# Piers Morgan Wanted My Opinion on the Shroud of Turin

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 15 Aug 2025, 30 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/67381086/podcast821_piersmorgan.mp3

For some reason, Piers Morgan Uncensored asked me to debate the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. I'm not remotely qualified, so of course, I said yes. THE FULL 45-MINUTE INTERVIEW Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because.
[0:22] Speaker 3: I put my hand on a book and made a wish.
[0:25] Speaker 1: And working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking.
[0:30] Speaker 4: Feel so much more happiness. Truth Fusian wisdom will come
[0:33] Speaker 4: to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 4: I was just asked to be part of a debate
[1:00] Speaker 4: about the shroud of touridden on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Now
[1:05] Speaker 4: I can see you rolling your eyes because I did
[1:08] Speaker 4: the same thing Piers Morgan, really Peer's Morgan. I wrote
[1:14] Speaker 4: a substack about this which kind of addressed it all
[1:17] Speaker 4: much more formally, but I wanted to freestyle it here
[1:21] Speaker 4: on the show and talk about it and maybe play
[1:23] Speaker 4: some sound bites so you can hear what it was
[1:25] Speaker 4: all about. But imagine me. I get up in the
[1:28] Speaker 4: morning and I opened my email and it's a producer
[1:32] Speaker 4: with Peers Morgan uncensored, reaching out and saying, we would
[1:35] Speaker 4: like an atheist's perspective on the Shroud of Turin. Now
[1:39] Speaker 4: there's this resurgence of the story in the news after
[1:43] Speaker 4: a Brazilian digital graphics expert analyze the shroud and he
[1:48] Speaker 4: says that it was made by draping the cloth over
[1:51] Speaker 4: a low relief statue. So now the argument is it
[1:56] Speaker 4: wasn't even a human body, let alone Jesus Christ was
[2:00] Speaker 4: under the Shroud of Turin. It was a statue and
[2:03] Speaker 4: this was created as medieval era art. And so now
[2:08] Speaker 4: all the shroud apologists jump back up and they're freaking outside.
[2:12] Speaker 4: Of course the Bible, the Bible, you know, those secular
[2:18] Speaker 4: scientists have got it all wrong again. And so every
[2:21] Speaker 4: few years the Shroud of Turin pops up in the news.
[2:25] Speaker 4: I think people just get bored. It's like the discovery
[2:29] Speaker 4: of Noah's art. Every few years, somebody discovers some boat
[2:33] Speaker 4: shaped piece of dirt or a rock or something. Oh, look,
[2:36] Speaker 4: there's some wood somewhere in the Middle East. I wonder
[2:40] Speaker 4: if it was the Arc, and everybody loses their minds.
[2:44] Speaker 4: So what do I do with this invitation? Am I
[2:47] Speaker 4: an expert on radiometric dating. Do I know anything about
[2:52] Speaker 4: first century artifacts or the medieval era or any of that.
[2:56] Speaker 4: Why do I have anything to offer? I'm not qualified,
[3:00] Speaker 4: So of course I agreed to go on the show.
[3:08] Speaker 4: I'm like, well, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a historian.
[3:12] Speaker 4: When do we start. It's actually it was the second
[3:16] Speaker 4: debate request I got in my email this week. The
[3:20] Speaker 4: first one was from none other than Kent Hoven. Kent Hoven,
[3:28] Speaker 4: the Young Earth creationist apologist. Doctor Dino is what he
[3:33] Speaker 4: so often has called himself because he supposedly is an
[3:36] Speaker 4: expert on the dinosaurs, and he has proof as to
[3:39] Speaker 4: why Adam and Eve hung out with dinosaurs. You know,
[3:42] Speaker 4: humans walk the earth at the same time. And this
[3:44] Speaker 4: guy used to go out from church to church and
[3:47] Speaker 4: Christian school to Christian school, influencing children. That's terrifying. Then
[3:52] Speaker 4: he's convicted of fraud, goes to prison, and after that,
[3:58] Speaker 4: I think recordings came out of him domestically abusing his wife.
[4:03] Speaker 4: I mean, the guys in nightmares. So even Christian apologetic
[4:07] Speaker 4: circles want nothing to do with kent Hoven. They don't
[4:10] Speaker 4: want They didn't even return his calls. He is not
[4:13] Speaker 4: on the fringes of Christian apologetics. He's out in the void, right,
[4:18] Speaker 4: He's in the phantom zone, spinning out in the cosmos.
