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The Glenn Beck Program
Ep 243 | NEW EVIDENCE: Shroud of Turin Shows Exact Moment of Resurrection?! | The Glenn Beck Podcast
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- [00:01]
Glenn Beck
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- [00:24]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Blinds.com right now and get up to 45% off select styles plus a professional measure. Rules and restrictions may apply. And now a Blaze Media podcast.
- [00:34]
Glenn Beck
Are you ready to see the face of Jesus? Because in 2025 you can. And thanks in part to my next guest, you will see it. Scientific advancement and now artificial intelligence are working to prove a lot of things. The validity of the Gospels and the historic evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. You might be skeptical. So was my next guest until he was faced with too many facts to ignore. He has studied what we are going to talk about today for years. He is now one of the leading authorities. He is going to talk about the death, the burial and the resurrection of Christ. What was it actually like? And how the top scientific minds studying the ancient Shroud of Turin may have changed the world forever. The Shroud of Turin. It is an amazing piece of evidence that now has new science to back it up. Welcome distinguished New Testament scholar, pastor, author and president of Christian Thinkers Society, Jeremiah J. Johnston. So we are all getting older and I don't know about you, but I've felt the aches and pains that come along with that kind of thing. And I used to be a sufferer of horrible pain in my hands, you'll notice. I said used to because I listened to my wife and my wife told me, you should try relief factor. And it was something that was being offered on the Blaze. It was a sponsor on the Blaze. But I just dismissed it because I had already been to the greatest doctors in the world and they had given me all kinds of pharmaceuticals and none of them worked. My wife said, try this drug free supplement. You're advertising it on the Blaze. And I'm like, I'm not, because I've never tried it. Then I tried it. I took it for two weeks and at first I dismissed the gains of health and not feeling so much pain. And then I thought, oh, it's just me. And I stopped taking it. What a mistake that was because all my pain came back. It works. Relief Factor. Try their three week quick start 1995. All you have to do is go to relieffactor.com 800 the number 4 relief 800 the number 4 relief relieffactor.com.
- [02:46]
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- [03:27]
Glenn Beck
I have to start with this, that I grew up Catholic, so I know what the Shroud of Turin is. But back in the day, people that are evangelicals would say, that's just a Catholic relic, it's not real. And then dating happened in the late 80s and they said, no, it's not from the right time period.
- [03:52]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
It's a hoax, it's a forge.
- [03:53]
Glenn Beck
But everything has changed now, right?
- [03:56]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Correct.
- [03:56]
Glenn Beck
So let's start with what is this?
- [03:59]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Absolutely. The Shroud of Turin is thought to be the burial cloth of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, meaning that it's about 14.3 14ft, 3 inches long by 3ft 7 inches wide. And it's thought that Joseph of Arimathea had purchased this for himself as his own pre death planning, along with the new tomb. And so, even though Jesus is executed in an excruciating fashion as a criminal, he's buried as a king. And the Shroud of Turin gives physical evidence of that fact.
- [04:32]
Glenn Beck
When did we first see the Shroud of Turin appear?
- [04:34]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
The Shroud of Turin first appears in John, chapter 20. We see this word sindon, used in Athonia in Greek. And we also see the Greek word sudareon, which is the face cloth. And then we know that John gives it to Thomas. And then the early church historian who was right there at the Council of Nicaea, Eusebius, begins to tell us about the Shroud of Turin. Now, he doesn't use those words. Now, Glenn. I'm from Kansas City, okay? So I'm a massive Chiefs fan. But the Chiefs have not always been called the Kansas City Chiefs. You know, right after you were born, they were called the Dallas Texans. Same team. Very similar with the image of Edessa, the mandolin, the face of Jesus. It's been known by different names throughout antiquity. It only came to be known as the Shroud of Turin in the 16th century when it finally goes to Turin, Italy.
- [05:21]
Glenn Beck
Exactly. So this has been known from the beginning.
- [05:25]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Exactly it didn't just historically. We have a historical record both in the documents and also in art and in numismatics. Coins of the Shroud, which is fascinating. It goes back much older than the Middle Ages.
- [05:41]
Glenn Beck
Okay, so let's start with that. Let's just start with the evidence that before it becomes what it is now, before it goes to Turin. Let's start with some of the evidence that it existed.
- [05:52]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Absolutely.
- [05:53]
Glenn Beck
The coins, the art. What do you mean?
- [05:55]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Well, and I want to start originally with the best documents that we have, which are the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All four of those make reference to the fact that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus prepared Jesus body for burial. This is accurate based on Jewish burial traditions. An atheist archaeologist at University of North Carolina, Jody Magnus, says the Gospels get it right when it comes to Jewish burial traditions based on archaeology. And so Joseph of Arimathea has a very expensive. We know from the shroud, it has a herringbone weave. Now, Glenn, the only reason I know what herringbone is, is I had to buy that for a backsplash for my wife. And I just know it was the more expensive one.
- [06:35]
Glenn Beck
Right?
- [06:35]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yeah, right. This was an expensive weave. But we have hundreds of shrouds from the land of Israel. We have hundreds of shrouds from Jerusalem and the Qumran community. Very few of them, if any, have the herringbone weave. So this was a rich man's burial garment. So it shows up there. John 20 is a key passage because. And you know, it's amazing when you read the scripture, you read it so many times, but then it's like you read it for the very first time. It speaks to you. In John chapter 20, John outruns Peter to the tomb of Jesus, which we'll discuss in a minute. It's not until he looks in and it says he saw in Greek three times. He saw. He saw Blipo. He saw with understanding, theoretical understanding. Then he saw with experience three times the Athonia, the Sinden, the burial shroud of Jesus and the face garment, the Sudarion, which we have. And then he believed. So right there is where the shroud mystery begins. And they would not have just shuffled these burial garments because it's not like it's shoved the body, as we'll talk about, emanates through the cloth in the resurrection moment, which we'll talk about. And then Thomas Eusebius tells us that the disciple Thomas, who. Eusebius is a respected church historian. Okay, I'm not doing Christian history right now. I'm not losing my mind. I'm not privileging this with some kind of Christian bias. I'm looking at this and evaluating the evidence that you have asked about. It goes to Edessa, where a king is said to have actually been healed by it. And there it stays until the Muslim invasion of the 6th century, when it then goes to Constantinople, and we read about it there. And then it eventually goes to France. It's been in private hands. And so where you and I were raised thinking that, oh, this is like the Three Wise Men, you know, you can go see the Three Wise Men in Cologne, in the cathedral. This is not a Catholic relic. It did not come into be. And to say it accurately, the Pope is custodial of the Turin Shroud. It was given to him personally, but not until the 1980s. 1985, to be exact. Wow. So I was conditioned both from my background and from my education to think, oh, there's nothing scientific about that.
