Hey, Guy Powell here with the backstory on the Shroud of Turin, and today we're doing one in a series of interviews to promote the upcoming Shroud of Turin conference taking place in St. Louis at the end of July and through August 3rd, and today I'm speaking with Larry Stolle, and Larry is a longtime researcher and speaker on the Shroud, and he has done some really, really cool research on some very interesting things related to the language that's in the Bible and then references to that languages and the words and the references over to the Shroud. So, Larry, welcome. So good to have you today.

Well, it's so good to be with you, Guy, you and your audience. It's an honor and a pleasure, and I've just been blessed. The Lord has shown me some insights that I'm very happy to share and want others to learn about.

Yeah, fantastic. Well, I am so looking forward to—I've heard your story and I've read quite a few of your papers and things like that, and looking forward to hearing them again and again because they are so interesting. So tell us what drew you first into learning about the Shroud of Turin.

Well, I never dreamed years ago I would be speaking on the Shroud today. When I first learned about the Shroud, I thought, oh, this is nonsense. This is crazy.

No way do we have the authentic burial cloth of Christ. It must be a medieval fake of some kind. And then I read this paper by Gary Habermas, a very respected historian on the Resurrection, New Testament scholar, and he suggested this might actually be genuine.

And I was blown away. I thought, what in the world? So that sparked my interest, and maybe that was about 10 years ago, I started studying the Shroud for myself. I was just blown away by the scientific research and the historical evidence as well for the Shroud, and I completely evolved from being a skeptic to being a firm believer and advocate of the authenticity of the Shroud.

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting how the Shroud just kind of draws you in. I remember, you know, in 1988 when that carbon dating was done, and I said, oh, you know, it must be fake.

And then I got drawn back into it, and I'm really happy about that, and it's really led me in some very interesting directions, and certainly God was behind that and doing that. So what new things are you going to be talking about at the Shroud Conference? Well, my particular interest and skill was in biblical exegesis, and what sparked me early on was a comment made by John Calvin. He said, surely this piece of cloth, which he knew of, it wasn't in Turin at that time, it was in Chambury, France, but he said, surely this cannot be authentic because the gospel writers don't make mention of it.

And I thought, well, that's a pretty formable argument, but I think that there's a hypothesis that makes a lot of sense to me, and that is that because of the persecution in the early church, in order to safeguard the shroud from enemies, confiscation, and harm, that the writers of the New Testament intentionally would not have made outright mention of the image. And through my research, I believe we have four, no less than four, biblical authors, the apostles Matthew, John, and Paul, and the writer of the letter to the Hebrews. All four have at least one cryptic or hidden veiled reference to the linen cloth that we know today as the shroud of Turin.

And so that's going to be my particular contribution to the conferences. For example, the sign of Jonah, I'll just throw that out. We have several statements in the New Testament that are puzzles, they're riddles that have confused scholars for, well, even for centuries.

There's no consensus as to what the shroud of, I mean, the sign of Jonah is. No sign will be given to this evil and wicked generation except the sign of Jonah. And what is that? I'm going to present evidence.

I think it's very convincing that the image on the shroud is the sign of Jonah, but it's not even the best evidence we have. There's a couple of other texts that are even stronger. So you're going to tease us without letting us know.

Well, for the audience, then definitely don't miss out on this one, because I think the biblical references are just fascinating, and it'll be very interesting to learn more about that. Yeah, Guy, we have all this scientific evidence and these historical artifacts and references, which I think are very persuasive, but the theologians have been—we've been far behind, and I really think the biblical text also provides us with very strong evidence, just like science and history. The Bible itself is telling us this is genuine.

This is an authentic cloth that the first century Christians had in their possession. I think we can show that from the biblical text. Yeah, yeah, wow.

Well, for everybody, definitely don't miss Larry's talk. So one thing that I've come across quite a bit is, especially for Protestants when talking about the shroud, is that they'll say, hey, my faith is strong enough. I don't need some relic.

