Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

Mechanical Transparency

Is it possible to think that Jesus' body, at the moment of resurrection, became mechanically transparent thus enabling a cloth to fall through it (or the body to pass through the cloth). This idea might be comfortable for some biblical exegetes who identify with passages in John's Gospel. Historian and biblical scholar N. T. Wright in The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003) illustrates this thinking:

The beloved disciple came to his new belief, the text wants us to understand: not simply on the basis of the emptiness of the tomb (which had been explained by Mary in verse 2 in terms of the removal of the body to an unknown location), but on the basis of what he deduced both from the fact that the grave-clothes had been left behind and from the position in which they were lying. He, like Thomas at the end of the chapter, saw something which elicited faith. The fact that the grave-clothes were left behind showed that the body had not been carried off, whether by foes, friends or indeed a gardener (verse 15). Their positioning, carefully described in verse 7, suggest that they had not been unwrapped, but that the body had somehow passed through them, much as, later on, it would appear and disappear through locked doors (verse 19).