Shroud of Turin Debate and Israel

Show Notes

Episode 791: 
In this episode, we kick off a special week of all “Stump the Pastor” questions. We dive into a couple of intriguing questions submitted by our listeners, focusing on the Shroud of Turin and the complex relationship between Israel as a nation and its people.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bible guys. Man. It's good to be back. It's another amazing week. It is an amazing week. In fact, we are doing something that we promised that we were going to do. We're actually keeping our promises. Jeff, Yes, which is I think an important thing for us to start doing. We should start. We're starting now. I'm gonna start right now because in the past not so much. But we're going to start keeping our promises. Yeah. But hey, before that, you you had some fun with your with your family this weekend. I did. I did so, interestingly enough. I went down to finally go to the Steve Martin Martin Short concert in Clearwater, Florida, which is last. Year you got canceled. Yeah, literally in November. This was this was a year in the making. You had said on the Bible You're like, oh, I saw Steve Martin Martin Short, and I'm like, darn it, I missed it, right, And then somebody had sent me by way of instant messenger and they said, hey, they're still playing in clear Water in January. It was the only show left. So I bought it because my daughter lives down there and it was her birthday. So I spent a good amount of money. I bought two excellent seats, and I thought, Okay, I'm gonna fly down there and we're gonna do a daddy daughter date, which. And you have a grown up daughter. She's married. Yeah, she's thirty one. So you you had a daddy daughter date with your grown daughter. Yes, what a good idea, Yes. A great idea. So so anyway, the day before the La fires happens, happened, and Martin Short's house gets burned out, so they cancel everything. They rescheduled from January all the way to October. October fifth, Well, I wish he'd planned that better, you know what I mean, Come on, Martin, if you're gonna burn your house down, wait until after christ It wasn't. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, Martin Short. No, okay, but anyway, so now it's a year in the making, and so like almost a year later, I finally go down and I said, you know what, this better be good. And it was. It was really good. It good Martin, Steve Martin, and Martin Short, but especially Steve Martin is so sophisticated in a humor and I think I think he is my favorite all time comedian. I think he's substantially funnier today than he was when he got famous in the seventies. Well, he's timing, it's so much better than Yeah, it was more slapstick. Yeah, and lot of that. But like, if you ever watched even really really funny things sort of go out of style, yeah, sure, right, even the Brian Reagan things that we watched twenty years ago that were so funny, you watch it now and you're like, oh, humor's changed. Yeah, yeah right, So but his timing is perfect, his dry wit is fabulous. Yeah. And then Martin Short does such a good job of kind of being the goofball, yeah, you know, trying to live up to Steve Martin's sophistication. Yes, so funny man, Yes, it was. It was super good, great And who would have thought. I mean, you go there and you spend all that money and Steve Martin's eighty and Martin Short's seventy five, and you're like, this is gonna be a great night. Yeah, And they're running around like a bunch of sixty years Ye. I'm telling you amazing. I'm so glad that you got to do that. You so Hey, this week, we are keeping a promise, Yes, and we are doing the entire week with stumped the pastor questions. People send in questions. We don't always get to all of them, but people send them in. We had a bunch of really good questions sent in this week. Yeah, and one of the questions got sent in, and it's not on this list, thank goodness, because I didn't want to talk about it. But now I find myself bringing it up. One of the questions we had. Somebody asked, so, how did it turn out in the fantasy football between me and Desiree? Oh yeah, And the answer is Desiree is dominant. And she dislough delroyed my team. Everybody. She destroyed my team. It was so bad. So I'm not able to talk directly to Desiree for all last week. I would walk in and whoever else was in the office, I would say, hey, could you tell Desiree I need whatever writ in front of But now we're back to talking. I talked to her this morning. Okay, we're fine, I forgave her because it was a week later. But that's really fun. Yeah, so that was number one. So keeping our promises. Stumped the pastor how did it go? Between Jeff and desire? Fantasy Football has killed me? So every day this week we are going to also invite you, if you like this segment, especially to send in a question that you don't have, so just email us at info at the Bible guys dot com. Hopefully we can put it right there on the screen if you're watching info at the Bible Guys dot com. Or you can just comment on a YouTube video