- [08:57]
Glenn Beck
In this corner, by where you see his feet on the backside, there is a large section taken out. What is that?
- [09:08]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Very good eye, Glen. And so, because the Shroud of Turin was held in private family hands, noble hands, the hands of a knight, it would be brought out at special occasions, like if you were having Glen and Tanya over for dinner. You brought the Shroud of Turin out. You wanted to impress your guests, or if your child was getting baptized, you would bring out the Shroud. Be like, I can one up you. And we know again from historical record that pieces of the Shroud were given away to dignitaries as gifts or even as marriage dowries. You would give them a piece of Jesus burial cloth. Isn't that fascinating? And you can see that right here in our museum replica.
- [09:46]
Glenn Beck
Okay, so before we get to the. Well, first, talk to me about the coins, the face of Christ and the icon.
- [09:55]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes. And so when you look at the artwork, the skeptics will say that this is a medieval forgery based on the carbon 14 dating. Again, we can't trust this. This is the product of a forger. Never mind it cannot be duplicated. One man has offered over a million British pounds to anyone who can duplicate what's in the Shroud of Turin. And we see this evidential. These evidential breadcrumbs where we know that in the coins numismatics, we see the exact same image of the face of Jesus in coins that corresponds with the face of Jesus on the Shroud of Tur. And then if you go to Sinai and you begin to see the icons and art, you see that all of the earliest art of Jesus that we have, he's bearded. I want to correct people who think that Jesus didn't have a beard. No, he would have taken the Nazarite vow and his beard probably would have grown 21 inches during his three and a half year ministry that we know from the Synoptics and John's gospel. So he was a bearded man. He was a physically fit man. I'm a historical Jesus scholar, so I've given my life to study the historical Jesus. Jesus probably walked somewhere around 15 to 20,000 miles in his lifetime. If you add up all of his trips to Jerusalem. This is a strong man, this is a man's man. And we see all of that reflected in the iconography and the earliest Christian art. We see that in the icon at Sinai.
- [11:19]
Glenn Beck
What is the most famous icon painting of his face? That's like split in half, right?
- [11:24]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes. This is fascinating because I actually have a dear friend, Doug Powell, who's taken that icon in the image of the Shroud and he. And he's put it in mid journey AI to produce what I think is the best, closest image of the face of Jesus. And it is a Semitic man. It is a man from the land of Israel. It's not the effeminate Jesus of medieval Christian art. The effeminate Jesus, the weak Jesus, the no beard Jesus. All of the earliest coins, the earliest icon from Sinai, and many others in my slides when I teach students, I mean, you just again, see this resemblance all emanating off of the source material. And the source material for the art artist is that face right there that we see right here in your studio.
- [12:08]
Glenn Beck
Okay, so this is such an amazing. Let's just call it for now, let's just call it art.
- [12:16]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Correct.
- [12:19]
Glenn Beck
As an artist myself, if I put myself back in time, you know, even 150 years, I don't know what a negative is exactly. Okay, so this requires somebody a thousand years ago at worst. Okay. A thousand years perpetrating a fraud with the face of Christ in something that no one understood. A negative.
- [12:49]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Right, right. And we're just getting started. We haven't even talked about the pollen, we haven't talked about the blood type. I mean, for this to work of a forger, the best modern scientist. And Glenn, I want to be clear when I say this. 500,000 interdisciplinary hours have been spent studying this object by 63 different academic disciplines. 63. I have one academic discipline. As a historian, as a first century scholar. 63 different academic disciplines cannot explain how there is an image in the Shroud of Turin. They cannot explain it.
- [13:25]
Glenn Beck
So let me go to. In 88, they said this was a forgery.
- [13:28]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes.
- [13:29]
Glenn Beck
And it came from in that corner, the opposite corner.
- [13:32]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Tell me what happened in that corner in the top left. If you're looking at the Shroud, this is the very infamous corner. Three different labs received a piece of the Shroud about the size of our pinky. Okay. And they carbon dated that source material. And if you look at the original Stirp teams finding, that's the Shroud of Trend Research project, they explain exactly what happened. Many of these men have published and women have published peer reviewed journals, not in popularizers, but peer reviewed journals interacting with the carbon 14 dating. And what we can say, Glenn, unequivocally, is the carbon 14 dating is totally erroneous. And we know that because they took patches. The Shroud has survived at least three fires. But specifically in the 16th century, in the mid-1500s, the shroud survives a fire in Chambery, France. And there, the nuns not only sewed in these triangles. See all the triangles? For the benefit of our audience as well, the fire almost took the Shroud. It was folded in a box. And so those horizontal black lines, those are scorch marks. Okay. The 16 triangles are patches. But we also, the evidence tells us that the nuns also patched the fraying edges of this 3 millimeter thick linen, fine linen shroud. And they did a technique. And again, anyone can read this, okay? All you have to do, we learn from everyone. But don't ever let anyone think for you. You can see that there is cotton that is invisibly woven into the patchwork of the fibers of the linen shroud. So let me be clear. The data, it was a problem of sampling. It was a problem of the sample that was taken. They took literally a patch sample. And then the headline was, this is a medieval forgery. It's from 1260 to 1380.
- [15:31]
Glenn Beck
I talked to Schwartz, who was one of the lead scientists on that. Correct. An atheist. Correct. Who, when he discovered that what happened and where the patch was taken from, he reversed himself, did he not?
- [15:47]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
He did, yeah.
- [15:48]
Glenn Beck
And he became a great Christian. And as an atheist, he's like, I'm telling you, that's real.
- [15:57]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And not only an atheist, as you know from interviewing him, but a Jewish atheist, by the way. Jewish and very much skeptical. It took him 17 years to believe in the authenticity of the Shroud. And he is the documenting photographer. And so what we have in your studios today is the photograph that Barry Schwartz took during the five days, 120 hours that the scientists had access to the Shroud, the only time it's ever happened in history was that moment. And this photograph is based on the.
- [16:28]
Glenn Beck
Shroud and it's actually printed on linear.
- [16:30]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's right, it's printed. And we can actually go up and touch it, we can feel it. And what's phenomenal about it is when you hold up, and I love doing this with audiences and with students. When you invert your iPhone or for those that have Androids, however you do that when you invert your phone. Look at the picture of the crucified man. You see it in the negative. He's actually photopositive. That's the fascinating thing. This is actually the sepia tone, faint image that looks like a dirty sheet is actually the photo positive. When we see the negative, we see the man in the positive. And what we're seeing is the moment of resurrection.
- [17:08]
Glenn Beck
If you were faking this back then, you would not have made it this faint. No, because honestly, I could look at that sheet and look at it for a long time and then wonder, am I seeing a face there? You know, this is so unbelievably subtle. Now we've gone back, technology has taken us back into the Shroud and they have found seeds and everything that originates from Jerusalem at that time, right?