[4:21] Speaker 4: Nobody wants to talk to Kent Hoven, and yet he
[4:24] Speaker 4: wants to get noticed, and so his tactic recently has
[4:28] Speaker 4: been to reach out and tap atheist activist on the
[4:32] Speaker 4: shoulder and try to bait them into another argument about
[4:36] Speaker 4: Young Earth creationism so that he can get noticed, so
[4:40] Speaker 4: that no one will forget his name. I mention it
[4:43] Speaker 4: here only because it amuses me. Okay, that's not like
[4:47] Speaker 4: he's going to get any extra support from this audience.
[4:50] Speaker 4: Ken Hoven is a punchline in both non religious and
[4:55] Speaker 4: religious circles. I get an email ken Hooven depreciates your
[4:59] Speaker 4: respect approach to discourse and is interested in having a
[5:03] Speaker 4: debate about biblical creation. And I stared at the email
[5:09] Speaker 4: and I hit reply, and I said, thanks for the offer,
[5:15] Speaker 4: but I would rather put out a campfire with my
[5:19] Speaker 4: face yours in christ Seth Andrews. And I sent it
[5:33] Speaker 4: and I was so I amused myself so much that
[5:36] Speaker 4: I screenshot at it and I put it on Facebook
[5:38] Speaker 4: and it's got like a squillion likes It's awesome. It's
[5:41] Speaker 4: just awesome. Anyway. The next email comes in from the
[5:45] Speaker 4: producer appears Morgan uncensored. They want an atheist perspective on
[5:50] Speaker 4: the Shroud of Turin and this latest news, I would
[5:53] Speaker 4: be joining two other academics. The first guy is a
[5:57] Speaker 4: first century c E. Shroud I did belong to Jesus.
[6:01] Speaker 4: The proof is overwhelming.
[6:03] Speaker 3: Guy.
[6:03] Speaker 4: His name is doctor Jeremiah Johnson. Now, of course, whenever
[6:07] Speaker 4: I hear Jeremiah Johnson, I think about the old Robert
[6:10] Speaker 4: Redford movie. It's one of my favorite movies. Jeremia Johnson.
[6:15] Speaker 4: You ever see it. It's a great miss Sidney Pollock
[6:18] Speaker 4: film from like forty years ago. Okay, anyway. And then
[6:21] Speaker 4: there was another academic, also a Christian, pretty reasonable guy. Actually,
[6:27] Speaker 4: I wouldn't mind having him on my show. Let me
[6:29] Speaker 4: think about that. But he is part of the Shroud
[6:31] Speaker 4: of Turin research project. His name is doctor Joseph Acetta,
[6:37] Speaker 4: who was able to speak scientifically about the dating of
[6:39] Speaker 4: the shroud to the medieval era, like thirteenth fourteenth century.
[6:44] Speaker 4: So these were two believers who were going to go
[6:46] Speaker 4: back and forth for about twenty minutes while I waited
[6:50] Speaker 4: in the wings in the digital green room for my
[6:53] Speaker 4: chance to sit at the table with these guys. And
[6:56] Speaker 4: so I'm back here and I'm telling you this guy,
[7:00] Speaker 4: this doctor Jeremiah Johnson, is smooth. Isn't the word slick?
[7:10] Speaker 4: Is the word I said in my substack article. I
[7:12] Speaker 4: said you could mix up penns oil, vasoline and banana
[7:16] Speaker 4: peals and the result would still be less slippery than
[7:21] Speaker 4: doctor Jeremiah Johnson. This guy was a gsh gallop Olympian.
[7:27] Speaker 4: He was blowing through. He's like and so and so
[7:29] Speaker 4: is a PhD. And I've done this and no one's
[7:31] Speaker 4: visited the Shroud Museum more than I have. And I'm
[7:33] Speaker 4: examined the thing and it's on display and we've done
[7:35] Speaker 4: our testing and PhD so and so who's a friend
[7:37] Speaker 4: of mine. And I've done this and the academics who
[7:39] Speaker 4: posted in Nature magazine and the encyclopedia. Is the wealth
[7:42] Speaker 4: of knowledge that we have. Blah blah blah blah blah
[7:44] Speaker 4: is literally like a He did not draw breath. I'm
[7:48] Speaker 4: convinced that he practiced being able to exhale four five
[7:53] Speaker 4: straight minutes without having to draw any air into his lungs.
[7:58] Speaker 4: That's how. And he was like super salesy. He's like,
[8:02] Speaker 4: and you know, peers whenever I've been out there, I'm
[8:04] Speaker 4: so excited to have these conversations about the Shred because
[8:07] Speaker 4: you know, I was a skeptic too back in the day,
[8:09] Speaker 4: and I remember when I'm David L L and I
[8:14] Speaker 4: it just gave me a bad taste in my mouth.
[8:17] Speaker 4: He was really talking at the audience instead of to them.
