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We're talking with David Rolf. We're talking about the Shroud of torn And I was just thinking of all the religious artifacts I think that we've been looking for, like the the Holy Grail, the Arc of the Covenant, maybe the maybe the actual arc. Is this really the one thing that we have the most empirical evidence that it is what it claims to be so far as you.
Know, Well, it is actually now one of the most studied objects from antiquity that there is. And to sort of mixed metaphors as it were, it's it's achilles heel that the thing that would condemn it as a forgery has yet to be found. And the other thing is it's actually the impossible for us to reproduce it today. Nothing, nothing that we have can actually create an midge like that.
He's not a three D printer, not a uh, not a flash of a light from a printer. So tell everybody about your your million dollar offer that you put out there, because I thought that was very intriguing at the end of your documentary.
David, Well, it's it was because reproducing the shroud the claim is that no one can do it. And the British when the British Museum carbonated this this corner and came out they said at the press conference when they announced it. But John, they said, well, how do you explain the image on the shroud, And the head of the British Museum said, well, some some forger just faked it up and flogged it. I don't know if you have that expression flogged it in America, but it's a
slang word for selling it. So some some some medieval forger faked it up and sold it. That was the verdict from the British Museum.
And by the way, until your documentary, I kind of thought that was the last word on the shroud. Until I saw your documentary, I thought that it had been proven a fake. I did not know that all this exhaustive research in scientific basically an autopsy of the of the cloth had been done and you were at the head of and going, oh no, no, that's not that's not a forgery. Nobody could forge that. I don't care
how genius you are. You could be the Michaelangelo of forgers, but you could not forge this cloth.
That's true. And there was there was a lot of tension between between Rome and Churin. As I say, Rome, the Vaticans thought it was in charge of the cook but the cheur In, very proud of their own responsibility, said no, we're in charge of it, and they gave responsibility to a member a lecture from the local part,
tend to supervise it. And when it came to it in the actual preparation for it and the how do I put it in the atmosphere in the room, when the shroud was finally laid out in front of everybody, he made a decision there and then that as this was the croth that that wrapped Jesus, and you needed to destroy a tiny part of it, a couple just a couple of square inches, why take samples as had been stipulated in the protocols, taking at least seven samples
from different parts of the cloth in order to average it out. He insisted that they just choose one corner which would which would never be noticed by anybody, and they should just date that, and the British Museum should have said, sorry, that's not the protocol. We have to take a sample from different parts of the cloth. We have no idea what's happened to this cross over this
time and then get an average. But they were so desperate to actually have a date that they could crame, they agreed, and therefore they took the sample from the one plate world from a corner which we now know was a medieval.
With it was.
It was.
It was a terrible thing to happen, but that's it's human nature.
Well, I think you've you've moved way past that. Almost you almost cover every objection in this documentary that anybody could ever have. I mean, you can be the biggest skeptic, and I actually think that's okay to be a big skeptic because I mean, if it's if it's real, then it should stand up to the skepticism, right, whatever it is, whatever your your faith is. I'd like to take a couple of calls, if you don't mind, Let's go to Hope in North Carolina on the Wildcard line. Hope you're
on with David Ralph. Welcome to Coast to Coast, Am.
Well, I'm always lucky, happy to be here and listen. I've studied to shout my own stuff a little bit via YouTube. I'll be honest, but what I came up with was number one. I don't know if it was my mind or in one of the documentaries. It's possible that that shroud is the tablecloths from the Last Supper. If you look at the shroud and there's this stain at the forehead that looks like an e incursive, and then if you reverse the shroud, then that e becomes
a three. And there was an earthquake on the day of the crucifixion, and he rose on the third day. If you stick an een of three together, it makes an eight, and E is the fifth letter, and three and five and eight. And I always thought it was thirteen feet long, but at fourteen feet long, we have another eight at a three foot by fourteen foot piece of cloth. And I also learned that you cannot make that image on cloth unless it was created by something
beyond the visible white spectrum. These are all like heavy duty stuff. And lift the number eight as above, so below missry solved again in another way. I guess I'd like to believe that Jesus on there.