I don't need anything like that for my faith. How would you respond to that? Well, I certainly have come across that on a very frequent basis, and I'm a Protestant pastor, retired pastor. It's unfortunate.

There's a misunderstanding of biblical faith, and it seems that some of my brothers and sisters in the Lord have the belief that blind faith is superior to evidence-based faith, and that's very unfortunate. I think it goes back really to Kierkegaard, for example, in the 19th century, the Danish theologian philosopher, making a distinction between faith, which is something not based on evidence, and belief, something that is based on evidence. And Mark Twain said, faith is believing what you know ain't so.

And that's very unfortunate. That's not biblical faith. I think it derives a lot from Jesus' statement to Thomas in John chapter 20.

Jesus said to Thomas, you believe because you've seen me. Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe. And somehow they think, therefore, not seeing and having blind faith is superior.

But Jesus there, when he says, blessed are those who do not see, there's no object, but the object from the previous verse is, see me. No one has seen Christ today. Blessed are those who aren't privileged, like Thomas, to touch the wounds and were being teased by the biblical author, the same wounds that he sees and touches are the wounds on the cloth.

John in the next verse says, many other signs Jesus performed that are not written in this book, but these have been written in order that you might believe. So faith is based on evidence. The writer of Hebrews says, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction or evidence of things unseen.

Peter said, be ready always to give a defense, a reason, an argument for the hope that is within you. And so we call this Christian apologetics, to give a defense. And I believe the best defense we have is this divine testimony.

People who believe in Christ today do so on the basis of human testimony, and it's great human testimony. It's the apostles who are willing to die for their faith, but John himself tells us there's a evidence that's superior and that's God's testimony. And I believe that is the image on the shroud that John was talking about.

Yeah, well, and I love that verse from where Thomas, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe, that is such a powerful message. So how has the shroud affected your faith? It's just given me, strengthened my hope, certainly strengthened my faith, and deepened my love for the Lord to see all the suffering that that he went through. It is a great apologetic.

The Lord brought an atheist, a young atheist, into my life a few years ago, and we discussed traditional arguments for faith in God, evidence, how can something come from nothing, how can life come from non-life, and how do you have order out of chaos, the big bang, and yet there's this order in the universe. But it was the evidence for the shroud that really brought him to faith. And yes, it strengthened my faith, it's encouraged my hope, and it's deepened my love for the Lord and what he suffered on my behalf.

So yeah, blessed be to him. Yeah, and that, I will admit, when I first saw a replica, a life-size replica of the shroud at the Museum of the Bible, and by the way, there'll be a full replica and a whole exhibit on the shroud at the conference, but when I first saw that, and you contemplate the suffering that Jesus suffered for us while he was on the cross, and you look at all the blood and all of the whip marks, and then the nails through his wrists and his feet, and then the crown of thorns, and just the way he was on there, and you think about how much he suffered to redeem us of our sins, it's just incredible. Amen, it really is.

You see, I think Giulio Fonte counted, was it 372 wound marks, scourge marks? Yeah, yeah. Horrific scourging that our Lord underwent for each one of us and to pay the price of our sin. And those are only the ones that he could count.

Because of the way the image was made, the wounds that are on his sides are not shown on the shroud, so there's probably another hundred or more wounds. When you think about that, how long he was being tortured just from that, let alone then, you know, having to carry the cross down, you know, the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha, and then being up on the cross and nailed up there, oh man, man, oh man, oh man. Yeah, even the Protestants who would say, well, I don't need that.

How can that not deepen your love for him? You just see the suffering that he underwent, to visualize that as the shroud does, it's just, it's very moving. Yeah, well, let me get to something positive. So, but anyway, thank you so much, Larry.

You know, your message is going to be, I think, very well received at the conference, and we're definitely looking forward to it. For the audience, please visit shroud2025conference.com, shroud2025conference.com to learn more and see the full lineup of speakers. And then, of course, please register to attend, and otherwise, you'll be able to see me and Larry both at the Shroud.

Larry, thank you so much. Really look forward to seeing you in July. My pleasure.

Thank you, Guy.

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