[8:21] Speaker 4: I can think of a bunch of people in my
[8:23] Speaker 4: zone who might be impressed. And obviously, if you've got
[8:26] Speaker 4: somebody who looks that well informed and that well prepared
[8:29] Speaker 4: and they are degree mongering to beat the band PhD, PhD, PhD, author, historian, archaeologist, archivist,
[8:37] Speaker 4: blah blah blah. I mean, I can see how this
[8:39] Speaker 4: would overwhelm someone who is not an expert, and they
[8:43] Speaker 4: would be like, Wow, they don't really know their stuff.
[8:46] Speaker 4: I mean, if we were to put this guy on
[8:48] Speaker 4: Joe Rogan, Joe would probably literally declare him God, drop
[8:53] Speaker 4: to his knees and begin to say prayers and worship
[8:56] Speaker 4: the man. Okay, so I get it. But he was
[8:58] Speaker 4: also so you Cai when he was talking to Piers
[9:01] Speaker 4: Morgan about you know, you know what, let me just
[9:04] Speaker 4: play a segment. Let me play a little segment. Stick
[9:08] Speaker 4: with me. Listen to what I listened to while I
[9:12] Speaker 4: was waiting in the wings.
[9:14] Speaker 3: Piers, hold my ice cold coke zero while I answer
[9:17] Speaker 3: these will you. I love this because this is my
[9:20] Speaker 3: area of specialty. First, I want to show you something, Piers.
[9:23] Speaker 3: I've never shown this on any interview I've done. I
[9:25] Speaker 3: just got this from the Land of Israel. You just
[9:28] Speaker 3: pointed out the fascinating correspondence of the wound marks in
[9:33] Speaker 3: the man of the shroud I'm holding in my hand, Peers,
[9:36] Speaker 3: this is not a replica, Peers, and doctor Esseta, this
[9:39] Speaker 3: is an actual Roman crucifixion spike that was from the
[9:44] Speaker 3: Syrian province. I do a lot of work in archaeology, Peers.
[9:46] Speaker 3: I've been in more first century tombs than any guest
[9:49] Speaker 3: you've ever interviewed. And this is six inches long. It's
[9:52] Speaker 3: an iron spike.
[9:53] Speaker 4: Oh my goodness. He has visited so many tombs and
[9:56] Speaker 4: he's holding a generic crucifixion that is potentially two thousand
[10:02] Speaker 4: years old. Nobody signed it, it's not marked in any way.
[10:07] Speaker 4: It's a spike, but it's very impressive.
[10:10] Speaker 3: We have Type A B blood human blood. And there's
[10:13] Speaker 3: some very fascinating work from an immunologist. So I just
[10:16] Speaker 3: spoke with last week at this conference, Kelly Curse. It's
[10:19] Speaker 3: human blood, it's type aby blood, it's Semitic blood. The
[10:24] Speaker 3: arms are so long, and it does look like they're
[10:26] Speaker 3: very long, Pierce, because when we believe when Jesus falls
[10:30] Speaker 3: to the ground, do you remember Peers from your gospel reading,
[10:32] Speaker 3: that Jesus collapses under the weight of the cross. He
[10:36] Speaker 3: can't even get to Calvary. Simon of Cyreni is tasked
[10:39] Speaker 3: to carry the crossbeam. And do you know why. We
[10:42] Speaker 3: believe that Jesus had lost one third of his blood
[10:44] Speaker 3: volume during the scourging. Let that set in for a minute,
[10:47] Speaker 3: he was dying of dehydration, high levels of ferretine creatinin
[10:52] Speaker 3: based on the blood samples that we have on the shroud,
[10:54] Speaker 3: he would eventually die of massive a massive heart attack
[10:58] Speaker 3: on the cross. And his arms, though are so strangely
[11:02] Speaker 3: long on the cross is because his shoulders were separated
[11:06] Speaker 3: during the crucifixion, and that's what makes the arms look
[11:09] Speaker 3: so long.
[11:10] Speaker 4: So the person crucified exhibited the symptoms of anyone who
[11:15] Speaker 4: would be crucified. Massive blood loss, probable heart failure, or
[11:19] Speaker 4: at least maybe they died of shock and we've got
[11:23] Speaker 4: dislocated shoulders. Obviously, when you're hanging by nails, that doesn't
[11:28] Speaker 4: seem unreasonable, regardless of who you are, if you're hanging
[11:33] Speaker 4: on a cross. But wait a minute, it's time for
[11:36] Speaker 4: some magic.
