Introduction
Regarding the general purpose of this page and The Urantia Book, please consider the following passage:
196:1.2 The time is ripe to witness the figurative resurrection of the human Jesus from his burial tomb amidst the theological traditions and the religious dogmas of nineteen centuries. Jesus of Nazareth must not be longer sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ. What a transcendent service if, through this revelation, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions! Surely the Christian fellowship of believers will not hesitate to make such adjustments of faith and of practices of living as will enable it to “follow after” the Master in the demonstration of his real life of religious devotion to the doing of his Father’s will and of consecration to the unselfish service of man. Do professed Christians fear the exposure of a self-sufficient and unconsecrated fellowship of social respectability and selfish economic maladjustment? Does institutional Christianity fear the possible jeopardy, or even the overthrow, of traditional ecclesiastical authority if the Jesus of Galilee is reinstated in the minds and souls of mortal men as the ideal of personal religious living? Indeed, the social readjustments, the economic transformations, the moral rejuvenations, and the religious revisions of Christian civilization would be drastic and revolutionary if the living religion of Jesus should suddenly supplant the theologic religion about Jesus.
Commentary
The mysterious nature of the Shroud of Turin tempts modern thinkers to ask “How?” before asking “Why?” The order is important for two reasons.
First, the lesser reason: “Why?” may limit OR expand the approach to “How?” More importantly, perhaps urgently, “Why?” requires us to look at ourselves, our beliefs, and our relationships. This is about promises and prophecies made to humanity through the agency of prophets, seers, and heralds.
Studying the Shroud of Turin as material object is a stimulating intellectual exercise because it raises questions that are hard to answer about its origins. The Urantia Book gets treated that way, too. As with The Urantia Book, studying the Shroud of Turin as an intellectual exercise has its own rewards. What is much more enriching and rewarding is to also study these things as a way to review and further develop one’s religious beliefs on the subject.
A Biblical account related to the piercing of Jesus’ side is made with emphasis by the one The Urantia Book refers to as “John the Revelator”:
John 19 33-37 33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36 These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” 37 and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.”
Zechariah 12:10 Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
(175:1.22) “But even now I offer you in my Father’s name mercy and forgiveness; even now I proffer the loving hand of eternal fellowship. My Father has sent you the wise men and the prophets; some you have persecuted and others you have killed. Then appeared John proclaiming the coming of the Son of Man, and him you destroyed after many had believed his teaching. And now you make ready to shed more innocent blood. Do you not comprehend that a terrible day of reckoning will come when the Judge of all the earth shall require of this people an accounting for the way they have rejected, persecuted, and destroyed these messengers of heaven? Do you not understand that you must account for all of this righteous blood, from the first prophet killed down to the times of Zechariah, who was slain between the sanctuary and the altar? And if you go on in your evil ways, this accounting may be required of this very generation.
Exploration
View a pdf of the UBtheNEWS presentation of this report.
On August 6, 2022, an additional article—Left Is Right—was written for this report that provides an explanation for why there may be an incorrect but long held consensus regarding whether the image formed on the inside or the outside of the Shroud. It includes three artistic renderings of the Shroud from around the 1600’s. All three images have the piercings on the left side.
Here’s the link to the interview I did with Jim Watkins on Urantia Radio. It includes commentary on the two-hour conversation I had with Barry Schwortz, photographer for the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP).
This video reveals the face of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin after three dimensional distortions are removed.
Improved techniques for dating the Shroud were recently applied and reported on in 2022.