or something that you're watching if it allows comments, and we'll be glad to read those and consider those for perhaps future episodes. Yeah. Good. So this first question, Chris, I think, is it really fun these kinds of things. I love these historical pieces. So Bill F brings it up. So Hi, Bill, Hey, Bill, Bill F, thank you for asking this first question on the first inaugural episode of Stump the pastor with the Bible Guys. And here's here's his question says, not necessarily part of the Bible, but do you believe the shroud of Turin is genuine? Or is it a hoax or just art. Here piece of artwork? Sincere piece of artwork? Yeah, well that's an interesting question. And by the way, if I'm sure that there are readers that have absolutely zero idea what the shroud of Turin is, right, So, the shroud of Turin is a linen cloth approximately fourteen feet long by three and a half feet wide, burying the faint brownish image of a crucified man, believed by some Catholics. Is how it reads here to be the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ. However, scientific scientific studies, including nineteen eighty eight radiocarbon dating, place the shrouds origin in the Middle Level period at twelve sixty it says ce dating dating, and then it says the exact method of image creation remains a scientific mystery, with various hypotheses including radiation, artistic creation, or even a combination of methods. But the process that created this unique photographic negative image with no apparent pigments or dies is not fully understood. So basically it is if you believe that it is a genuine artifact of Jesus, then you believe that it is the strips of linen that were wrapped around Jesus. Yeah. In John chapter twenty, it mentions when Peter and John run into the tomb, and it says, then Peter arrived Simon Peter rabb and went inside the tomb, and he also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered jesus head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings. So the Bible acknowledges that Jesus was wrapped up. Imagine kind of like a mummy, right, kind of like that, but it was one big sheet wrapped up, so they would have bundled his body up under one big sheet, which was traditional. And then also the Bible acknowledge. Is that Luke chapter twenty four in the other Gospel, first number twelve also says the same. Thing, same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I like this stuff. I like archaeology. I like all of these things. Historically, I watch, you know, documentaries and things like that. I bet you I've probably watched fifteen documentaries on this. I've probably read that. Is actually fifteen more than me. Yeah, all I thinks, and it's always interesting. To me, which, by the way, let me let me squeeze this. In John chapter nineteen, verse forty actually talks about them wrapping Jesus' body. It says, taking Jesus body, the two of them wrapped it with spices and with strips of linen. This was in accordance to Jewish burial customs. So a few of the facts that they that everybody agrees on. This is clearly the image is of a crucified man whose body had been through tremendous stress. Right, so almost everybody, yeah, trauma. Everybody acknowledges that part of it. The other thing that everybody acknowledges, those for it and those against it. Every scientist who goes it's fake, every one of them admits nobody knows how to make it. So as sophisticated as we are proving that it's fake, we're not sophisticated enough to reproduce it. So I've always thought that was interesting. It always feels to me as I read the documents or watch the documentaries, it always feels to me that if the speaker believes it, or if the interviewer believes it, it's all skewed. This is true, and if they don't, it's all strongly skewed. It's not true. That seems to be how it does. Before this podcast art, I looked it up and I was trying to google it, and then, of course, you know, Wikipedia, the most reliable thing on the. Internet, absolutely reliable. It came up and it was interesting because it listed and again I mean, it's just edited by people, right, but it was interesting because it listed that it was the evidence stemmed all the way back to the twelve hundreds, as was mentioned six yeah, and then somewhere around thirteen forty eight or somewhere right around there, I think it was. It was what I read said that it was then proven to be a forgery and it was like painted. But then somebody came along after that and couldn't, like you said, couldn't identify how it could be, and they did that through like masking tape and they took like samples off of it, and it was just really interesting. How you know, it's listing, you know, how people have gone back and forth on this thing. But like you said, yeah, yeah. People, so the Catholic Church protects this this thing now substantially. There was a period of time where it was just in a trunk in a cathedral, right and after the Crusades, and then they pull it out and go, oh my gosh, this is the shout of turn. So so the Catholic Church