[Viewer discretion advised! In the comments below, John Loken has mentioned, quite correctly, that bloodstained fabrics of all kind bear witness to the fact that of course blood transfers from a body to cloth, and Teddi Pappas has sent me a couple of illustrations of a wound dressing, and the associated wound. Both comments are discussed, and illustrated, below.]
In a book published last year, Michael J. Alter discusses the Resurrection, and concludes that “the current working position of this text is that Jesus had a dishonourable burial.” The book is ‘The Resurrection and Its Apologetics,’ and is the first of a two-volume assessment of the Christian view that Jesus was raised from the dead. Alter argues mostly from a Jewish perspective, assuming that Jesus at least existed and was crucified, although he does not, in this volume at least, explain how he thinks Christianity derived from this or subsequent events.
Unfortunately neither Alter’s book nor its arguments are well organised, and it is apparent that he is less interested in the Resurrection itself than in refuting Christian arguments in favour of it, with special reference to the “minimal facts” approach, particularly as enumerated by Gary Habermas.
Along the way however he devotes a chapter to the Shroud, and in dismissing it as irrelevant, has recourse to various authorities, including myself and Andrea Nicolotti, so I feel obliged at least to acknowledge his arguments, if not necessarily to endorse them.
Of course, people who think the Shroud is medieval don’t think it has anything to say about the historical details of the Resurrection, although, as I have argued in an earlier paper, its very existence, as an ‘icon of Christianity’ bears some witness to some kind of event happening in Roman Judea at the beginning of the first century, from which the dominant social paradigm of today emerged.
On the other hand if it were genuine, then the Shroud would at least support an entombment of some kind, and some care taken over it, and its subsequent conservation, which would refute Alter’s “dishonourable burial,” and imply the removal of the body from it, so he takes an, albeit rather cursory, look at some of the evidence about it, under twelve headings ranging from the sensible to the absurd, and unsurprisingly decides in favour of his pre-supposition.
Here they are:
1). The Shroud has been radiocarbon dated to the late medieval period.
2). There is no documented or archaeological evidence for the Shroud before the late medieval period.
3). Although it is unique, the weave of the Shroud is far more consistent with late medieval weaving looms and techniques than it is of first century middle eastern ones.
4). Alleged ‘dirt’ particles found on the Shroud are not definitive.
5). Alleged blood found on the Shroud is not consistent with a wounded body, alive or dead.
6). Alleged plant particles found on the Shroud are not definitive.
7). The anatomy of the body-image is too irregular to derive from a real man.
8). The representation of Jesus’s hair is inconsistent with a first century Jew.
9). Alleged coins observed on the eyes of the image which could date the Shroud to the first century do not, in fact, exist.
10). Alleged inscriptions observed all over the Shroud do not, in fact, exist.
11). Even if the Shroud were definitively identified as a first century Jewish burial cloth of a crucified man, that would not prove it was Jesus’s.
12). The New Catholic Encyclopaedia calls it “most unlikely” to be the “authentic burial shroud of Jesus.”
Of these, numbers 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8 are positive (claims for a medieval origin); 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 are negative (disagreements with claims for a first century origin); and 11 and 12 are comments rather than evidences. The first group are denied by authenticists, using various more or less cogent arguments, which Alter attempts to refute, and the second group are Alter’s denials of authenticist assertions, which he attempts first to adduce and then to refute, but his presentation is confused and convoluted, and I’m not sure he succeeds.
1). Alter lists three authenticist objections to the radiocarbon date, the failure to follow protocol, the fact that radiocarbon dating is often wrong, and the idea that the whole thing was a conspiracy to discredit the Shroud from the start. In fact none of these are the principle reasons why authenticists deny the date, and the most prominent has nothing to do with the procedure or the results themselves, but on the simple truth that if the Shroud can be determined to be authentic by other arguments, then by definition the radiocarbon date cannot be correct.
2). In spite of the long lists of documents and evidences from the gospels to the Templars, with which authenticists try to convince themselves that the Shroud does have some provenance, Alter mentions only two, the d’Arcis Memorandum and the Pray Codex. But these are not comparable: they are opposites in this respect. The d’Arcis memorandum clearly does refer to the Shroud and substantiates a late medieval origin, while the Pray Codex doesn’t refer to the Shroud at all but is used by authenticists to attempt to substantiate an earlier medieval reference. This is confused.