[11:37] Speaker 3: The thing that's fascinating me, if i'm may Pierce, is
[11:39] Speaker 3: the amount of energy. This is what I want to
[11:41] Speaker 3: get to because this is the latest science and truly
[11:43] Speaker 3: breaking news on this program when you I just interviewed
[11:46] Speaker 3: Paula de Lazero and what's cool about doctor Assetta and
[11:50] Speaker 3: the original Stirp team peers that I respect about these
[11:52] Speaker 3: men and women. Doctor Assetta was one of twenty six
[11:55] Speaker 3: scholar scientists who went to turn Italy to skeet to
[11:59] Speaker 3: study this. They're not pastors with a theological as to grind.
[12:02] Speaker 3: They were not privileging this, even though doctors said is
[12:05] Speaker 3: a believer. They were applying the scientific method. Ray Rogers,
[12:09] Speaker 3: who died a great defender of the shroud, famously said,
[12:12] Speaker 3: give me fifteen minutes in the scientific record, and I'm
[12:15] Speaker 3: going to prove this is a complete forgery. He wasn't
[12:18] Speaker 3: saying that a few minutes later after studying it, which
[12:20] Speaker 3: is really fascinating to think about when I look at
[12:23] Speaker 3: the power though, Paulo de Lazre is doing some amazing
[12:26] Speaker 3: work out of a neo laboratories. He is a physicist
[12:29] Speaker 3: who works with the lasers, and this is something that's
[12:32] Speaker 3: gone viral when we've shared it. He has postulated the
[12:35] Speaker 3: amount of energy it would take to leave to make
[12:38] Speaker 3: a chemical change in the flax in the linen fibrils.
[12:43] Speaker 3: Because remember the image, Piers, it doesn't absorb like the
[12:46] Speaker 3: blood does. The blood fully absorbs into the shroud. The
[12:49] Speaker 3: image is just two microns Peers. If you took a razor,
[12:53] Speaker 3: you could literally shave off the image on the shroud.
[12:55] Speaker 3: It's that thin. It's almost unbelievably thin. And this is
[12:59] Speaker 3: whatients cannot replicate.
[13:02] Speaker 4: See what I'm talking about, right, I mean, I think
[13:04] Speaker 4: it's off putting. He is a Jeremiah Johnson's a big wig.
[13:09] Speaker 4: He was at least one of the pastors at Preston
[13:11] Speaker 4: Wood Baptist Church in Texas. Prest and Wood is a
[13:15] Speaker 4: major cher It's a city of the church. I think
[13:19] Speaker 4: Preston Wood runs twenty thousand members. It's on real and
[13:27] Speaker 4: you know, he also has his own organization called the
[13:32] Speaker 4: Christian Thinkers Society, teaching pastors and Christians how to become
[13:37] Speaker 4: thinkers and thinkers how to become Christians. That's what it says.
[13:41] Speaker 4: And the first video you see on Johnson's website is
[13:46] Speaker 4: his discussion about the Shroud of Turin with a very
[13:49] Speaker 4: constipated looking Tucker Carlson. I did a whole show. I'm
[13:55] Speaker 4: Tucker Carlson. This guy's a nightmare. He's a Cretan, he's
[13:59] Speaker 4: a big he's a sexist, he's a jerk, he's an opportunist,
[14:04] Speaker 4: he's a grifters, he's just garbage. And so there's Tucker,
[14:09] Speaker 4: and Tucker's got that mmm interesting. You know, he's got
[14:12] Speaker 4: that look on his face like, Wow, here we are
[14:14] Speaker 4: exploring biblical truth. Thank you so much, doctor Jeremiah Johnson.
[14:18] Speaker 4: That's on the homepage. On that same side, he's pitching
[14:22] Speaker 4: his latest book called Body of Proof, a study on
[14:25] Speaker 4: the Resurrection of Jesus. And he's got several Jesus books.
[14:28] Speaker 4: This guy loves him from Jesus. He's got the Unanswered
[14:31] Speaker 4: Bible Study Kit, the Jesus Discoveries, and so much more. Okay,
[14:38] Speaker 4: I've got audio from the other guest, and then I
[14:40] Speaker 4: will play my responses for you and I'll get to
[14:44] Speaker 4: that next hang on. Seth Andrews and Peers Morgan. These
[14:54] Speaker 4: are two names I never thought I would hear in
[14:57] Speaker 4: the same sentence. So is doctor Jerry Amaia. Johnson's going
[15:01] Speaker 4: through his spiel, at least, throwing the word science and
[15:03] Speaker 4: scientific out almost like it's a tick. The science, the science,
[15:07] Speaker 4: the science says scientific science, science, science science. Doctor Joseph
[15:12] Speaker 4: Assetta is over there, and he said quite a bit,
[15:15] Speaker 4: but he he summed it up with this.