protects it substantially. Now it's getting so old that you know, they're afraid of it deteriorating. The carbon dating. The main carbon dating was back in the eighties and the Catholic Church one allowed them to take just a couple of tiny samples, and the one that they used for the dating, the Catholic Church claims that they used a patch. It wasn't the actual main portion of the of the thing. So they're frustrated with that. There's been others, so there are some that are coming out and they're going, absolutely it's a forgery. We just don't know how they did it. There is no paint on it. It clearly is a negative image of some sort. Maybe it was heat. Some people think maybe it was it was created by some of a heat on there. You know, could they heat up a statue and then wrap it with this fabric and then you know, get the same kind of a thing. It's it's kind of it's interesting, but here. Just recently in August of twenty twenty five, a group of scientists came back and said that the coloring. There's clotted blood on it, and it appears that the body was ritually cleaned or cleansed, and the clotted blood would be after death, right, not before. And so they're saying this isn't a painting because you know, they found cloud of blood or whatever, so they have that. Another one, another scientist in October of twenty twenty five, came out and said that there appears to be. Twenty five like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that there appears to be negative evidence of teeth, you know, in that like an X ray, only it's a neg at a X ray, so it's out instead of in. And he says he thinks that that's evidence of the fact that this was energy and light emitting from the body that was wrapped in it rather than being imposed on the linen. It was shot out at the linen, right. So, which wouldn't make sense unless the body could glow. Yeah, so you get you get both sides, both sides. You get scientists going Nope, the fabric is too it is wrong, it's too new or whatever, and others go, no, you tested the wrong part of the fabric. So it goes back and forth. But here's what I know Jesus says this. You know, you and I We've been in cathedrals all around the world. I've been in I was just in another cathedral a couple of weeks ago. They have all these relics, and people come up and they touch the relics and they weep over the relics, and yeah, they're hoping for good luck, right from these these relics blessing or yeah. Yeah, And well, if you're touching a thing and hoping for blessing, what you're hoping for is good luck, right, that's what that's what that's what you're wanting. It's the same thing as touching the best you're hoping Buddha bless you. But really we both know it's just asking for luck. Well, by the way, that's a deeper conversation too, because because people there's a lot of people that would have anybody ever come up to you and said, here, bless this object. Yeah right, and so that's a whole other conversation. Right, right, So I was so maybe one of my favorite, and this is crazy, the Coptic Church in Egypt. They were founded by Mark the Apostle, or the writer of the Book of Mark. Right, it's the oldest NonStop church on the planet is the Coptic Church. And they have the bones of Saint Mark. And they've had the bones of Saint Mark since he died, he was martyred in Alexandria. They've had him all this time. Wasn't he dragged behind a horse, Yeah. Something like that. So they had him. Well. Then when Venice was getting rich back in the early medieval to mid medieval times, they realize, man, what we need is in order to build a big cathedral, we need like a patron saint. We need a saint to take care of us and to give a focus to our nation. And so they sent some merchants down and some mercenaries, and they stole half the body of Mark, right they put they put the body in uh in these barrels and snucking back, and now they have half the bones in Venice. Right. So when you and so that's Saint Mark's cathedral in Venice is because there's part of the bones of Saint Mark in Venice. So there's this real odd obsession throughout Christianity to get a hold of the relics. I'm not going to be able to sleep knowing that half of Mark bodies is gone. Yeah, yeah, it's Egypt. Half of it's in Venice. I would have preferred for somebody to steal all the bones. And they have in the the murals up on the walls in Saint Mark's Cathedral upon the exterior, it shows the story of them bringing these things back to the body back in barrels. Yeah. So anyways, that to be said, there's been this odd obsession of Christianity that man, here's a nail, here's a here's a splindor of the wood from the cross, here's a cup that caught the blood of Christ. Here's here's here's the bones of Saint Mark. Somehow there's good luck on that found that one. Yeah, yeah, he found that one. And and and there's nowhere in the Bible that says to venerate these things. Right. As matter of fact, God says everything on this earth is going to pass away some day. It's all gonna be gone, it's all gonna be obliterated, right