- [17:39]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's right. So Max Frei, a criminologist, spent five years of his life studying all of the pollen spores on the Shroud of Turin. And you would think, okay, if this is a forgery, you're going to find pollen, you're going to find all kinds of things from plant life in Europe. What does he find? The majority of the pollen found blooms in Jerusalem and it doesn't bloom year round. It only blooms around the springtime Passover. We know we can date based on the historical record. Jesus, death by crucifixion, which is the best established fact of the ancient world. He dies by Roman crucifixion, April 3, AD 33, springtime. And so there's two thirds of all the pollen spores are from specifically Jerusalem. And again, this is a criminologist, not a theologian. Max Fry, saying, I've given five years of my life to this. How would you fake that if you were a forger?
- [18:32]
Glenn Beck
How would you even know how to fake that back then?
- [18:35]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's the point. And this is where I want to just share with you, Glenn. The Shroud of Turin is the most lied about artifact from antiquity. There's not a close second. Scholars Bible scholars dismiss it. I'm sitting in Keble College, Oxford Faculty of Theology where I would go to attend Faculty of Theology led by Marcus Bachmuhl. I have written a 93,000 word Uber lieferongs geschista of resurrection, the tradition of resurrection belief in the Judeo Christian motif. It's published, it's been written for dozens in the academic world who care about that and ask me how many times in faculty of Theology are working in the Griffith Paperology Lab where I studied codicology and ancient texts. Ask me how many times anyone ever brought up the Shroud of Turin to me studying the resurrection at the primary terminal level.
- [19:28]
Glenn Beck
How many?
- [19:29]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Zero. It was laughed about. So Bible scholars dismiss it, scientists suppress it. The British Museum Museum which is tied into the one of the three I mentioned, the three Oxford labs that did the carbon 14 dating. You can look at the peer reviewed journal. For over 20 years they suppressed the raw data and it took a French attorney who believed in the validity of the shroud as an authentic artifact to get them to finally release just the raw data. So I can share what I'm sharing with you today. That okay. The raw data shows it was a, it was a poisoned sample as it were. It was a sample that was doctored.
- [20:08]
Glenn Beck
Motivation.
- [20:10]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
The motivation is John, chapter 11. Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. And people that don't want to believe in truth, no evidence is enough. They refuse to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. Even with Lazarus who would begin to have an odor from after rigor mortis is raised before them. So for some people, no evidence is enough. When I was defending my thesis after three years of my life, the man who I'm defending it to has the power to pass me in my viva. He says, do you actually believe the resurrection of Jesus happened? Jeremiah, that's a big wonderful man, big British bow tie. But he said, or is that just imaginative storytelling? And I said David Hume chooses probability. Said wise men choose probabilities. I believe Jesus physically rose from the grave. That's the best explanation of the evidence. He said I don't see it that way. And this is a Bible scholar.
- [21:07]
Glenn Beck
Oh yeah, I know, I know. I, I, I spoke to Dominic Crossing.
- [21:11]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes, you know, of course Dom.
- [21:13]
Glenn Beck
And he's a great guy and fun. Yeah. But he absolutely right, didn't happen.
- [21:21]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Right.
- [21:22]
Glenn Beck
Didn't happen.
- [21:22]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And so what's the motivation for those that turn their hearts from truth? No evidence is enough. So I want to be true, addicted to truth. That's why I love your program. That's why I love what you stand for.
- [21:32]
Glenn Beck
Thanks. Okay, so we have the evidence that the carbon dating now we have done again, and it's right.
- [21:40]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
So we have not carbon dated it. We have actually other ways in which we have better. This is breaking news. We have something called waxis dating, wide angle X ray scattering. And this is really fun. You know how I mentioned that we have other burial shrouds of Jesus from the land of Israel? So there's a lab in Italy that has a burial shroud that we know is from Masada. And you've been to Israel. You know all about Masada. The Last stand against Titus. So we have this. We know the date is sound, A.D. 70 or so, right? And so they have that shroud sampling, and then they took a sample, a correct sample of the shroud, and they compared that using wide angle X ray scattering. And they see that there has been 2000 years of degradation in the shroud fibrils of this fine linen garment. Meaning it has been getting old for 2,000 years, not 700. Think about that variation. And some skeptics will say, well, Jeremiah and Glenn, you know, this is a shroud. This is like a linen. I mean, I have linen. Are you telling me it will last 2000 years? Yes, we actually have money. Much older linen garments. You can again look at the Tarquin dress, which is a beautiful blouse. That's fine linen. And it's 3,000 years older than the Shroud of Turin, Glenn. So it's a very stable material given the right circumstances. And again, when Jesus rises from the dead, everything changes in the mind of the first Jews. And so why would they discard this?
- [23:11]
Glenn Beck
Okay, talk about the blood stains on it.
- [23:14]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And this is so important with you as an artist. How would you know how to forge this? So Allen Adler and other hematologists, who are, again, these are experts in the blood, have taken blood samples. And if we had an ultraviolet light right now, that would be a lot of fun, Glenn, because I could show you that the shroud, the number one substance on the shroud is blood. There are pints and pints and pints of blood all over the shroud. There's 50 abrasions. We'll get to the crown of thorns on the forehead, head. 372 lacerations from a Roman whip called a flagrum, the flagellation of Jesus. So there's blood everywhere. They test the blood. And again, if you're a forger, you're just going to use animal blood, right? And the blood comes back, human blood. Guess what the blood Type is Type AB. Less than 3% of the world's population has type AB blood. And it is found primarily in, in the land of Israel. And it's male blood. They've tested the chromosome. Some people are like, well, could we take the blood and clone Jesus? No, we don't.
- [24:22]
Glenn Beck
That can't be done. I don't recommend that experiment anyway.
- [24:26]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
But it just shows again, the scriptures say fully God, fully man, and we see that evidence in the blood. Now, the interesting thing is, when we were walking through it, the lance wound in the side is right there in the Shroud of Turin. We'll talk about this in the way that Jesus died in excruciating fashion. When they look at that blood, that blood they tested, and that is post mortem blood, he was already dead. That blood is tested differently than the blood on the rest of the shroud. And that is consistent. Pilate is shocked, based on the historical record, that Jesus had died so quickly. Jesus dies in six hours, which shows you the particular brutality that he went through in the scourging and also beating in the house, House of Caiaphas, et cetera. And yet we know based on the blood samples that this is post mortem blood. So again, if you're going to fake the shroud, you've got to kill a guy. His blood needs to be post mortem blood, and then you need to slap that on the spear wound.
- [25:21]
Glenn Beck
That's nuts.
- [25:22]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Exactly.
