“All right,” Daniel said. “I must admit you are getting into the downright compelling arena.”
“There’s more,” Stephanie said. “Some of the U.S. scientists examining the shroud in 1979 were from NASA, and they subjected the shroud to analysis by the most sophisticated technologies available, including a piece of equipment known as a VP-8 Image Analyzer. This was an analog device that had been developed to convert specially recorded digital images of the surface of the moon and Mars into three-dimensional pictures. To everyone’s surprise, the image on the shroud contains this kind of information, meaning the density of the shroud’s image at any given location is directly proportional to the distance it was from the crucified individual it had covered. All in all, it would have had to have been one hell of a forger if he anticipated all this back in the thirteenth century.”
“My word!” Daniel voiced, as he shook his head in amazement.
“Let me add one other thing,” Stephanie said. “Biologists specializing in pollen have determined that the shroud contains pollen that only comes from Israel and Turkey, meaning the supposed forger would have had to be resourceful as well as clever.”
“How could the results of the carbon dating have been so wrong?”
“An interesting question,” Stephanie said, while taking another bite of her dinner. She chewed quickly. “No one knows for sure. There have been suggestions that ancient linen tends to support the continued growth of bacteria that leave behind a transparent, varnish-like biofilm that would distort the results. Apparently, there has been a similar problem with carbon-dating some linen on Egyptian mummies, whose antiquity is known rather precisely by other means.
“Another idea suggested by a Russian scientist is that the fire that scorched the shroud in the sixteenth century could have skewed the results, although it’s hard for me to understand how it could have skewed it more than a thousand years.”
“What about the historical aspect?” Daniel asked. “If the shroud is real, how come its history only goes back to the thirteenth century, when it appeared in France?”
“That’s another good question,” Stephanie said. “When I first started reading the shroud material, I gravitated to the scientific aspects, and I’ve just started with the historical. Ian Wilson has cleverly related the shroud to another known and highly revered Byzantine relic called the Edessa Cloth, which had been in Constantinople for over three hundred years. Interestingly enough, this cloth disappeared when the city was sacked by crusaders in 1204.”
“Is there any documentary evidence that the shroud and the Edessa Cloth are one and the same?”
“That’s right where I stopped reading,” Stephanie said. “But it seems likely there is such evidence. Wilson cites a French eyewitness to the Byzantine relic prior to its disappearance, who described it in his memoirs as a burial shroud with a mystical, full, double-body image of Jesus, which certainly sounds like the Shroud of Turin. If the two relics are the same, then history takes it back at least to the ninth century.”
“I can certainly understand why all this has captured your interest,” Daniel said. “It’s fascinating. And getting back to the science, if the image wasn’t painted, what are the current theories as to its origin?”
“That question is probably the single most intriguing. There really aren’t any theories.”
“Has the shroud been studied scientifically since the episode you mentioned in 1979?”
“A lot,” Stephanie said.
“And there are no current theories?”
“None that have stood up to further testing. Of course, there is still the vague idea of some kind of flash of strange radiation… ” Stephanie let her voice trail off as if to leave the idea hanging in the air.
“Wait a second!” Daniel said. “You’re not about to spring some divine or supernatural nonsense on me, are you?”
Stephanie spread her hands palms-up, shrugged, and smiled all at the same time.
“Now I have the feeling you are toying with me,” Daniel remarked with a chuckle.
“I’m giving you an opportunity to come up with a theory.”
“Me?” Daniel questioned.
Stephanie nodded.
“I couldn’t come up with a hypothesis without having actual access to all the data. I assume the examining scientists have used things like electron microscopy, spectroscopy, ultraviolet fluorescence, as well as appropriate chemical analysis.”
“All of the above and more,” Stephanie said. She sat back, with a provocative smile. “And still, there is no accepted theory about how the image was produced. It’s a conundrum for sure. But come on! Be a sport! Can’t you think of something with the details I’ve related?”
“You’re the one who’s done the reading,” Daniel said. “I think you should come up with the suggestion.”
“I have,” Stephanie said.
“I’m wondering if I dare ask what it is.”
“I find myself leaning in the direction of the divine. Here’s my reasoning: If the shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, and if Jesus was resurrected, meaning he went from the material to the nonmaterial, presumably in an instant, then the shroud would have been subjected to the energy of dematerialization. It was the flash of energy that created the image.”
“What the hell is the energy of dematerialization?” Daniel asked with exasperation.
“I’m not sure,” Stephanie admitted with a smile. “But it stands there would be a release of energy with a dematerialization. Look at the energy released with rapid elemental decay. That creates an atom bomb.”
“I suppose I don’t have to remind you that you’re employing very unscientific reasoning. You’re using the shroud’s image to posit dematerialization so you can use dematerialization to explain the shroud.”
“It’s unscientific, but it makes sense to me,” Stephanie said with a laugh. “It also makes sense to Ian Wilson, who described the shroud’s image as a snapshot of the Resurrection.”
“Well, if nothing else, you’ve certainly convinced me to take a peek at the book you have.”
“Not until I’m done!” Stephanie joked.
“What has this information about the shroud done to your reaction about using its bloodstains to treat Butler?”
“I’ve come around one hundred and eighty degrees,” Stephanie admitted. “At this point, I’m all for it. I mean, why not enlist the potentially divine for all our sakes? And, as you said down in Washington, using the shroud’s blood will add some challenge and excitement while creating the ultimate placebo.”
Daniel lifted his hand, and he and Stephanie high-fived across the table.
“What about dessert?” Daniel questioned.
“Not for me. But if you have some, I’ll have a decaf espresso.”
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t want dessert. Let’s get home. I want to see if there are any emails from the venture capital people.” Daniel motioned for the waiter to get the check.
“And I want to see if there are any messages from Butler. The other thing I learned about the shroud is that we’re definitely going to need his help to get a sample. On our own, it would be impossible. The church has it sealed up under elaborate security within a space-age box in an atmosphere of argon. They also categorically stated there would be no more testing. After the carbon-dating fiasco, they are understandably gun-shy.”
“Has there been any analysis of the blood?”
“Indeed there has,” Stephanie said. “It was tested to be type AB, which was a lot more common in the ancient Near East than it is generally now.”
“Any DNA work?”
“That too,” Stephanie said. “Several specific gene fragments were isolated, including a beta globulin from chromosome eleven and even an amelogenin Y from chromosome Y.”