzer. NASA uses the analyzer to study the mountains and valleys on distant planets. The results should have been completely distorted by the photograph. Instead it provided a three dimensional image. Scientists were shaken by the results. Mr. Schwortz’s curiosity led him to join the team though he fully expected that he would look at the cloth, see the paint, and go home.

Tons of scientific equipment, and experts from many fields of science were brought to Turin, Italy to examine the cloth. Scientific interest in the cloth dated back to 1898 when the first photograph of the cloth was taken. The photographic plate should have produced a negative image. Instead the image was positive showing the markings on the cloth were a negative. Scientists were intrigued. It wasn’t until 1978 that they received permission to thoroughly test the image.

The cloth is 14 feet long. In burial the body was laid on the lower half and the upper portion was pulled over the front of the body.  The image from the corpse is imprinted on the front and the back. The cloth was also covered with a great amount of blood.

The first test was to place a light beneath the cloth to reveal the substance that formed the image. The blood glowed, but the image disappeared showing it was not a paint or solid substance. Samples of the blood were scraped from the cloth. It proved to be real blood.

Roman soldiers had mocked the Jews by making a crown of thorns and pressing it on Jesus’s head. Predictions of the Messiah referred to him as the “Anointed One,” meaning the king of the Jews. The crown of thorns mocking the Jew’s king was unique to Jesus’ crucifixion. There were blood flows from the puncture wounds on Jesus’ head and matted in his hair.

The great detail on the cloth gives clear examples of these evidences.

Pollen experts found a pollen around the puncture wounds. Pollens will last thousands of years. The pollen was from the sharp needles of a thistle that only grows in the area of Jerusalem. In Turin, Italy the pollens confirm that the crucifixion took place in Jerusalem.

Jesus was whipped using Roman flagrums prior to his crucifixion. The flagrum is  a wooden handle and whip with a small metal or bone dumbbell at the end. It is designed to slice through the skin and remove chunks of flesh as it is pulled out. The image clearly displays the 40 wounds from the whipping. The trauma was great. Forty lashes began the death process, intensifying the agony of being nailed to a cross.

Crucifixion was a humiliating death. The victim was hung naked in an area exposed to public view.

Lungs of the crucified would fill with liquid threatening to drown the victim. In desperation they would push up from the nails in their feet to briefly clear their lungs. The open back wounds would scrape against the cross. In Jesus’ death, the crown of thorns pressing against the cross matted his hair with blood.

The Jews did not want victims left to agonize on the Sabbath. Guards would break their legs before sunset. The guards thrust a spear into Jesus’ side. Blood and water flowed out proving he was dead. It was the only wound without swelling around it because the blood flow had already ended. King David had prophesied a thousand years earlier that not a bone of his body would be broken, nor would his body see decay.

Instead from a dead corpse there was an explosion in all directions, leaving a detailed record of death turned to life. It identifies the Creator of life!

It was physical sciences answer to the greatest issue in human history.  

What happened next?