- [25:23]
Glenn Beck
It takes, and no one would have thought, 700 years ago. Right, so how do you explain, or can we explain? I've always thought of the shroud because it's a negative. As he is resurrected, it's just like a flash of light energy that just imprints on this.
- [25:43]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes.
- [25:44]
Glenn Beck
Is there another explanation for this?
- [25:46]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Again, another scientist, another school is given five years to study this. Just the amount of electromagnetic energy or even radiation it would take to produce an image on a shroud like this. But the fascinating thing is the timing, because when they sample it, it takes a lot of time to get the image on the shroud, but then the shroud would burn up almost instantaneously. So we know the image of the shroud based on five years of study on light. And again, you can read all this, it's fascinating. We know that it happened in 1/40 of a billionth of a second. Oh my gosh, 1/40 billionth of a second. And it took 34,000 trillion watts of energy emanating from the body in a flash of 1/40 of a billionth of a second to produce that image. So in other words, God took the first selfie.
- [26:37]
Glenn Beck
Wow. And at that, it left an imprint.
- [26:44]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That is the moment of Jesus physical, bodily, resurrection. Sunday morning, April 5th, AD33. It's at that moment and then it's the fall through theory that the sheet, essentially the body flashes alive and the sheet falls through and Jesus is up. He's walking physically.
- [27:02]
Glenn Beck
So they have checked for all other kinds of paint and everything else. Go ahead.
- [27:09]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
You would appreciate this as an artist, when you look at the findings of the stirp team. After three years, they did their research over five days. 1978, they took three years to publish their findings. I mean, this was very well organized. We'll talk about the 3D encoding in the image as well from the VP8 analyzer. We'll talk about that. That's fascinating. But when the STURP team came out and they published their findings, they said, we cannot explain it. And listen carefully. No pigment, no dye, no paint, no oxidization from old paint. Nothing. Barry Schwartz and all of the. And again, these are not theologians, Glenn. I can't make this more clear. These are people from SANDIA Labs, the Air Force Academy physics professor. They went in and were having drinks in the lobby, joking about. I remember it was John Jackson who said, Give me 15 minutes with the shroud and the scientific method and I'll prove it's a hoax. And he died. He's become the great defender of the shroud in all of his publications. And so no pigment, no dye, no paint. The best scientists from the jet propulsion labs cannot tell us how there's an image in that cloth, and it's superficial. This is the fascinating thing, and it took me a while in my research to really, truly appreciate this. The image is razor thin. The blood. When we were walking through the shroud, we can see the blood everywhere. The blood saturates the linen, and there's around 70 to 150 fibers in a single linen thread. Okay. The image is only on two to three of those fibers, superficially. So it doesn't go all the way through. The image doesn't go all the way through. It's there superficially, and it's inside two to three of these fibers that make up the single thread of the weave.
- [28:54]
Glenn Beck
Wow. And then the blood goes through all.
- [28:57]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Of it, soaks through all of it. So the blood came first. We know that Jesus is there. He's wrapped, his body is bloodied. And again, in Jewish burial traditions, when someone died, you buried them that day before nightfall, remember? They're wanting to bury him before Passover. The Sabbath is coming. They have to quickly bury him. They quickly ask Pilate for the body of Jesus. He's wrapped, and yet there's no decomposition on the body either. And you ask, and here we have this beautiful replica of the crucified man of the shroud. And you say, jeremiah, why does it look like his knees are bent and his head is like, on a pillow? Well, his body is in a state of rigor mortis. We know rigor mortis lasts 40 hours, some say longer. Based on my scholarship, Jesus is in the tomb no more than 39 hours.
- [29:41]
Glenn Beck
So he is stiff, stiff, stiff and hard. And then the body starts to relax. After 40 hours?
- [29:49]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
After 40 hours, not just to relax. That's when bodily fluids begin to.
- [29:55]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, okay, so we know that his legs were up because we don't see the back of his knees.
- [29:59]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yeah, you only see the right side more clearly than the left. And again, not a single bone on his body is broken. And again, that goes against Roman crucifixion. Most of the time, they would break the shins. They would start there. And we also notice when you look at this, that his body is in this shape. His arms are elongated. I don't know if you picked up on that with your artist acumen that his arms seem almost too long.
- [30:22]
Glenn Beck
Too long.
- [30:23]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Do you know why, Glenn? His shoulders have been dislocated. He's asked to carry the patibulum. That's the cross beam. So I want to correct people. He's not carrying the whole cross. That would have been like 300 pounds. He's asked to carry the petibulum, just the crossbeam, and he might have been chained to other criminals. In this processional that goes outside of the city, he falls, he collapses, and it leads to more abrasions on his shoulders and so on the back. Do you see all the abrasions? Those are from when. Not just he falls and he drops the cross beam. That's when we believe that his shoulders were dislocated. He hangs on the cross. His shoulders are dislocated, and that's why his arms are elongated in rigor mortis.
- [31:07]
Glenn Beck
Oh, my gosh. Let's talk about what we can learn about crucifixion from this. Was it normal to be this brutalized?
- [31:19]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
No. This is fascinating, and it's kind of odd to say that I'm an expert in Roman crucifixion, but that's one of my areas of expertise. And Jesus dies in a particularly demonic Shameful, heinous way. He's brutalized as he goes to the cross. And we've brought some crucifixion elements here.
- [31:41]
Glenn Beck
Bring these up here. So you have the scourge, the spear, the nails, the crown of thorns, which is, be careful, just horrifying.
- [31:53]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
These are actual Bethlehem thorns. Thorns, and they're like nails. So often we'll start with the crown of thorns. When we look at art, we believe that Jesus is wearing some kind of sweatband or wreath, you know, a cutesy.
- [32:08]
Glenn Beck
Little crown of thorns, laurel.
- [32:10]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
We know that he's being mocked. We know that as he's led to the cross, he's completely naked. But he's not totally naked because they fashion a crown of thorns. Really, though, a helmet of thorns, a dome, a cap of thorns, and that is pressed into his head. And we know that there are 30 to 50 puncture wounds in the head of the crucified man. We know of only one person from antiquity. We have thousands of crucifixion victims explained both in the Roman annals, Tacitus, others, Suetonius. We have no mention of a crown of thorns, except in one particular case, the man who said, I am the king of the Jews. And they fashioned a crown of thorns, a helmet of thorns. And one of the applications for me is we live in a time of such despair, such agony, so much anxiety, and we often wonder if God really loves us. When I think about the crown of thorns, when I stare at this glen and I think about it, I think about that passage that Saul of Tarsus wrote in Romans 5.
- [33:12]
Glenn Beck
8.
