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Whether the Shroud is real is a red herring. The West has no tradition of the "Avatar", the God realized person whose function is to awaken others. Thus those like Jesus have appeared quite often, even in recent history, although their role may have not been as public or ordained to be as vast as it became. If you can be open, I'd suggest reading The Autobiography of a Yogi and see how many elevated men and women close to or equal to Jesus' stature there have been, even in the 20th century. Since I had an ongoing discipleship of one of these, I can attest to the remarkable nature of interacting with someone who is a living channel for what might be termed "source" or "God".
BTW, I hate to admit anything Paglia writes has mertit, but her pointing out that as to how the New Testament was written is quite near the mark. Your pointing out of "Doubting Thomas" is a verification of your ignorance in this regard. First why is he not in the other three Gospels and only in John? The answer lies in the Gnostic text, "Gospel of Thomas" (written at the same time as John) which in many ways counters John's fundamental position. Thomas and Thomas' followers claimed to have superior knowledge given by Jesus of which John doubted and fiercely contested. Thus the inclusion of Thomas as the doubter is a political act by John in a theological fight, not a historical reality. Similarly the "No man comes to the father..." and next passsage are not cooincidentally directed to the two disciples who play the strongest role in the Gnostic library, Thomas and Phillip. John is taking shots all over the place because of HIS belief in his perspective. Elaine Pagels covers this very well in her wonderful book "Beyond Belief".
Since the Johanian point of view won out in the terrible political wars among Christians, principally at Nicea in 323 (Nicean creed), all it means is the winning perspective has become Christan orthodoxy. It has nothing to do with truth or who Jesus was. As a matter of fact the opening to John, among other passages, "In the beginning was the word...) was added in LATER and was not part of the original text. It was part of the process that elevated Jesus to Godhood independent of the divinity of everyone, even other great world teachers, a stance in my opinion Jesus never supported.
