I received a pleasant surprise today. When I logged on to the blog’s dashboard (the administrative site), there was a comment stuck in the pending file. Comments there need approval to go “live.” It was a comment from a reader about Friday’s post. The post was about the History Channel’s documentary tomorrow night (9:00 Eastern) on the construction of the face of Jesus, made from The Shroud of Turin using 3-D technology (see images).
But it wasn’t just any comment. It was from the co-producers!
I e-mailed Maria Downing and thanked her for reading our blog. Then I asked if we could conduct an interview with her and her husband, Ray, and she replied that they would be happy to do so. Pretty cool, huh? Studio Macbeth is an organization after my own heart as it believes in grassroots marketing, and Maria believes in touching base with all types of media, niche and mass.
There’s a part for you to play in all this: Watch the special tomorrow night (or one of its certain re-airs during Holy Week or Easter Weekend) and submit questions about the documentary on this thread. I’ll include them in what I submit to the the Downings. Let us also know your thoughts on the Shroud of Turin and its authenticity, how it affects your belief, and how, if there ever was conclusive evidence it was the burial cloth of Christ, how it would change the world.
One new fascinating aspect about the Shroud (at least to me) is that the Shroud not only contains the well known photographic characteristics (it has a negative), but it also has 3-D characteristics, which actually made the mapping of the face difficult for Ray Downing. He told Fox News that it produced a mountain range affect that had to be smoothed out. Also in that interview is Father Jonathan Morris, who is featured in the documentary.
What might be revealed about The Shroud of Turin? Can we really learn what the human face of Jesus looks like? Ray Downing of Studio Macbeth and Father Jonathan Morris discuss on Fox News Channel tomorrow night’s History Channel special, “The Real Face of Jesus?”
Good afternoon, Happy Easter 2010!
The Shroud’s effect on me is similar to other the effect other signs in my life of the truth of the Gospel, only the Shroud is also a sign to the entire world in world history, as opposed to the signs strictly confined to my personal life. I’d like to know if Ray and Maria Downing of Studio Macbeth are planning on manufacturing sacred art using their images and 3-D sculpture capability. I would think that the realistic objects they could produce would be very powerful aids with which to meditate on Christ’s Passion. For example, a crucifix with an accurately-depicted (beaten, lacerated, and bloodied) body of Jesus using the info on the Shroud would be deeply disturbing (and rightly so) to most consciences.
I have been greatly intrigued by the History Channel programs on the Shroud. It’s a topic that has interested me all my life, having read “A Doctor At Calvary” as a kid. Saw the most recent one on the “missing” 40 days after the “resurrection” & found it fascinating. The problem, for me, is that it opens up many more questions than it answers. For example: Why is the Shroud NEVER mentioned in the Gospels, writings of Paul (who REALLY would have latched onto this, had he known about it!), Gnostic Gospels, Apocryphal texts, writings of early church fathers, Josephus – ANYTHING? You would think that the earliest followers of Jesus would use this as PROOF of his resurrection, wouldn’t you? It just doesn’t make sense to me that NOTHING AT ALL is said about it!
I, too, wish to see history, science, & spirituality come together, & am most appreciative of the work so many have done to try to bring this about.
I hope others will be kind enough to respond to my query, as it’s a big detail that really nags at me!
Most Sincerely,
Mary
sr999@att.net