Truth About The Crucifixion — Page 69
down from the cross at the same time as Jesus, the two robbers were still alive, and the Roman soldiers therefore broke their legs so that they would finish dying. It is unlikely that Jesus, having suffered the same punishment, had already died. Only a few moments before, Jesus still had sufficient strength to shout in a loud voice. . Another point to consider is that Pilate, who knew from experience how long a person took to die on the cross, was surprised that Jesus had already died. . It is also a well known fact that when the Roman centurion tried to see whether Jesus was dead by wounding him in the side with his spear, water and blood flowed from the wound. But only a few drops of thick blood would flow from a dead body. . Having reached this point, it is interesting to cast a brief glance at the recent analysis of the so-called Shroud of Turin. . From 1969 onwards a Swiss professor, a specialist in criminology, subjected the Holy Shroud to a scientific analysis called palynology, which studies the pollen of plants which has adhered to cloth. After two years of pain-staking study Professor Max Frei of Zurich declared that as a member of the Scientific Committee given the task of making new analyses of the linen using every modern method, he had noted the existence of a minute layer of a special dust of unknown origin. He succeeded in obtaining permission to make an analysis on a sample, the results of which were as follows: It was found that they were minute grains of fossilized pollen of plants which existed only in Palestine twenty centuries ago. There was no doubt in his mind: the Shroud of. Turin was genuine. This was affirmed not by some unknown person, but by a criminologist of world-wide reputation, who is the director of the Zurich Police Scientific Laboratory, has a degree in Biology and Natural Sciences and speaks several languages; he stated that the pollen was analysed first under the microscope and then by a method called palynology, based on the structure of the pollen and its geographical and paleobotanical distribution in the form of microfossils, comparatively, and he discovered that the plant came from the Palestine area. Then there were typical signs of plants from the area of Constantinople, where the shroud was exhibited from the year 438 onwards. . After that, Mediterranean dusts of the 14th and 15th centuries; to be precise there is pollen from six plants from Palestine, one 71