- [33:12]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
But God demonstrated his love for us, and that while we were his enemies, we were his sinners. He sent Christ to die for us. And that reminds me of the lengths that Jesus would go. What we see in the crown of thorns is love in its most radical form. And it gives us pause. And we say, well, that should have been my head in that crown. It should have been my hands in these nails. It should have been my back with the flagram.
- [33:40]
Glenn Beck
I don't think people understand the crown of thorns until you see the thorns that came from Jerusalem at the time. It is horrifying, absolutely horrifying. This is what was used against him. Was it this short? Were they that close?
- [34:02]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes. And these men were experts in execution. They were men. We know that there were at least there were probably two whipping Jesus. We have counted 372 wounds from scourge marks. Now you can see that has three cords on it and two lead balls. Some have thought bone. So with Each lash, you're getting six lashes in. When you count up their balls. We know that he's lashed 372 times, but keep in mind we don't have the lateral sides on the image. This is a 2D image.
- [34:35]
Glenn Beck
Right.
- [34:35]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
So I estimate there's got to be.
- [34:38]
Glenn Beck
There's got to be more on the sides than there were, correct? Yeah.
- [34:41]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
700 wounds that Jesus, the Man of the Shroud, endured for us from that flagram, the scourging. And so that was particularly heinous.
- [34:50]
Glenn Beck
And that happened on other crucifixions.
- [34:52]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Absolutely. It did happen. Often. Crucifixion victims wouldn't even make it to the cross. But again, it seemed that Jesus was brutalized under the reign of Pontius Pilate, who would ultimately get on the outs with Tiberius and die by suicide, interestingly enough. And so that's the flagram. Glenn, I want you to hold the nails. We know a lot about nails from the archaeology.
- [35:14]
Glenn Beck
These are just horrifying. And most people have the nails going through his palm, but it would have ripped right through. All that weight would have ripped right through.
- [35:25]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
It would have lacerated right through.
- [35:26]
Glenn Beck
So it was actually put perfectly on the wrist.
- [35:29]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Again, this wasn't the first rodeo, as we say in Texas, of these executioners. They know that Jesus, they knew exactly where to puncture at the exact angle through the wrists into the hands, and it would foist his body weight of around 170 to 180 pounds. And they crushed his wrist when they did that. And they nail him to the cross. Keep in mind, his shoulders are already separated. The nails go through the wrists. It's the same Greek word for you scripture scholars out there. Hand wrists in the Greek Bible. And we see the nails are nine inches long. Now, what's fascinating is crucifixion nails become something like a rabbit's foot. Then in Judaism of the late second Temple period, we actually have a Roman crucifixion victim under the reign of Pontius Pilate, who is crucified, and he's given proper burial notice. I said the word proper, not honorable. So he's a crucified victim. The worst way to die ever in the ancient world, and yet he's still allowed to be buried. And you can look this up. It's the heel bone of Yehohanan because his heel bone still has the crucifixion nail in it.
- [36:38]
Glenn Beck
Wow.
- [36:38]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
He had to be buried before nightfall. And this is again in the 20s AD under the reign of Pontius Pilate. How do we know his name because of second burial. A year after a Jewish man died, his bones would be collected and then a process of second burial would take place. So that's like when you go to the land of Israel, where I know you've been and thank you for your support of Israel. You see all the bone boxes? Those are ossuaries. Those ossuaries are where you would put the bones that were collected one year after the date of death, usually by the eldest son. And so we have this great artifact where we see crucifixion nails in a crucified victim. Because the skeptical scholars will claim that crucial crucified victims were not given proper burial. So this isn't Jesus. This is a hoax.
- [37:21]
Glenn Beck
Well, wait, wait, wait. But isn't that true to the fact? I mean, crucifixion was not only supposed to be horrifying for the person. We always see the crosses as these big tall things. They were actually closer to the ground.
- [37:37]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Correct eye level.
- [37:38]
Glenn Beck
Yeah. So when you're walking into the city, you're like, I don't want to do that.
- [37:41]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes, right.
- [37:44]
Glenn Beck
And they were left there for a while for the dogs to eat. Correct.
- [37:48]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
In some cases.
- [37:49]
Glenn Beck
In some cases, but not all cases.
- [37:51]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And again, remember. Yeah. This is not a monolith. The Romans were excellent politicians. And what do we. Again, everything I say is based on the evidence. What do we know in non wartime, the only time that we have, we know that Philo, a Jewish historian in Alexandria, Josephus, we know the biblical records tell us. So there's. There are six amazing sources right there that Jews were allowed to bury their dead properly, even crucified victims. The only time that we know of where Jews were not allowed to bury their dead was during the revolt of 66 to 70 AD. My dear friend and colleague at Christian Thinkers, Craig Evans, has done phenomenal, groundbreaking work on this that only in wartime were Jews not allowed to bury the dead and the dead of their crucified victims, Jesus. Jesus dies in AD 33. There's no war going on. And the Jews were fine to give back the body. They were politicians. Yeah, go do that. Tradition. We're still in power right now.
- [38:45]
Glenn Beck
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- [40:01]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Correct.
- [40:02]
Glenn Beck
His shoulders have been dislocated. They nail his feet to the cross.
- [40:07]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
One nail, both feet.
- [40:08]
Glenn Beck
And the only way he can breathe is if he's pushing himself up, right? Correct. Correct. Because everything's collapsing on him and he has no strength in his arms to pull his, to pull himself up. So the pain of pushing himself up must have been.
- [40:26]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And can you imagine? I wouldn't be able to speak, I wouldn't be able to. You fight for every breath.
- [40:31]
Glenn Beck
Yes.
- [40:32]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
As a pastor, I've been with people when they are fighting for every breath at the end of their life. And I think about Jesus and Jesus is able to utter certain words even from the cross. And what is he quoting? He's quoting that Messianic psalm constantly. Psalm 22. He's just quoting, Quoting it verbatim. Jesus loved the Psalms. He quotes them often. He quotes from Psalm 110. He quotes from Daniel 7, 13 and following in Mark 8, 31, Mark 9, 31, Mark 10, 33 and 34. He constantly reminds his audience, even though they're confused, the Son of man must die and rise again three days later. He must do it. Luke's Gospel, the great historian Luke, the doctor who gives us his wonderful Luke, Acts sequel in the Scriptures. He tells us that Jesus set his face like flint to the cross. So this was no accident. This was no mess up. Jesus intended to go to the cross for us.
- [41:23]
Glenn Beck
Didn't want to.
- [41:24]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Didn't want to. Asked if he could, if he could ask the Father if it could be held back in any way. Which again shows us that he can empathize with us even in our weaknesses.
- [41:34]
Glenn Beck
So he's buried. No. So he dies.
- [41:37]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes.
- [41:38]
Glenn Beck
He dies on the cross.