right, And. So Jesus says, except for ark of the Covenant, yeah. Right, yeah, in heaven, in heaven. Yeah. So in John chapter twenty, Jesus says, you believe because you've seen me blessed are those who believe without seeing me. So whether the Shroud of Turn is true, whether it's real or a hoax, we don't put our faith and trust in a shroud or in we we put our faith and trust in in the one we think was in the trout, the stroud, the shroud, right, or if that's what you believe. So, yeah, it's it's it's not in a relic. It's on the resurrection. That's where we have our faith. So ultimately, I mean a lot of times stumps the pastor question normally would end in I don't know, right, yeah, but here's my opinion. Here all the facts. So it's good conversation, and sometimes it is that we know right. But but ultimately, what we're saying is we're saying, whether it's real or not, it doesn't matter. That's what you're saying. You're saying, you're saying it could be real because certainly, listen, I have not watched any documentary on the Shroud of Turren, not a single one. I've seen it referenced before. I've not sat down and watched it. I'm probably seeing clips on. It seen like so much as I think most most people and I. Would, and I would definitely say this. I have very much a skeptic mind, right. Yeah, me too, So I. Would say, can God allow a piece of cloth to exist for two thousand years after Jesus rose from the grave just because he wants there to be evidence of like you know, of course he can do that absolutely, But it doesn't seem to go along with anything that God lines up with faith? Right, So God doesn't. God doesn't you know, He's not going to jump off a building and called legion of angels to swoop and save him. He's you know, he's he chooses to appear to Thomas, he chooses to resurrect Lazarus and not other people. I mean, God is very selective in what he does to make people go, oh my goodness, that's the son of God. There's the proof. But for us modern you know, postmodern church people, you know, he says, bless her you who do not see and yet still believe, and he asks us to go on faith, He asks us to trust his promises. Right, So, it wouldn't seem to me that a shroud of turin or anything like that would actually line up with anything that has to do with faith. It certainly isn't necessary. Right, So I think my response to this question from Bill is maybe maybe it'd be neat. It'd be neat if it's real, but it doesn't matter. In my response to the question would be probably not. Yeah. Well I think my response is probably probably not also, but maybe yeah, it's kind of neat. It'd be cool if it was. They'd be okay, if they ever find the Noah's Ark, that'd be cool. There's a guy right now who thinks he's found that Noah's Ark, right, So okay, that'd be cool. I don't need it, but that's cool, right, right, And so it's the same. So hey, if you're looking for help along some of these lines of discerning what's true and what's not and all those things, I would say two things. Josh and Sean McDowell wrote the New Evidence for the New Evidence that demands a verdict. I love it. It kind of helps you dig through a bunch of questions answers like that. And then I think along those same lines as far as just critical thinking and research and those things, especially, how do you embrace faith without absolute proofs All the time, I still think the case for Christ and that whole argument by least robel is tremendous. So either one of those books or both might be really really helpful to you. So that's one. Okay, here's the second one. We just have six minutes and I think we've got enough time for this one. Really. Yeah, as believers, how do we navigate our supportive Israel the country versus Israel the people? Yeah? Yeah, So Israel is, by the way, both a state and it is a country. Did you know that, Yes? And so Israel and biblically it's a group of people. Yes, And biblically is a group of people. So it is referred to as the Jewish people, right. The Hebrew people, the Hebrews people. Yeah, And so how do we navigate the question exactly is how do we navigate? Yeah? Yeah, So how do we navigate our support of the people versus is the country? Right as well? The people versus Israel. Well, it's a it's such a tangled tapestry, isn't it. They seem they seem to sort of go together because you know, the conflict in the Middle East is it's one of the running jokes that all comedians use. They're like, so, I don't know what to say. So what do you think about the conflict in the Middle East? Right, it's always happening, and. It's always there, and it's and it's age old. So when I was over in Israel in two thousand and nine, I actually sat down at Bethlehem Bible College and they brought in somebody from the Palestine position, and they actually tried to build a case as to what the promises were given by God to the people of Abraham and the nation of Israel, and and they actually like used all of it to support the fact that that the land was for Palestine, like it's Palestine's land. And then there were people that