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Souls are created. They inform human bodies. Human bodies change over time. They start out small and tiny, then grow, then grow a bit more, and undergo various other changes. Then they cease to be alive. "A little baby becomes an old man"---what does that mean? To me it means that though the body changes dramatically over time, there is a human self or soul that persist through those changes. The soul, however, does not cease to be at the death of the body. It continues to exist and, in Christian doctrine at any rate, it is given a resurrected body to inform. I don't know what resurrected bodies are like in any detail, but it would appear that they inhabit either a different universe, or different spatio-temporal dimensions. String physics is showing how multiple dimensionality and parallel dimensionality might be scientifically possible. I'm not sure if this is connected to the possibility of resurrection in the Christian sense, but it strikes me that it could be. An actual physical account of how the resurrection of Jesus may have happened is given by Mark Antonacci in his really excellent book on the Shroud of Turin. Antonacci has a proposal for a series of scientific tests of the Shroud, which you can download from his website, http://www.resurrectionoftheshroud.com/Click on the Proposal section and you'll be able to download a 33 page Word document, entitled: THE RESURRECTION OF THE SHROUD Tests That Could Prove the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from Samples Already Removed from the Shroud Part of the document reads as follows:
The recent book, The Resurrection of the Shroud, (1) states that we
stand at a unique moment in history. For the first time ever the world
may very well have new, independent and empirical evidence of what
would arguably be the most important events in history. For the first
time in history, the world may very well have an extensive amount of
medical, scientific and archaeological evidence for the crucifixion
and resurrection of the historical Jesus Christ.
A great deal of established and relatively recent evidence
(documented at length in this and other books) clearly indicates that
the Shroud wrapped a real human male; who was a Jew; who was crucified
and killed; by the Romans; in Jerusalem; after having been beaten;
scourged; crowned with thorns; endured falls; received a post-mortem
wound in the side; from which blood and a watery fluid flowed;
received an individual burial; by those possessing a detailed
knowledge of Jewish burial customs; in the 1st century; in the same
rock shelf in which Jesus was buried; who left the cloth in a
mysterious manner; within 2-3 days; during the Spring. Furthermore,
some event caused an unprecedented pair of frontal and dorsal images
to develop over time, containing almost 20 different primary and
secondary features, many of which have never been seen before in
history or until scientific technology had evolved to the point that
it could see or discover these features. This burial shroud also
contains more than 130 different and unique markings of real human
blood that formed, flowed and coagulated in the same shape and form as
when they congealed on the body.
While the vast majority of these body image and blood mark features
have only been discovered by 20th and 21st century scientific
technology, they have never been duplicated by scientists, physicians,
artists or people of any kind despite extensive efforts throughout the
last two centuries. While some of the evidence may be debatable, such
as the faint images of a coin or flowers, these secondary features and
especially the primary blood mark and body image features, not only
appear to be unfakeable, but mutually exclusive. Furthermore, if a
medieval forger encoded these numerous features, it would have
required his knowledge of their existence, yet almost all of these
unique features were not even visible or known until the advent of
20th century technology.
Recently, a growing body of evidence documented in The Resurrection
of the Shroud indicates that radiation caused the images on the Shroud
of Turin. Interestingly, this radiation appears to have come from the
length, width and depth of the above dead body wrapped in the Shroud.
Moreover, the type of radiation that seems to match or account for all
of the various chemical and physical features of the body images,
blood marks, possible secondary image features, and non-image features
is particle radiation, such as protons, alpha particles and neutrons,
which humans could not produce until the Manhattan Project. (2) This
paper states that particle radiation emanated from the dead body
wrapped within the Shroud, along with many other significant facts,
which could easily be proven from samples already removed from the Shroud.
The Resurrection of the Shroud documents the important experimental
results obtained by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Rinaudo, a biophysicist, and Dr.
Kitty Little, a nuclear physicist, by irradiating linen cloth with
protons and/or alpha particles at the Grenoble Nuclear Center in
France and the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell,
England. (3) When Dr. Rinaudo's experimental linen was irradiated with
proton beams with energies of 1.4 MeV or less, the cloth's natural
fluorescence disappeared, as is the case with the Shroud's body image.