[15:17] Speaker 2: The four pillars of authenticity from the rigorous scientific perspective
[15:21] Speaker 2: are One, its age, it has to be two thousand
[15:24] Speaker 2: years ago. Two we have to show that the cloth
[15:28] Speaker 2: ensconced the body of Jesus Christ. Three there has to
[15:32] Speaker 2: be some sort of chain of custody that shows that
[15:35] Speaker 2: where was it for the last two thousand years ago?
[15:38] Speaker 2: And four there's no mention of this. There's a glaring
[15:41] Speaker 2: absence in the Gospels of this image. And you know,
[15:45] Speaker 2: you could rationalize all those, but those are hardcore scientific
[15:50] Speaker 2: factors that have to be established before you claim rigorously
[15:54] Speaker 2: that this is the authentic burial cloth of Christ.
[15:58] Speaker 4: Now my take on this is this, and it's really
[16:02] Speaker 4: one of the reasons that I wanted to have this discussion.
[16:06] Speaker 4: I had a few reasons. First of all, it's a
[16:09] Speaker 4: pretty big signal boost, right, I'm not speaking to the choir.
[16:12] Speaker 4: I want to go out and actually engage with the
[16:15] Speaker 4: rest of the world, even if it means Piers Morgan.
[16:18] Speaker 4: And I've told people this, if Fox News asked me
[16:21] Speaker 4: in the right context on a subject I could speak to,
[16:25] Speaker 4: if they ask me to pull up Pete Budajet and
[16:30] Speaker 4: sit in the chair and offer my opinion, position, etc.
[16:34] Speaker 4: I would probably do it. I wouldn't be nearly as
[16:37] Speaker 4: good as Pete Boudajet. That guy's a damn superhero. But
[16:43] Speaker 4: I mean if it was in my wheelhouse, it's what
[16:45] Speaker 4: I do every day. And if I was able to
[16:47] Speaker 4: literally walk into the lions Den and challenge those people
[16:50] Speaker 4: on their own turf, I wouldn't be opposed to it.
[16:53] Speaker 4: Some people said, if Joe Rogan ever had you on,
[16:56] Speaker 4: would you you know? And I can't stand Joe Rogan
[16:59] Speaker 4: what I go on in this show. In the right context,
[17:02] Speaker 4: I would if I was speaking to something that I was,
[17:07] Speaker 4: if not an authority on at least extremely well versed
[17:10] Speaker 4: on And if I was able to say exactly what
[17:14] Speaker 4: I want, and one of the things I would say is,
[17:17] Speaker 4: what the fuck is wrong with you, Joe Rogan? Why
[17:21] Speaker 4: are you platforming so much disinformation, pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, grift
[17:28] Speaker 4: and generally awful people. He might he might lump me
[17:31] Speaker 4: in with them, he might turn on me. But I
[17:33] Speaker 4: mean someone's got to say it. And what are you doing?
[17:36] Speaker 4: You have a responsibility. You're not just having conversations. You
[17:42] Speaker 4: are feeding the beast, and you know, to have the
[17:46] Speaker 4: Joe Roganites sitting out there listening to this, they might
[17:49] Speaker 4: turn on me. Actually they would, But it doesn't mean
[17:53] Speaker 4: the things don't need to be said. And if I
[17:54] Speaker 4: say them here, that's fine, But to say them there
[17:57] Speaker 4: on his own channel, I would I do it. I
[18:00] Speaker 4: would do it, okay. And so if Piers Morgan wants
[18:05] Speaker 4: me to show up and talk to an apologist, I'll
[18:08] Speaker 4: do it. And I wanted to talk about not the
[18:11] Speaker 4: shroud itself as much as what about the Jesus story
[18:15] Speaker 4: to begin with, because both of these Christians, the first
[18:19] Speaker 4: century Shroud of Jesus Guy and the medieval shroud was
[18:23] Speaker 4: faked guy or whatever. They're both acting and operating like
[18:28] Speaker 4: Jesus was a real dude, Jesus Christ, the god man, Jesus.
[18:33] Speaker 4: That's their premise. They're actually building on that foundation. So
[18:36] Speaker 4: then the conversation about the shroud is, well, do you
[18:39] Speaker 4: think the shroud belonged to Jesus? Did it cover Jesus?
[18:42] Speaker 4: Or was Jesus covered with something else that will never
[18:45] Speaker 4: be discovered? And this was art an artifact, it was
[18:50] Speaker 4: I don't know, the image of another crucified and buried person,
[18:54] Speaker 4: or it's just a damn fake. The whole conversation assumes
[18:58] Speaker 4: Jesus Christ sitting over here in the green room going
[19:02] Speaker 4: ask the question. So that's what I'm going to do.