- [41:40]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That is to scale a Roman lance 3 1/2 cm wide. And remember, they're coming around the Jewish sensitivities, Sabbath and Passover. So this was a high holy day. We got to make sure these dudes are dead. So they break the bones of the criminals onto the right and the left of Jesus of Nazareth. But they come and Jesus is already dead. And just to make sure, they penetrate. And again, these guys knew what they were doing. They used this lance. And they penetrate right between the fifth and sixth rib, three and a half inches into the heart. And the Scriptures tell us that blood and water come out. And again, how would first they know this if they were making up forged documents? But secondly, what do we see, as we have already suggested on the Shroud, we see that three and a half centimeter wound in the side of the man of the Shroud. It's just above the patch in the left there. Do you see it there, Glenn? And you see the very dark blood that is the lance wound. Postmortem, he was already dead. And I would like to mention, if I may, Glenn, I want you to hold a temple tax coin at this moment. I think it's important for you to handle this. This is extremely rare. That's one shekel, 14 grams Tyrian silver. That's authentic. That is the currency that you had to pay for the temple tax at the Jewish temple. And so there's a miracle in the Gospels where Jesus says to Peter, open that fish's mouth. And the temple tax is there in his mouth, but even more so, Judas iscariot has paid 30 of those to betray Jesus. The price of a slave. That's authentic. We know from the writing on it. It's from the 20s when Pilate is in power. You can imagine what that must have felt like to Judas seeing this play out.
- [43:33]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, I have one of these next to my microphone, and I've had it for 20 years. I went over to Jerusalem and I bought one just like this because I wanted something that Judas could have held. And it reminds me, don't sell out.
- [43:48]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's right.
- [43:48]
Glenn Beck
Don't ever, ever, ever sell out.
- [43:50]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And you don't. You're amazing, Glenn.
- [43:52]
Glenn Beck
Well, it's a remarkable reminder. I kind of feel bad for Judas, you know, because it had to happen. Christ knew it was going to happen. It had to happen.
- [44:06]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Absolutely.
- [44:07]
Glenn Beck
And, you know, if you just look at him as a bad guy, but he knew as soon as he did it, I mean, he ends up killing himself.
- [44:17]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's right.
- [44:18]
Glenn Beck
He knew.
- [44:18]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's right. And except for God's grace, there go every one of us.
- [44:21]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, yeah. It would have been an interesting meeting of Christ on that day.
- [44:29]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Exactly. So that's the Tyrian silver coin. And Jesus then is asked, according to the Mishnah, which is a 2nd century AD Jewish source of how to live out the Jewish law, Talmud. It's late second September. Judaism. If the Sanhedrin condemned a Roman criminal, or excuse me, a criminal to death, even under Roman law, it was on the Sanhedrin to bury the crucified criminal. What do we see in the juridical procedure in the Gospels? We see that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, two members of the Sanhedrin, take control of burying Jesus body. That is consistent with what the Mishnah says. And so they don't have much time and they take Jesus to a new tomb in a quarry, a rock hewn tomb. So this is not a tomb that has been used before by a family. It's a brand new tomb. We have this 3D printed model right here. This is fascinating. This is so fun too. So Glenn, I've had the opportunity to film at all the resurrection sites of Jesus and Lazarus and Jerusalem. I've been in more tombs than probably anyone you've ever interviewed. Most Jewish tombs look like our hand. You walk in into the tomb and you usually walk down the steps. It's usually just a meter square because not a lot of rich people got buried in the land of Israel. And so when you see this large circular stone, that's a crucial key. This is a rich person's tomb. They've got a big stone because 80% of the tombs that we've discovered in the land of Israel are just a meter square. They're small. But when you would get in inside your palm of your hand, that's where you would pray, you would mourn the dead. And then the finger slots are niches for the bodies to be buried. So the Jewish family burial would have to.
- [46:10]
Glenn Beck
And there's only one niche in this.
- [46:12]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Right. There would have been more originally, Joseph would have had more. I have stood and I am convinced based on the archeology, based on all of the evidence, and I write about this in my book Body of Proof at length, that the edicule inside of the church of the Holy Sepulcher is in fact the place where Jesus was buried.
- [46:30]
Glenn Beck
My sticking point on this is the mother of Constantine who's like, yes, that is the place.
- [46:39]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
She picked out the church too, at Bethlehem, the Church of Nativity.
- [46:43]
Glenn Beck
So, you know, what were her credentials?
- [46:47]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Absolutely.
- [46:48]
Glenn Beck
But I've been to both places. I've been to the garden tomb and to the place that she sets says. And, I mean, I have no idea. Right. Tell me the evidence that that is the tomb.
- [47:05]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
This is really fascinating. I want you to hold another coin because this will answer your question.
- [47:10]
Glenn Beck
Okay.
- [47:11]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Coins were like the social media of the first and second century. They would tell you who was in power, what the name of the city is, and what cultural sensitivities you needed to be aware of. After three Jewish revolts in the first and early second century, Hadrian has had enough of the Jews, and he demolishes Israel and in particular Jerusalem. After the third revolt, 132-135 A.D. the Bar Kokhba, the son of the Star revolt.
- [47:39]
Glenn Beck
This is 60 years after the temple's gone.
- [47:41]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Exactly. And Hadrian sees Christianity as just a Jewish sect. He wants them all dead. He renames the land of Israel Palestine. It is the reason I never use the word Palestine when referring to the Holy Land, the Jewish people, their land. Hadrian originates the term Palestine, and he does so very pejoratively. I was actually flying in an airline. This is anecdotal. Recently I fly with American Airlines. But I was on one of their one world partners. I'm flying over the land of Israel. It doesn't say any Israel, any anywhere on the flight map. It says Palestinian territories as an echo back to Hadrian. So Hadrian demolishes Israel. He renames Jerusalem Alia Capitolina. And that bronze coin that you hold in your hand from the second century said, it's stamped with Hadrian Alia Capitolina. This is the new name for the city of Jerusalem. When Hadrian demolishes and raises Jerusalem, Jerusalem, in the second century, he hears about this venerated site of this dying and rising God, and he absolutely demolishes it. He puts in a temple to the God Venus. And then where Jesus is crucified, another venerated object to Jupiter. And Hadrian unwittingly becomes the protector of this sacred Christian site of Jesus. Death by Roman crucifixion. Crucifixion and his resurrection. Because people didn't move around a lot. Glenn, if you would have lived in the first and second century, you would have said, oh, you would have taken your kids there and said, hey, this is where he died. You know, ignore the Venus thing. It's like our Liberals today who will demolish our history. You know, this is where it happened. This is where Gettysburg happens. You know, we can call it whatever we want now, but this is where Jesus died. This is where he was raised from the dead. And so that's 200 years before Helena. The archeology is that good. And then when you see in 2017, the tomb is open for a remodeling, really, a refurbishment is what we should call it, because it's falling apart. And the limestone is all first century. And so it's a rock quarry. And I have filmed in the very edicule. And I know that everything seems wrong about the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It seems like it's outside the city. Well, Agrippa expanded the city walls in 44. When's Jesus crucifix 33. So you're following with me the archeology. And I love a word about the garden tomb. I love it anytime. I lead tours. It's peaceful, it's peaceful. We take communion there. It's fabulous. But even the director of the garden tomb knows that that's not the historical site.