He and his colleagues were also able to duplicate the microchemistry
results of dehydrated, oxidized and degraded cellulose as is also
found with the Shroud's body image. They also produced straw-yellow
coloration on the topmost two or three fibers (approximately 30
microns deep) of test linen like that found on the Shroud. Its fibers
and threads lack any cementation or added pigments or other materials.
Furthermore, Rinaudo's straw-yellow color also resulted from
conjugated carbonyl groups within the molecular structure of the
cellulose, as is found with the image fibers on the Shroud. This means
that many of the carbon atoms are double-bonded with other atoms.
These groups absorb light and reflect it as the straw-yellow color
that is visible to us. Carbon
occurs naturally in cellulose, but only as single bonded atoms. In
order to become double bonded, something must break the bonds within
these groups, causing them to reattach and reunite in other
arrangements. Protons could certainly comprise one of the most
effective candidates to accomplish this since they do not penetrate
deeply and their damage would be concentrated at the topmost two to
three fibers of the cloth. In fact, Rinaudo's proton irradiated
fibers, consisting of conjugated carbonyls, are also more friable than
the non-imaged fibers, just like the imaged fibers found on the Shroud.
......When the scientific, medical and archaeological evidence derived
from the Shroud of Turin is combined with the historical evidence, a
comprehensive and corroborating case for the literal occurrence of the
resurrection of the historic Jesus Christ can be made. Much of this
evidence exists now and future testing in Jesus' tomb and on the
previously removed above samples can further establish:
1. That radiation emanated from the dead body wrapped within the Shroud.
2. That this radiation came from the length, width and depth of the
dead body.
3. That this radiation consisted of charged particles, such as
protons, neutrons, and alpha particles.
4. That this event occurred to a Jewish victim, in the 1st century, in
Jesus' burial tomb.
5. That the body disappeared from the cloth in the process.
6. That it did so within 2-3 days of being wrapped inside of it.
7. That the cloth could not have been separated from the body by any
human or mechanical means without smearing or breaking the numerous
bloodstains, and only the body's disappearance can explain how wounds
that formed and flowed on human skin can become embedded into the cloth.
8. That particle radiation emanating from the length, width, and depth
of a dead body that disappeared is the only method that has ever
accounted for all the unprecedented features of the body images and
blood marks, which cannot be forged or occur naturally.
9. That the Gospels state that beginning with and immediately after
Jesus' resurrection, his body could pass through objects and vanish,
and that a similar type of radiation also emanated from Jesus at his
Transfiguration.
10. That on Easter Sunday Jesus' body was not described as having any
of the numerous blood marks that it received from his numerous
pre-crucifixion, crucifixion and post-mortem wounds.
11.That the Gospels state that the historical Jesus Christ was also
scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and killed, by the same
executioners, with the same weapons, in the same manner, and was
buried in the same location, at the same time, by the same buriers,
and then disappeared and resurrected from his shroud under all the
same circumstances.....
......Another of the many interesting consistencies between the
Historically Consistent Method and the historical accounts of the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ can be found from the
energetic effects of the radiation under this method. The very
superficial and small amount of protons and alpha particles that would
be absorbed on the Shroud under this method would not cause an
explosion, however, the small amount of penetrating neutrons and gamma
rays also left behind would distribute their energy between the
surface of and several feet within the limestone walls of the tomb.
This would not cause an explosion or a hole in the tomb, but this
distributed compressionable shock might cause something analogous to
an earthquake. While the accounts at the end of Mathew 27 and the
beginning of 28 are vaguely worded, they do indicate that an
earthquake may have occurred at Jesus' resurrection.
These same historical accounts also state that beginning with Jesus'
resurrection and, thereafter, his body could disappear, and pass
through objects. Following the accounts of Jesus' resurrection, he is
described as suddenly vanishing from the disciples with whom he broke
bread on the road to Emmaus, with his body reappearing later to his
followers at a different location. In two other instances, these
historical sources also describe Jesus as passing through walls. These
features are consistent with those of the Historically Consistent
Method. Such similarities cannot be considered as criticisms of the
method, but only as additional strengths that all other image forming
methods lack. Again, if the man in the Shroud was Jesus, his body
would have necessarily disappeared after he was wrapped within his
burial shroud. He would, necessarily, also have reappeared.
The Gospels do not describe where Jesus' body went or how he
disappeared and reappeared. The Historically Consistent Method does
not state where or how the man's body disappeared during the event
that caused the body images, blood marks, and the various other
primary and secondary image and non-image features on the Shroud.
