Miracle or not

Miracle or not

n many ways a naturalistic explanation for the images is most satisfying. Like the stained patterns of leaf on a stone, like a fossil in clay of a prehistoric creature and like jagged tracing of lightening on the trunk of a tree, these sort of images can be explained scientifically. They are perfectly natural. We could then certainly say the images on the Shroud are images of a real man. And because of the wounds and the accompanying bloodstains forensic pathologists can see that the images are of a man who was scourged and crucified.

Is it Jesus? The wounds are consistent with the biblical narratives. Some wounds, like the whip marks, are consistent with a Roman flagrum, a whip with bits of iron or bone attached to thongs of leather. Crucifixion victims were regularly scourged. But the puncture wound to one side of the chest and the numerous small puncture wounds about the man's head—suggestive of a crown of thorns—are probably uncommon but consistent with the gospels.