- [50:15]
Glenn Beck
Golgotha, place of the skull.
- [50:17]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes.
- [50:17]
Glenn Beck
That's another thing about the garden tomb. It looks like a skull right there above the bus stop.
- [50:24]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
It does, yeah.
- [50:26]
Glenn Beck
But that's not.
- [50:27]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's not.
- [50:28]
Glenn Beck
That's not where he was.
- [50:29]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yeah, it's too far away. It's too early. The tomb specifically, I should mention the Tomb is about 700 years earlier than the time of Jesus. And so it's much too old to be Jesus tomb. We know that to be true based, again, on the archeology.
- [50:46]
Glenn Beck
I always. I've. I think science and God go hand in hand. God's got to be the greatest scientist and mathematician of all time.
- [50:53]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes.
- [50:53]
Glenn Beck
I mean. I mean, everything is math, everything is science, you know, And I don't believe that he. He works outside of that.
- [51:03]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Right.
- [51:04]
Glenn Beck
He can't, or the whole thing would collapse. You know what I mean? He created the rules, he plays within the rules. If he's resurrecting and there is energy that's coming in like that, you would think that there would be the flash, it would leave evidence. So this isn't a miracle as much as it is just a marker of God doing something scientifically.
- [51:29]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's right, exactly.
- [51:31]
Glenn Beck
So this is not something that God did so we'd have faith. This is just one piece of evidence that, yeah, it happened.
- [51:43]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's right.
- [51:44]
Glenn Beck
But it's not. Do you see this as a faith thing or Just. Just evidence that it happened.
- [51:52]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's such a great question. I see this as a living gospel. Faith is always defined by its object. We don't have faith in faith. We have faith based on evidence. And so I see it as yet another evidential layer of the greatest event of human history. Jesus, death and resurrection on our behalf on the cross. So I see it as just another layer of very important evidence. It's a historical, historic. It's the only historical evidence we have of the resurrection outside of the New Testament.
- [52:20]
Glenn Beck
I've been to several places that have the cross.
- [52:22]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yeah. We could build a forest of all those relics. So truly, it's the only. And it doesn't. This is as close as your audience, and I'm so thankful to you doing this in your studio. This is as close as any of us will ever get to the Shroud today.
- [52:35]
Glenn Beck
Because I've wanted to go to Turin my whole life.
- [52:38]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Even this year in the Jubilee, we're not sure if it's even going to be on display. Some youth locally, and it's all up to the Archbishop of Turin. So we need it.
- [52:46]
Glenn Beck
I mean, they have the technology to keep it safe. Was this ever more vibrant than it is now?
- [52:54]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
We only can speculate. We don't know that it was ever more vibrant, but we do know that it is degrading based on that waxis. We know that the fibers itself are degrading. We don't know about the image. The image is always been faint. And again, Secondo Pia didn't even see this till 1898. 1898 is the point at which Secondopia, a lawyer, takes a photograph of the Shroud. And in the negative he sees it and says, oh, my God. And that kicks off modern science.
- [53:22]
Glenn Beck
But it was in the. It was in the church.
- [53:25]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
It was in the Turin church, correctly in 1898, but it was in a box. It was on display, and he had to build a scaffold. And it was one of the first photographs ever taken with a flash, with electricity. The church had no electricity, by the way. And so he takes it with flash photography. The exposure takes hours, literally. You know, for the benefit of anyone under the age of 30. You know, our phones do not always take pictures, right?
- [53:49]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, yeah. I mean, he still had a phone, don't get me wrong. But it didn't have a camera with it.
- [53:53]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
You had to take pictures. You had to use camera. You had to go in the dark room. He goes, and that kicks. So for 125 years now, we've enjoyed Modern scientific study of the Shroud. And all of it smacks of authenticity, not forgery. Glenn, if I'm putting up on your table right now all the evidence for and all the evidence against the Shroud of Turin, scientifically, there's one shred of evidence against it. The erroneous 1988 carbon dating, and then an absolute deluge of evidence by scientists, not theologians, not pastors, hoping that it's. Hoping that it's.
- [54:29]
Glenn Beck
Most pastors and theologians, they discredit this, right.
- [54:33]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And I say to evangelicals who are watching, don't be conditioned, as I was, to think, oh, this is some Catholic relic. Read it, study it. Read from people like me and Glenn and others who actually look at the science. We look at the reports, we learn from everyone, but we don't let anyone think for us. I'm a Christian thinker, and so I follow the evidence, where it leads. And, you know, too bad. I was conditioned in England to not believe in it either now, because it's.
- [54:59]
Glenn Beck
A mistake to think that just because Catholics. I mean, I grew up Catholic, I have nothing against Catholics at all. I love them. But you're conditioned to think, oh, it's Catholic. So the one thing. I was actually given permission to go into the secret archives in the Vatican Library. In the Vatican Library. So I went in with the chief theologian and the head of the archives. I was in there for, like, three hours. Wow. It is. I mean, I don't know how I got the invite. I honestly don't. The theologian who. Who is the one who consults with the Pope and says, okay, theologically. He was with me in the first room we were in. I said, what is this room? And he said, I don't know. I've never been allowed past that door. But the things that I saw, the things that they have, you know, the Vatican Museum is just the surface of what they have. I'm walking in a hallway, and the head of the Vatican archives says, oh, we passed something, you know, passed this big box. And he's like, oh, wait. Turns around, goes back and says, you'll love this. Opens the doors, and it is the parchment with all of the wax seals saying that King Henry VIII should be, you know, they should be pardoned, his marriage annulled. And that was just in a hallway that they were like, ah. Just because they have. Just because they have it doesn't make it Catholic.
- [56:37]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Right. You know what I mean? But you've just explained one of the big pitfalls that many Christians who hear about the Shroud of Turin they, they don't seem to care. They think, oh, that's a relic. That's not science. That's not real. There's no evidence. And I have yet to be with someone and give all the evidence to where it doesn't immediately invite them into the mystery of the Shroud. Because when you get beyond the mystery, you hear the message of the Shroud, which is God and his love for us in the most radical ways.
- [57:06]
Glenn Beck
You gave me this statue of the crucified man, and you now, AI, you've done it. And take that face and make it real.
- [57:19]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Right.