However, it does offer a
possible explanation, which, interestingly, could also explain where,
and how Jesus' body disappeared and reappeared in the Gospels.
One possible explanation as to what happened to the man in the Shroud
under the Historically Consistent or a related method, and/or to the
historical Jesus Christ, was first introduced in a highly respected
scientific journal in 1935 by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, in
"The Particle Problem in the General Theory of Relativity", Physical
Review 48 <1935>: 73-77. These scientists first devised the concept of
a shortcut in space time-travel based on Einstein's theory of general
relativity that allows a person or object to pass through a bridge or
"wormhole" in space and time. According to modern physicists,
mathematical theories of space-time travel are not only possible under
Einstein's theory of general relativity, but these "wormholes" are
completely consistent with tested theories of gravity and would allow
travel between two points in different universes or two points within
the same universe. This form of travel could circumvent the speed of
light barrier and may even permit travel to past or future times. The
famous British physicist Steven Hawking has published and lectured on
wormholes, and his best-selling book, A Brief History of Time, devotes
whole chapters to this subject. At this time the science of wormholes
is not only mature, but in the words of physicist Matt Visser in
Lortenzian Wormholes: From Einstein to Hawking, "…the theoretical
analysis of Lortenzian wormholes is `merely' an extension of known
physics---no new physical principles of fundamentally new physical
theories are involved." (Woodbury, N.Y.: American Institute of
Physics, 1996) p. 369. NASA also has an interest in wormholes for
space travel as evidenced by its hosting a workshop at Caltech's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory entitled, "Advanced Quantum/Relativity Theory
Propulsion Workshop" in May, 1994, where wormholes were a major topic
of discussion.
A key element of this theory is that, as matter passes through the
wormhole, the entrance mouth gains mass and the exit mouth loses mass.
If the unexplained disappearance of the man in the Shroud, or the
historical Jesus Christ, was connected or related to this theory, the
entrance mouth to the wormhole would be the point of the body's
departure. The Shroud itself would have been right at the mouth of the
entrance and may have received some of the increase in mass in the
form of the basic building blocks of matter---protons, neutrons,
electrons and alpha particles. Many experts in this field think
space-time travel is possible without the traveling object being
harmed as it enters and exits the
wormhole. Space-time travel could even be said to be a possible means
for Jesus to have traveled between heaven and earth (and even Hades).
It is important to remember that all of the evidence in this paper and
The Resurrection of the Shroud is indicative of and consistent with
reliable written contemporary accounts of historical events. Just
because absolute scientific proof of an historical event is lacking
certainly doesn't mean it didn't happen. In fact, no events in history
prior to the advent of film or photography has absolute proof of their
occurrence, or possesses as extensive evidence as the events depicted
on and derived from the Shroud, whose images and blood marks were
encoded in a far more sophisticated manner than mere film or photography.
Scientists often dismiss the evidence on the Shroud for the
crucifixion and resurrection of the historical Jesus Christ because
the resurrection or image encoding event is not a scientific
proposition which they are able to perform. Yet no event that has ever
occurred in history can be identically performed again, and even if it
could, it would not prove that it once occurred. Almost all events
that have occurred in history lack the extensive evidence that now
exists and would exist for the crucifixion and resurrection, yet we
don't doubt their occurrence. Moreover, we cannot come close to
absolutely proving the Big Bang or the existence of Black Holes, nor
are they scientific propositions that can be recreated or performed,
yet scientists extensively discuss their occurrence and existence.
Almost all matters that we consider and decide in life are based on
relative evidence. We don't have anything close to absolute proof of
the identities of people we meet and know in everyday life. In fact,
we have far more evidence of the identity of the man in the Shroud,
and of the tragic and unprecedented events that occurred to him, than
we do for people we meet everyday or have known for many years.
Moreover, these events would have more significance and importance
than any events that ever occurred in history. Since these events
would necessarily relate to every person alive and who will ever live,
and could fundamentally affect their present lives, and, even their
lives after death, we are compelled by the highest professional and
individual obligations in history to conduct these tests.
We stand at a unique moment in history.Read the full Proposal for details of the scientific experiments which Antonacci wishes to see performed on existing segments of the Shroud, and which would back up his theory of what caused the Shroud image. |
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