Faith on Trial (27 page)

57. Silberman, “Searching for Jesus,”
Archaeology
, 38.

58. Finegan,
The Archeology of the New Testament
, 138–39; Silberman, “Searching for Jesus,”
Archaeology
, 40.

59. Keller,
The Bible as History
, 347.

60. Wilson,
Jesus: The Evidence
, 35.

61. Silberman, “Searching for Jesus,”
Archaeology
, 40; also see Charlesworth,
Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls,
279.

62. Belief that the evidence indicated a final
coup de gr
â
ce
was published by N. Haas in 1970 in the original publication of the findings. This position is also supported by Wilson, in
Jesus: The Evidence,
30. In Charlesworth,
Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls
,
however, Charlesworth has stated his own opinion that the breaks in the leg were due to the passage of time rather than to a single strong blow.

63. Special Communication, William D. Edwards, M.D.; Wesley J. Gabel, M.Div.; Floyd E. Mosmer, M.S., AMI. “On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
(March 21, 1986), vol. 255, no. 11, 1,455-63. (Dr. Edwards is a physician at the Department of Pathology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.) See also, Habermas,
Ancient Evidence for the Life of Jesus,
58.

64. Luke 24:12; John 20:3–7.

65. Opinions of author and Shroud expert Ian Wilson, and British photographer Leo Vala, as reported in Ian Wilson,
The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World’s Most Sacred Relic Is Real
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 19.

66. Keller,
The Bible as History
, 347. A photograph of the Shroud is clearly displayed on the website www.shroud.com. The photograph was taken by Barrie Schwortz, official photographer and member of a scientific team allowed by the Vatican to study the Shroud in depth in 1978.

67. Gilbert R. Lavoie,
Unlocking the Secrets of the Shroud
(Allen, TX: Thomas More, 1998), 24; Dr. John Heller,
Report on the Shroud of Turin
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983; Kenneth E. Stevenson and Gary R. Habermas,
Verdict on the Shroud
(New York: Dell/Banbury Paperback version, 1981), 184–85.

68. Andrew Gumbel, “Ten Years on the Debunked Turin Shroud Gets a Second Coming,”
Independent
, February 1, 1998; “Chemical and Physical Characteristics of the Blood Marks,”
The Turin Shroud: Past, Present and Future
, ed. S. Scannerini and P. Savarino (International Scientific Symposium, Torino, Italk, March 2–5, 2000), 219–33.

69. Lavoie,
Unlocking the Secrets of the Shroud
, 99.

70. B. Bollone, M. C. Jorio, and M. Massaro, “Identification of the Group of the Traces of Human Blood on the Shroud,” Shroud Spectrum International 2:2–6; B. Bollone, “The Forensic Characteristics of the Blood Marks,” in
The Turin Shroud: Past, Present and Future,
209–18.

71. See Wilson,
The Blood and the Shroud
, 90–92. Researcher, Nancy Tyron, reported to Wilson that an insufficient number of base pairs (which are the basic units of DNA) have been isolated to permit any idea of cloning from the DNA.

72. R. N. Rogers, “Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample of the Shroud of Turin,”
Thermochimica Acta
, vol. 425, no. 1/2, January 20, 2005, 192–93. This paper is accessible at http://www.shroud.it/ROGERS-3.PDF.

73. A full discussion of the scientific confirmation of Roger’s work can be found at www.shroud.com, one of the definitive and most trustworthy sites through which scientific work on the Shroud and other Shroud information is communicated. There you will find access to most published, and some unpublished, research, pro and con, on the Shroud. “Chronological History of the Evidence for the Anomalous Nature of the C-14 Sample Area of the Shroud of Turin.” For a detailed discussion of circumstantial evidence of the Shroud’s existence prior to the public exhibition in 1350, see Wilson,
The Blood and the Shroud
.

74. Wilson,
The Blood and the Shroud
, 102.

75. Announcements of Professor Avinoan Darin, a foremost expert botanist in plant life in Israel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Dr. Alan Whanger, medical lecturer, at Duke University in North Carolina; Judy Siegel, “Plant Evidence Supports Authenticity of Shroud of Turin,”
Jerusalem Post
, April 14, 1977; also see Eric Silver, “Discoveries: Flower Evidence Links Turin Shroud to the Holy Land,”
Independent
, December 8, 1977. Professor Avinoam Danin stated, “[T]he fact that the images of winter leaves appear on the shroud together with the previous year’s petioles [a stalk joining the leaf to the stem] indicates that the plant was picked in spring.”

76. The entire text of the Meditation can be found at www.shroud.com.

77.
The Digest of Justinian
, ed. Theodore Mommsen, Paul Krueger, Alan Watson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), vol. 4, bk. 48, 863.

