It's a good string of ifs. Also, contemporary accounts of the dead Lazarus indicate that people knew that by a few days he'd be stinking, yet these same accounts mention nothing of the stink that would have accompanied the formation of such an image as proposed in the article in the case of Jesus. Not only was there no mention made, there was a specific declaration that no putrefaction was involved following the death of Jesus. Now, some people would say that this assertion provides evidence that Jesus, in fact, never died and that the disciples were inventing something (the lack of decay) as a cover. If Jesus either didn't die at the crucifixion or did die yet was resurrected without having undergone decay, then the process as described above, did not obtain in his case.
Aruanan, I agree that it is a string of ifs. And that may just be the point. We should not deny the fact that a coating of starch fractions and saccharides coats the outermost fibers on the Shroud. That has been demonstrated. Nor can we really ignore that in places a double-double carbon bond exists which appears from spectrograph analysis to be a Melanoidin, a caramel product which forms the images we see on the Shroud. There are only two ways known to science to form this product within the carbohydrate coating that is there: heat or chemical reaction Let me stress “known to science.”
Jesus was a man, fully human. The scientist, by the criteria of his craft, must ignore non-scientific input when explaining a process, even one that is hypothetical, as this one is. Thus he must not consider scripture, creedal or faith-based affirmations, or the possibilities of miracles. This doesn’t mean he denies such possibilities but that they may not be introduced into the mix. Since Jesus was fully human it is certain, in scientific terms, that after death his body would give off both ammonia gases from the lungs and heavy amine vapors. This is not purification of flesh. This is not decay. Decomposition takes place later, often starting in about 30 hours time. This may vary widely depending on many factors. What the scientists are saying (Rogers in particular) is that some imaging can be expected with Pliny-linen. Where molecules of amines contact a saccharide molecule a chemical reaction will take place and the products we see will be produced.
But here, science trips all over itself. There is no reason to expect the molecules to arrive at the right place in the right quantities at the right time to form a focused, highly resolved, properly proportioned image that is devoid of saturation peaks. Something extraordinary had to take place.
And the most crucial thing of all is that the cloth had to become separated from the body and the tomb had to be open so the cloth might be retrieved.
Now, the unscientific possibility is that there is clearly a miracle involved here. If God is to leave an image miraculously he must either create something immaterial but visible, apply a material such as a pigment or change the state of existing matter. There is no pigment applied to the cloth. The only matter that can be changed is the cellulous fiber or the coating that is on it. To change the cellulous fiber would mean changing the crystalline structure. Such change does not produce the color we see. Any such change would be visible as ablations that are simply not there. Furthermore, we know that the change is visible in the coating.
I don’t doubt at all that the Resurrection happened. But I am not convinced that the images are directly related to that more-than-miraculous event where science cannot go. I am primarily convinced, however, that this is when the cloth became separated from the body.
The string of ifs is really a string of questions and in the end we must fall back on faith. The Shroud, in the end, may be the best indicator beyond scripture, quite indirectly, of the Resurrection.
Of one thing I am quite certain: no faker of relics produced this complex product.