they brought in from you know, that were Jewish, they were acidic Jews actually, and they actually sat down and they actually went verse by verse and presented and I'm talking like a sixty minute presentation right as to as to you know, the land was is clearly promised by God for the Jewish people, and so therefore the Palestinians need to get out and how it's unjust right? And so it's are we talking about that? Is that? How the question is? Yes? So so well let's let's let's unpack it. Why so By the way, this question was from Stacy. Oh hi, Stacy, Oh h Stacy. Oh so glad that you asked this question. It's a good one. So Stacy's asking, how do we navigate our supportive of Israel the country versus's people. So she's assuming we support Israel in some way, right, So America does. Right. So the idea of supporting Israel comes from Genesis chapter twelve. The Lord said, Abraham, leave your native country. I'll make you into a great nation. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you. And he's he's promising Jesus is the blessing to all the nations of the earth and all the people of the earth. But he does say, for the people who bless your people, I will bless them. The people who curse your people, I will curse them. And that keeps going on over and over and over again. And so the Bible tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. There's all these things. So for a Christian, we should support the people of God, Israel, the Jews, Hebrews, right, the people of Abraham. But it's possible for me to support the people of Abraham without always being excited about the behaviors of a legislature, right and so, And I'm not passing judgment on the current situation. I think that Israel finds himself in a very difficult situation. You know, they were reformed as a nation in the nineteen forties. In the sixties or in the sixties and the seventies, they got invaded by all of their neighbors. And then the terrorist groups that stand against Israel don't believe they deserve to exist on the planet, right they and so they live for the purpose of annihilating that entire nation in the sovereignty of that nation. So, you know, it's very difficult to live when you're completely surrounded by enemies all the time, and then you tend to be heavy handed and you make more enemies. And so the political side of it is very confusing. But here's here's my best explanation of this. Whether our listener is a Republican or a Democrat or something in between, there have been times when you didn't like your Congress or your president, but you still loved your nation, Right, I mean, I'm still proud to be an American, right right. Even whether I like my president or I don't like my president, whether I like the current laws or I don't like the current laws, whether I like how we're behaving globally, or whether I don't, I still support the American people. I still think that families deserve to exist. I believe that everybody deserves to live in peace. I believe everybody deserves to live in freedom, you know that kind of thing, And so I think it's along those lines. As a Christian, we have to use biblical discernment understand that Israel finds himself in a very difficult position where everybody around them wants to wipe them out. God promises to bless every person that blesses the people of Abraham and curses every person who chooses to curse the people of Abraham. So we have to be very careful about how we treat the Hebrew people, the Jewish people. At the same time, in the same way that I might, you know, criticize my governor, I'm still proud of being from Michigan. I may criticize my president. I'm still proud to be a part of America. It's possible for me to disagree with the legislature or the government and still love the people and bless the people. And so it's very very difficult, quite honestly, to come up with one solution. But if you're going to make a mistake, make a mistake on the side of blessing the people of Israel. Yeah, and then also to recognize that those are God's chosen people with blessing and they have been singled out clearly in history, right and have been on the victimized side of some of the most horrific stories and our entire existence. Yeah, you know, I remember Norm Geisler dealt with this issue. Let me see if I can find it. I had it written down for a minute. Oh we're twenty five minutes. Yeah. Norm Geisler wrote a book and Where is this Question? A popular survey of the Old Testament, And he's dead now, but he's one of my favorite theologians. And Norm Geisler unpacks some of this issue of supporting the people and then always challenging government, whether it's my government or somebody else's government. So that's great. Yeah, all right, Well that looks like our time for sure. And we squeezed two INDs, so hey, wait yeah. And and I gave a shout out to Dez that she beat me in fantasy football. Yeah, that's important to throw in there. So we covered all three of those big questions today. All right, hey, we'll see you hopefully tomorrow. And the Bible guys, yeah h