Barrie Schwortz was the Official Documenting Photographer for the Shroud of Turin Research Project, the team that conducted the first in-depth scientific examination of the Shroud in 1978.

Today, he plays an influential role in Shroud research and education as the editor and founder of the internationally recognized Shroud of Turin Website, the oldest, largest and most extensive Shroud resource on the Internet, with more than ten million visitors from over 160 countries. In 2009 he founded the Shroud of Turin Education and Research Association, Inc. (STERA, Inc.), a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, to which he donated the website and his extensive Shroud photographic collection, as well as many other important Shroud resources, in order to preserve and maintain these materials and make them available for future research and study. He currently serves as the President of STERA, Inc.

Next we have the theory on the Shroud being created by decomposition gases and all the scientific facts below:
a) The image on the shroud shows no signs of decomposition on the body. The eye sockets that decay immediately, (they sink and collapse inward) are normal in the image. An image made 3 days after they nailed Jesus to a tree.
b) How do you explain the report about the partial image on the other side of the shroud that is in registration with the face we all have seen on the front?
c) If a second image (partial or complete) is confirmed to be on the backside of the Shroud, Physics explains how gases from decomposition work. Recreating the details of the cloth and a decaying body has been done, the gases that rise will stain an image on the side of the cloth facing the body. However, Physics proves that gases do not rise through a cloth and not leave any additional stains on the inner threads (such as on the Shroud), then come out the other side, stop, and float back down again to stain an image on the opposite side of the cloth! This is impossible. One current claim is that there are two exact images on the Shroud in perfect registration and only on the first microfibers of the first threads on each side!
d) Recreating the cloth, conditions of the tomb, and death of a body, does stain an image. However, the image created lacks many qualities found on the Shroud of Turin and is not a true replication.

Also, how do you explain away reports that Jesus appeared to people a day's journey apart and almost at the same time?

Then there is the question about what happened to the body? Neither the Romans or the High Priest produced any data to explain why Jesus' body was gone.

If you are going to research something, research all the science, not just the art history! Don't write a book about Jesus just to make money and attention, I didn't... I don't keep any royalties received from my novel and I have stated previously that this is not about me... you don't need to know me, you need to know Jesus.
Peace be with you.

- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel.

In John's gospel of the new testament, he talks about a pool called Bethsaida. This pool was surrounded by five covered colonnades and Jesus healed an invalid of thirty-eight years at this location. You can read more about this in John's gospel Chapter 5, Lines 1 to 15.

However, this pool located near Sheep Gate that stood in the city of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus and north of the Temple Mount had never been found by archaeologists. Thus, skeptics claimed this non-existing pool in Jerusalem as proof that the apostle John didn't even write or dictate his own gospel. Belief grew that some zealot years later made up the story and wrote this as part of John's gospel. Since no pool existed, many claimed all gospels as fiction.

Today, the pool is known as Bethesda and has been confirmed by archaeologists that the Pool of Bethesda is not only real, but fits John's description exactly.

​- LJ
Author of UPPER ROOM, THE WAY: 33AD to 57AD
Author and Publisher's profits go to help the poor from sales of this Historical Novel.