But was there a question or just some thoughts?
Well, it's kind of thought. My question is has he heard these things in his studies or did I come up with it on my own end or I've also heard that the blood typing is rh negative on the shroud blo.
I didn't know about the blood type, David.
Yeah, yes, the various sufficient blood. Obviously there's there's there's blood on the cloth and it's retained his characteristics, and the blood itself is consistent with that part of of Israel, Palestine, so that we know that whoever, whoever's blood it is came from that part of the world.
Wow, that's amazing.
Uh.
Didn't the shroud survive a couple of fires too kind of along its journey?
Yes, it did.
Fire was always a problem in history, but it was and it was kept folded in a in a in a a chest and in the fire surrounded it and the chest got very hot and the silver from the chest melted and fell onto one corner which had been folded. So when you unfold the shroud, and you if you fold up a piece of paper, you know, if you just pull a corner off and when you open it up, you have that pattern repeated over the length. That's the pattern that you see on the show where where the
where the molten silver landed on it. Fortunately it doesn't affect the image in anyway.
But what it.
Also shows is is the nature of this scorch from the molten silver has exactly the same characteristics as the image of the body, because the image of the body is itself a scorch.
Can a regular person like myself, if I want to do a head over to touring, could I go look at the cloth or is there is it still under wraps?
You will be able to Next year it's a two hundredth anniversary of its arrival Insurin. It's normally kept in a seal air type container and to preserve it, but in twenty twenty five, the two thousandth anniversary, it's going to be coming out so the people can actually see it itself.
Now in your in your documentary, have you been close to the actual shroud and does it does it feel different being around it?
Well, because of the first film I made back in nineteen seventy eight, my credibility with Churin was very strong and they were very keen to help me, and they actually took the shroud out of its container sealed and actually just put it out into an annex of the cathedral to allow me to film it. In high definition for the first time, and that sequence, of course is including it in this film.
In a way, you're sort of like a modern day doubting Thomas.
Are you not.
Well as famously as I say I was, I was certainly not a believer, but I was somebody who knew a lot about images. And I think I may have mentioned I was an atheist. I wouldn't even have my
daughter baptized, that's how anti religious I was. But my experience and all the various miracles, some bigger, some smaller in the whole journey to get this film made, I mean just raising the finance to make it as an independent producer with a miracle and assisted by a charismatic, wonderful priest who'd been was born Insuran and eventually emigrated to New York. And I went to see him, and through his own connections is Fro an independent producer. Believe me,
this is this is amazing. I wanted to make the film. He introduced me to somebody who was an heir to one of the big brewery fortunes. I got myself in front of him and said, look, I want to make this film. And I walked away with the with the equivalent from that lunch table with the equivalent of a million dollars to make that first film. It was three hundred and fifty pounds then, but that's what it was then. So the whole story is a lizard with miracles.
Well, even just as a as a watcher of the film, the quality of the film making that you have here is really astounding. It's really worth a watch, and I would say, especially if you're a skeptic, it's worth a watch because it might it might turn what you think you know kind of on your ear a little bit.
And it kind of made me wonder. I wonder if there was any relief just sex or organizations that fight you on the authenticity still or now that you've laid out the clinical science of it all, if people more or less step step in line with your thoughts.
Well nobody. If it was a Picasso or some artists that come in arguing about it, you could have an academic debate. But the thing is, this is an image of the person who changed the world, and people have very strong views both falling against it, so nobody can actually come at it completely without their own their own views coming to it. So that's that's one of the
potencies of the Cross. It's not just a piece of art it is in my view, it's it's it's a record of the single event that has its biggest impact on the Western world, which is Christianity.
But you've done just an awesome job with that documentary. Just time for a quick call here, let's go East of the Rockies. Patrick in Texas, Welcome to Coast to Coast You're on with David Rolf. We're talking about the Shroud of Turin.
Hello. Yes, sir, thank you so much for checking book call.
And I want to say David so much, thank you for what you're doing and God love you for it. I want to know according to the Shroud, how tall is shoes.
Is five foot?
I did unless I can go there's so many statistics in my head.
He would have been very tall for that time. Yes.
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