Comments by "Dale Crocker" (@dalecrocker3213) on "The Shroud of Turin, Secrets of the Resurrection | Documented Miracles" video.

Thank you for an excellent presentation. I was moderately obsessed with the Shroud some years ago and I thought I might share one or two theories from the books I read at the time, and which may be of interest. One non-divine explanation of the image is bilirubin staining. This is the yellow stuff produced by the liver in jaundice cases. It can also be produced in cases of severe trauma and the idea is that the image is basically a sweat stain, made semi-permanent by the presence bilirubin in the sweat. There are photographs of the images of hands impressed on bedsheets by patients with severe liver conditions. And there is no doubt , of course, that crucifixion is an extremely traumatic business. You don't just hang there. The intense pain of the nail driven through the foot causes the victim to pull himself up by the arms - which of course causes intense pain from the nails in the hands. Some accounts suggest that in the initial stages at least this causes a quite rapid up and down jerking motion which can go on for some time. It may also be accompanied by erection and ejaculation, as occurs sometimes in hangings. The lungs flood with fluid, as happens during many traumas as well as in heart surgery when patients need to have the chest cavity constantly drained. The Roman soldier's spear thrust was to drain this fluid to prevent Christ from drowning in it, and thus dying too soon. Equally well, breaking the legs prevents any motion and thus the victim does actually drown. Christ's legs of course were not broken and the comparatively short time in which he was hung on the cross leads to the theory that he was taken down while still alive and revived by Joseph of Arimathea.... but that of course is a totally different story!
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@johnfw1973 I'm not pushing it as a theory, but there is actually nothing physically impossible in it. The spear wouldn't have collapsed the lung, by the way. That would have defeated the object of the exercise, which was to prolong life, not shorten it. The books in which the suggestion is made propose that Joseph managed to drug Christ up with painkillers and also to bribe the guards to allow him to be taken down before he expired. This is, of course, the basis for the Da Vinci Code nonsense. The suggestion is that Christ and Mary Madelene sailed across the Mediterranean and started a family, the descendants of which are still alive today. The Lord and Saviour bit comes later. The true sequence of events will almost certainly never be known but it is quite likely that initially Christ was used as a symbol of non-violent opposition to Roman rule ie "Look what the Romans did to our guy, but he rose from the dead and he'll be coming back soon! Watch out Romans!" We know how much St Paul had to do with pinching the Christ symbol from the Jews and sharing it with the Gentiles, but the story of the Apostles is far more unclear and thus far more interesting! Speaking in tongues is a subject well worth investigating for example.
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