[19:06] Speaker 4: I'm going to show up and I'm going to say, hey,
[19:10] Speaker 4: maybe we should be talking about whether or not the
[19:13] Speaker 4: dude in question was actually the dude in question. You know,
[19:18] Speaker 4: if we found a hammer, would we start discussing whether
[19:22] Speaker 4: or not it belonged to thor Is that where this
[19:26] Speaker 4: discussion begins, or do we have to start with, hey,
[19:30] Speaker 4: was there a literal thor? So let me play you
[19:34] Speaker 4: this segment. Let's see it runs just a few minutes.
[19:37] Speaker 4: I mean, he, to his credit Peers did not interrupt
[19:40] Speaker 4: me after he tragically introduced me as the thinking atheist,
[19:47] Speaker 4: and I had to correct him. I'm not a great thinker.
[19:49] Speaker 4: I'm not the thinking atheist. It's an icon. I mean,
[19:52] Speaker 4: I had to start with that because, hey, somebody do
[19:55] Speaker 4: some research before you invite me on. It's on the
[19:58] Speaker 4: damn website. It's the first line in the podcast intro.
[20:02] Speaker 4: I am not thinking. I'm sorry, Sorry, this irritates me. Okay,
[20:06] Speaker 4: so he asked me, what are your thoughts on the shroud?
[20:08] Speaker 4: Here's what I said. Do you think it's real?
[20:10] Speaker 3: Do you think it's fake?
[20:11] Speaker 4: Do you think the whole thing is just a pay asta?
[20:14] Speaker 4: What do you feel? What I see mostly around the
[20:17] Speaker 4: shroud is a tremendous desire to believe, to connect dots,
[20:22] Speaker 4: and it's totally understandable. You know, people who lean into
[20:25] Speaker 4: the Jesus story, but you know whether or not it
[20:29] Speaker 4: dates to the time of Christ or to the medieval era.
[20:32] Speaker 4: And I tend not to discount the Carbon fourteen date.
[20:36] Speaker 4: I think apologists are quick to brush it aside, and
[20:39] Speaker 4: then they throw out a lot of fancy letters at
[20:42] Speaker 4: the end. But I don't think that we have seen
[20:44] Speaker 4: a debunking of the carbon fourteen dating of the fabric,
[20:48] Speaker 4: but even if it did date back to that era,
[20:50] Speaker 4: I mean, we're talking about a time where the Romans
[20:52] Speaker 4: crucified hundreds of thousands of people, and so now we're
[20:56] Speaker 4: connecting a dot and saying this looks like a crown
[20:58] Speaker 4: of thorns, and so therefore it is the Christ, and
[21:03] Speaker 4: we root that in the Bible itself, and the Christ
[21:07] Speaker 4: account in the Bible, which is hugely problematic. I heard
[21:10] Speaker 4: references to Josephus. I mean the Antiquities was what sixty
[21:16] Speaker 4: seventy years after the alleged death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
[21:20] Speaker 4: Josephus was not an eye witness, and the only reference
[21:24] Speaker 4: to Christ was not about the crucifixion, the resurrection, certainly
[21:28] Speaker 4: not the shroud of Turin the Gospels, I mean, they're
[21:31] Speaker 4: not reliable because I think the earliest Gospel being Mark
[21:35] Speaker 4: was sixty nine seventy something ce, long decades after these
[21:40] Speaker 4: events were supposed to have happened. The authorship of all
[21:44] Speaker 4: four Gospels is not known. Nobody has pinned them down,
[21:48] Speaker 4: nobody can authenticate them. And beyond that, the Bible is
[21:51] Speaker 4: the same book that makes all kinds of claims we
[21:54] Speaker 4: might reject in another context, whether it's giant nine hundred
[21:58] Speaker 4: year old people, donkeys that spoke Hebrew, and a savior
[22:03] Speaker 4: baby that was born via ghost sex if you will,
[22:07] Speaker 4: to a virgin, so that the offspring could grow up
[22:11] Speaker 4: and sacrifice himself blood sacrifice to rescue us from the
[22:16] Speaker 4: very torture chamber that that God created.
[22:20] Speaker 3: So all of this.
[22:21] Speaker 4: About the shroud, it's interesting, I find you know, it's
[22:25] Speaker 4: the God who is not the author of confusion, though
[22:27] Speaker 4: I would think would have parted the curtain of the
[22:29] Speaker 4: sky and he would have said to all of his children,
[22:32] Speaker 4: yes it's me, or no it's not. I don't think
[22:35] Speaker 4: that's unreasonable. Jeremiah Johnson, still with that car salesman look
[22:42] Speaker 4: on his face, just just as slick and smooth as
[22:46] Speaker 4: you can be, decides he's going to jump in and respond,
[22:50] Speaker 4: here we go.