- [57:24]
Glenn Beck
We're in this place now where things are going to get really weird. And now you can do that. But then you could put all of the words of Christ into a chat and you can make that man speak to you, which would be freaky. What are your thoughts on any of that? Have you thought of that at all?
- [57:48]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
I have. Where we get verified information from becomes crucial. I wrote an op ed a few years ago when AI was just coming on the scene. And the title of it was My Daughter prayed to Alexis. Because it was just a slip. We have Alexis in our house. And instead of saying dear Jesus, she said dear Alexis. But I remember googling white American couple at the time in this Fox News op ed. And what the learning machine sent back to me was everything but a white American couple. And this is what Google told me to look at. Ever since then, I've been saying to my students, to those where I speak, where I publish, we have to be so careful where we get verified information. The great thing why I'm not too concerned about it is we have an embarrassment of riches, of the earliest words of Christ as codified in the New Testament scriptures. You can't change that. And what I love about evidence is.
- [58:41]
Glenn Beck
Well, you can if everything is digitized.
- [58:43]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
That's right. But again, when we come back to these sources, this is where it's on us to be educated. And this is why I'm a Blaze subscriber, Glenn. This is why where I get information is paramount for me and my wife and our five children. I want to not be conditioned by society. I want to be able to understand what I believe and why I believe it based on evidence. Because the same follow the science crowd has tried to suppress this science, which is ironic.
- [59:09]
Glenn Beck
Yeah, it is interesting. You know the Big bang, yes. That was originally a Christian idea. Christians were like, okay, well, I don't know exactly how he creates, but the big bang started. And the scientists originally were against that because they said yes, but what lit the match?
- [59:27]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yeah, they thought the universe had always been in existence.
- [59:30]
Glenn Beck
Correct.
- [59:30]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And your show with Hugh Ross was excellent, by the way. He's phenomenal.
- [59:35]
Glenn Beck
So where does this go now?
- [59:37]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
So shroud of turn research has never been taken more seriously by scholars. And my prayer is that thanks to voices like yours joining in, we can make this where the world will have access to this information. Because when I look deeply at the evidence of the shroud, I see God's plan for me. I see that it really matters. And what I want to talk about, Glenn, is let's say it's real. What are the implications?
- [60:02]
Glenn Beck
What are they?
- [60:03]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
What are the implications that we have the exact moment of Jesus resurrection caught in the image of the man of the shroud. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Because the Gospels don't tell us what happened at the moment of resurrection.
- [60:19]
Glenn Beck
Right.
- [60:20]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
All the disciples are running scared. Only John and the women who are mentioned in Luke 8 Stay behind to actually be with Jesus. They know something weird is happening at the tomb because normally soldiers were not outside the tomb, stationed there, and yet we don't know what happens. We know that there are second and third century writings that talk about what happened at the tomb. Those are like Christian comics. But when we see if this is indeed, and I believe it is the shroud of Jesus, unequivocally based on the evidence, this tells me that this is God's answer to suffering. This tells me I have hope. That Greek word in the New Testament scriptures, elpis, used a hundred times, we have a hope that never dies. Peter says, I have a living hope based not because I feel like being hopeful today, because, man, I didn't really feel like doing anything today. I have a living hope because Jesus historically raised from the dead. So when I see it, I see hope, hope, and I see God's answer to injustice and the suffering in our world.
- [61:17]
Glenn Beck
There's something happening in the world.
- [61:20]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Correct.
- [61:20]
Glenn Beck
Right now, I mean, I think we're seeing evil like we haven't seen in a very long time. And I honestly, I think we are going to see godlessness and the birth of a new God through AI. Right, well said. And it's going to control everything. And you can easily see how the book of Revelation, its prophecies are possibly just over the horizon.
- [61:53]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Absolutely.
- [61:53]
Glenn Beck
I remember reading when I was young, going, that'll never happen. And here it is. And here it is. But as darkness grows, shadows can only grow darker if the light is stronger. So there is something else that God is doing. And I think we are seeing that. I think that there are things happening all over the world. I mean, the stuff that's happening in Jerusalem now, where they just found the temple, walk the road. And the things that I believe they're on the road of discovering are astonishing. Astonishing. And will, for a lot of people who need that kind of stuff, it's going to be a choice now. Now do you believe? Now do you believe? Yeah. And there will be those who will always reject it. But are you seeing the same thing? Are you feeling the same thing? That there is a. There is a new and I think, different and deeper kind of spiritual awakening than maybe man has had?
- [63:11]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Absolutely. I wrote a book called Unimaginable, because without Christianity, without God, we destroy ourselves. It becomes law of the jungle. And I think that we have so cannibalized ourselves through the godlessness that we see in the world, people are starting to see God again. And the Scriptures promise in Romans chapter one that when you seek after God, he will reveal himself to you. I have to share one thing with you about light. You made me just remember it in the photographic negative of Jesus at the moment of resurrection. Guess what color Jesus hair is.
- [63:46]
Glenn Beck
This one? Yes.
- [63:47]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
When that is now in its negative. But in the positive, his hair is white. What does the Book of Revelation say about Jesus when he returns? His hair is white like wool. So we're seeing Jesus at the moment of resurrection. Remember, when he transfigures himself in Mark 9, the disciples don't want to leave. In fact, his body was likely still glistening after the fact. They don't want to leave that moment. There was something beautiful about seeing Jesus. Remember, the revelation explains that someday there'll be no need of the sun because light will emanate from Christ. And so. So I think that's consistent with the 34,000 trillion watts that it took in 1/40 of a billionth of a second electromagnetic light to create this energy that created this impression. But I thought you might like that. That's a new finding, that his hair is white like wool, just like in Revelation.
- [64:43]
Glenn Beck
How do we know that?
- [64:44]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Based on the. When you put the negative. When you look at the negative, you're seeing the man in the positive and his hair is white.
- [64:51]
Glenn Beck
That's right.
- [64:51]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Yes. So when you look at the light shades, that's what you. You made me think of it when you said darkness.
- [64:56]
Glenn Beck
Right.
- [64:58]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
And I want to give credit to one of our students for that.
- [65:01]
Glenn Beck
That's remarkable. Well, when you take this on the road, I would love to help you. Thank you. I think this is something getting the. I know this is a copy of it, but it is an exact copy.
- [65:15]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Exact. It's the closest we'll ever get to.
- [65:16]
Glenn Beck
Yeah. And. And as somebody who's always wanted to see it, and, I mean, I was hoping that maybe my wife and children would go with me to Turin this year, but I feel like this is. I mean, I'll never get this close. Yeah, you'll never get this close to it, and it is remarkable to see it. Thank you so much.
- [65:37]
Jeremiah J. Johnston
Thank you, Glenn.
- [65:38]
Glenn Beck
You bet. Just a reminder. Reminder. I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it can be discovered by other people.