78. Wilson,
Jesus: The Evidence
, 137.

79. Finegan,
The Archeology of the New Testament,
261–63.

80. Ibid., 261–66.

81. Wilson,
Jesus: The Evidence
, 142.

82. Cyril of Jerusalem, “The Catechetical Lectures” (given in
ad
348); Socrates, “Church History 1”; and Sozomen, “Church History 2”; all referenced in Finegan,
The Archeology of the New Testament,
266–67.

83. Wilson,
Jesus: The Evidence
, 142.

84. Silberman, “Searching for Jesus,”
Archaeology
, 38; Finegan,
The Archeology of the New Testament
,
267.

85. Wilson,
Jesus: The Evidence
, 142.

86. See Finegan,
The Archeology of the New Testament
, 267; the testimony of the apostle John regarding the location of Gethsemane in a garden is found in John 19:41.

87. Robinson in
Redating The New Testament
dates this event at
ad
33, and Raymond Brown in
Introduction to the New Testament
places it either between
ad
30 and 34, or
ad
36, according to various authorities. See Robinson,
Redating the New Testament
, 44; Brown,
Introduction to the New Testament
, 428.

88. Robinson,
Redating the New Testament
, 35.

89. Bruce,
The New Testament Documents
, 76.

90. Ibid., 77–78.

91. Brown,
Introduction to the New Testament
, 512.

92. See Keller,
The Bible as History
, 357–63.

93. Bruce,
The New Testament Documents
, 95.

Chapter Seven

1. Letter from the emperor Trajan to Pliny (the Younger). “Plin. Epp. X. Xcvii,” in Bettenson,
Documents of the Christian Church,
4.

2. Miethe,
Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate,
86.

3. Strong,
McCormick on Evidence,
vol. 2, Section 338, 433.

4. Quoted in Shapiro,
Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth
, 127.

5. See Behe,
Darwin’s Black Box
.

6. Ibid., 71–96.

7. Ibid., 194.

8. Chalmers,
The Conscious Mind,
xiii–xiv. Chalmers claims to have no strong spiritual or religious inclinations. He holds that he is strongly inclined toward materialist explanations, but he has given up hope of finding one.

9. Michael B. Sabom,
Recollections of Death
(New York: Harper & Row, 1982); also see:
Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife
by Eben Alexander (Simon & Schuster, 2012); Peter Fenwick and Elizabeth Fenwick,
The Truth in the Light
(New York: Berkley Books, 1995); Kenneth Ring,
Heading Toward Omega
(New York: Quill-William Morrow, 1984); Glynn,
God: the Evidence
.

10. Strong,
McCormick on Evidence,
vol. 2, Section 338, 436–37.

11.
Ibid.,
Section 336.

12. Fifth Circuit Pattern Jury Instructions-Civil. 2006. 3.1.

13. Peter delivered a speech in Jerusalem in which he said about Jesus: “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:23–24).

14. An excellent analysis of the implications of the empty tomb was written in 1930 and has been reprinted ever since. See Frank Morison
,
Who Moved the Stone?
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1958; reprint of the 1930 edition).

15. Lawrence Keppie,
The Making of the Roman Army
(London: B. T. Batsford, 1984), 38, 57.

16. McDowell,
Evidence That Demands a Verdict,
209.

17. Eric Birley,
The Roman Army
(Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben Publisher, 1988), 155.

18. “Military Law,” in
The Digest of Justinian
,
vol. 4, 893, 895.

19. Alfred Edersheim,
The Temple: Its Ministry and Services
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 112.

20.
Journal of the American Medical Association
(March 1, 1986), vol. 255, no. 11, 1463. (Also see the footnotes listed in this article for further sources.)

21. Solomon Ganzfried, “Code of Jewish Law (Kitzur Schulchan Aruch),” trans. Hyman E. Goldin (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1963), in Lavoie,
Unlocking the Secrets of the Shroud,
73.

22. Ibid., 65–75.

23. The quotation is from Keller,
The Bible as History,
347; see Josephus, “Wars of the Jews,” book 5, chap. 11, (1), in
The Complete Works of Josephus,
565.

24. The statement is taken from Michael Behe’s excellent book
Darwin’s Black Box,
in which Behe, after a comprehensive examination of scientific literature, determined that not a single piece of scientific authority had been published to establish that complex biochemical systems at the molecular level could have evolved under random conditions of natural selection. The implication of the conclusion was that such irreducibly complex systems require intelligent design.

Chapter Eight

1. I am indebted to Roger Penrose, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, for recognition of the beautiful analogy of the sympathetic vibration of instruments to the essence of the relationship between a parent and child, as set forth in his excellent book,
Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).