[22:51] Speaker 3: Jesus Christ. The historical record is so clear that in
[22:54] Speaker 3: the eighty nine chapters of the Gospel they all point
[22:56] Speaker 3: so that Jesus really lived, he died, and even the
[22:59] Speaker 3: greatest step alive of that time had experiences of seeing
[23:03] Speaker 3: Jesus alive after he was dead. You can look at
[23:05] Speaker 3: my book Body of Proof, the Seven Best Reasons to
[23:08] Speaker 3: Believe in the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, and you can
[23:11] Speaker 3: see that I never mentioned the shroud of turn. Isn't
[23:13] Speaker 3: that fascinating, Pierce? I don't believe the shroud is authentic
[23:15] Speaker 3: because I want it to be. And as followers of Jesus,
[23:18] Speaker 3: we don't even need the shroud to be authentic. Is
[23:20] Speaker 3: our best evidence of the resurrection? We have so many
[23:23] Speaker 3: other lines about this, So what's fascinating, Well, yeah, exactly,
[23:27] Speaker 3: it's not an article of faith. And what's fascinating to
[23:29] Speaker 3: me is when you look at the historical records, they
[23:31] Speaker 3: stand on their own. Even atheist scholars like Garrett Ludemann
[23:36] Speaker 3: said in others say, I cannot argue with the fact
[23:39] Speaker 3: that the earliest followers of Jesus were first hostile to
[23:42] Speaker 3: the Christian message. They had experiences of seeing Jesus alive
[23:46] Speaker 3: after he had been dead. And they say, now, what
[23:49] Speaker 3: kind of experiences those were. We can't explain, but we
[23:51] Speaker 3: know those experiences not only change the lives of the followers,
[23:55] Speaker 3: but also change the world forever. And again, there's such
[23:58] Speaker 3: great evidence for the authenticity of the Gospels. We know
[24:01] Speaker 3: that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the Gospels. We
[24:05] Speaker 3: know that Paul writes twenty years before the Gospels that
[24:08] Speaker 3: incredible passage that no serious historian our scholar calls into
[24:12] Speaker 3: question in one Corinthians fifteen, saying, this is the gospel
[24:15] Speaker 3: that Christ died for our sins. According to the scripture,
[24:18] Speaker 3: he was buried, and he rose again on the third day,
[24:20] Speaker 3: according to the scriptures. A quick note about Josephus. There's
[24:23] Speaker 3: some phenomenal work being done published by Oxford University Press T. S. Schmidt.
[24:27] Speaker 3: Josephus absolutely knew and had first hand acquaintance with those
[24:32] Speaker 3: who attended the trial of Jesus. So, friends, again, you
[24:35] Speaker 3: have your choice. You've got to think for yourself. This
[24:37] Speaker 3: is what I do at Christian thinker Society. You've got
[24:39] Speaker 3: to get beyond the sound bites. You've got to get
[24:40] Speaker 3: to the substance. Read these things for yourself and you'll
[24:43] Speaker 3: be amazed. Christianity doesn't need to be defended. It stands
[24:46] Speaker 3: up for itself.
[24:47] Speaker 4: If I may, well that fascinating debate, yeah, very quickly. Yeah, well,
[24:54] Speaker 4: I'm not sure we can quote the Bible to prove
[24:56] Speaker 4: the Bible Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are written in
[24:58] Speaker 4: the third person, and we're not written by a Matthew Mark,
[25:02] Speaker 4: Luk or John Mark itself was actually written by two,
[25:06] Speaker 4: possibly three authors. And even if Josephus had referenced the
[25:11] Speaker 4: Christ in the year one hundred CE, it wasn't a
[25:14] Speaker 4: direct reference. We're still in the arena of hearsay. This
[25:18] Speaker 4: is not evidence.
[25:21] Speaker 2: You guys are in deep theological terror leasure.
[25:24] Speaker 3: Now.
[25:25] Speaker 4: I go back and forth on whether or not I
[25:27] Speaker 4: should have derailed in this way. I mean, they wanted
[25:29] Speaker 4: to talk about the shroud, right, and I was more
[25:33] Speaker 4: interested in Biblical authenticity and sourcing and hearsay and all that.
[25:39] Speaker 4: I mean, actually getting back to the Christ's story itself.
[25:43] Speaker 4: I don't know if it was in the medieval time.
[25:45] Speaker 4: I believe it is. I think the majority of the
[25:48] Speaker 4: evidence that is not being posited by Bible apologists. I mean,
[25:52] Speaker 4: those people front loaded their discussions with, hey, we believe
[25:57] Speaker 4: that Jesus Christ existed. We're going to lean heavily to
[26:00] Speaker 4: anything that looks like it really looks kind of like
[26:03] Speaker 4: white Jesus. But whatever whatever, All right, and then the
[26:07] Speaker 4: unexplainable atomic light that burned the image into the fabric.
[26:12] Speaker 4: You know, they didn't have the technology. No one knows
[26:14] Speaker 4: how it was done. It must be Jesus. And of
[26:16] Speaker 4: course you and I are saying the same thing. Okay, fine,
[26:20] Speaker 4: it looks like a guy. Let's say it was a man.
[26:24] Speaker 4: Did he sign his work? Did Jesus take a sharpie
[26:28] Speaker 4: and say that's me? He literally tagged it so everybody
[26:31] Speaker 4: would know he did not? Why the hell are we
[26:35] Speaker 4: arguing about the shroud all this time later? It's a
[26:39] Speaker 4: piece of cloth that's got some stuff burned or painted
[26:43] Speaker 4: into the fibers, and it's the image of a guy.
[26:48] Speaker 4: We ooh uh, you know, I said in my blog
[26:55] Speaker 4: it's the really the equivalent of the Weeping Lady of
[26:58] Speaker 4: Fatima's statue. You know, people see any thing that looks
[27:01] Speaker 4: I don't know, they just so desperately want to believe
[27:04] Speaker 4: it's the Jesus fish stick. Oh look, it's the imprint
[27:07] Speaker 4: of the Christ on my fish stick. Thank you Jesus.
[27:11] Speaker 4: Let us pilgrimage. Let us load up the church bus
[27:15] Speaker 4: and we'll go thousands of miles to a witness. And
[27:18] Speaker 4: the fish stick has been taken and it has been
[27:21] Speaker 4: preserved in a kind of epoxy so that it will
[27:24] Speaker 4: not rot. And now it's been framed and placed on
[27:27] Speaker 4: a pedestal, and it's under you know, it's behind bulletproof glass,
[27:31] Speaker 4: and it's anchored to the ground so it can't be stolen.
[27:34] Speaker 4: And for only twenty nine to ninety nine you two
[27:37] Speaker 4: can come into the fish Stick Jesus Museum. I mean,
[27:42] Speaker 4: I'm obviously being facetious there, but you know what I'm
[27:45] Speaker 4: talking about. This is Jesus tourism as far as I'm concerned, right,
[27:49] Speaker 4: it's Jesus tourism. Look at the Holy Land. Don't tell
[27:53] Speaker 4: me Jerusalem is not a tourist mecca for Christians who
[27:57] Speaker 4: genuinely think they are walking in the literal footsteps of God.
[28:03] Speaker 4: And they're bringing artifacts or it's artifacts, it's you know,
[28:07] Speaker 4: just stuff. They're bringing stuff back. This could have been
[28:11] Speaker 4: the place where Jesus carved a table. This could have
[28:15] Speaker 4: been where Jesus walked as he brought the Gospel to humanity.
[28:20] Speaker 4: These could have been the seas he sailed as the
[28:22] Speaker 4: nets were cast off and the fish were brought him.
[28:25] Speaker 4: This might be the place where he gave the Sermon
[28:29] Speaker 4: on the mounts. Yeah, you know what I'm saying could
[28:34] Speaker 4: have been might have been. We think it probably was.
[28:37] Speaker 4: The possibility is this is these are not truth claims.
[28:41] Speaker 4: Fucking tourism. Sorry, I get keyed up. I tried not to.
[28:45] Speaker 4: I didn't swear on the Piers Morgan Show, but I
[28:50] Speaker 4: wanted to, and that guy was going off and I
[28:52] Speaker 4: literally wanted to reach through and just shake him and go.
[28:54] Speaker 4: First of all, take a breath. Secondly, well, the Gospels
[28:58] Speaker 4: say is not an argument as not an argument? That's
[29:04] Speaker 4: my rant. Wasn't a mistake to do the show that
[29:08] Speaker 4: I perform. Okay, I'm not fishing for compliments, but you
[29:13] Speaker 4: know I went toe to toe with a shroud of
[29:16] Speaker 4: during Apologist. I think it came off. I think I
[29:19] Speaker 4: represented you and us. Okay, And you can go back
[29:24] Speaker 4: and watch it. The first twenty minutes are the two academics,
[29:28] Speaker 4: and then I bring up the rear as I should, right,
[29:32] Speaker 4: I brought up the rear the bottom, and I don't know.
[29:36] Speaker 4: You can tell me what you think in the comments section.
[29:39] Speaker 4: I'll see you back here in just a few days
[29:41] Speaker 4: for our official podcast release. See you then.
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