3). When discussing the weave, it is important not to be too dogmatic. Statements like, “it is a weave common in France in the fourteenth century and the style of linen most common in medieval Western Europe,” are ludicrous. Similarly authenticist claims that some textiles from Masada (or anywhere else) match the Shroud are equally false. Twill, herringbone twill, and 3/1 herringbone twill are successively more difficult to weave, and large sheets of the latter, apart from the Shroud, are as far as I know completely unknown. The first extant illustration of a loom on which it would be easy to weave such a cloth in fine flax dates from the early 15th century, but some interesting archaeological finds such as crescent shaped bronze-age loom-weights and heddle-rod brackets from the 12th century suggests that it would at least have been possible in earlier times. Shreds of woollen fabric from Northern Europe are also suggestive, but nothing from the Roman Middle East supports a first-century origin for the Shroud.
4). There is a sense in which any two lumps of limestone are similar; whether they are “unusually” similar depends on comparing them with other specimens, which is not evidenced by the article in which this claim was made. My own investigations (elsewhere on this blog) have shown that the limestone on the Shroud matches that of Paris more closely than it does that of Jerusalem, at least given the data reported, and the limestone of the Sudarium matches that of southern Spain more closely than it does that of Jerusalem or Oviedo.
5). The discussion about blood is likely to continue for some time, in the absence of sufficient data to come to any conclusions at all. It seems to me that the marks on the Shroud are at least “blood-based,” although the pinkish stains that remain are more likely due to a colourant. They seem to me to derive from having liquid blood deliberately dripped onto the cloth, as neither the pattern of the flows nor the arguments that they are from some kind of transfer mechanism, even if any individual mark could be so derived, adequately explain their overall similarity.
[It was Pierre Barbet who first discussed the problem of the bloodstains on the cloth, and much speculation, and experimentation, since, has not really got very much further than he did. Barbet’s explanation, and many since, was that almost all the marks on the Shroud derive from blood which had dried, but was somehow kept moist or remoistened. This could have been by the humid atmosphere around the enwrapped body, by a process of fibrinolysis, by being wiped with a wet cloth as part of a gentle cleaning process, or because it was raining, and no doubt there are others. Fresh liquid blood, it is supposed, would simply seep into and around the threads of the cloth, producing a pattern (on plain weave) that Barbet rather precisely calls “constellée de petites croix” and William Howard translates as “spangled with little crosses.” However, almost all this discussion has had to be about what blood “would do” as opposed to what it “does do,” in the absence of enough blood for experimentation. Arthur Lind and Mark Antonacci did some experiments with pigs’ blood from a nearby abattoir, and Kelly Kearse has done some more clinical tests, but none of them were definitive and most were unsatisfactory. To add to the pool, here is a wound on Teddi Pappas’s leg, with a dressing added very soon after, and a few minutes later, after washing the wound.
To me it’s remarkable how little blood transfers after such a little time. When John Loken says (below) that “Bandages, clothing, towels, tissues all get bloody every day,” we notice this either very soon after trauma, or when a living person continues to pump blood through an open wound. Even major scrapes very quickly coagulate enough for very little blood to escape, and dead people hardly bleed at all.
My contribution here is will be of a small drop of blood squeezed from a lancet prick directly onto a bit of ‘Shroud replica.’ Perhaps because of the tightness of the weave, it has hardly spread out at all.]
6). The plant remains on the Shroud consist almost exclusively of Max Frei’s pollen tapes and Avinoam Danin’s identification of various images of buds and flowers he thought he saw. The first have been fairly conclusively discredited as valid evidence, and the second is too subjective for scientific analysis. I believe that few serious authenticist Shroud scholars still present this plant material as compelling evidence.
7). The subject of the anatomy of the man in the Shroud is another irresolvable question. The image itself is too vague for precise measurements, and any unrealistic features have been explained away by supposing various combinations of the configuration of the body, the drape of the cloth, the orientation of the colouration mechanism and so forth. Arbitrary statements about the stature of first century Jewish men are rarely based on archaeology. Such measurements as have been made, of bones excavated from burial sites, suggest an average stature of between 165cm and 170cm.
8). There is almost no evidence for the way first century Jews wore their hair. The nearest we can get is probably the wall paintings at Dura Europos, or the burial masks of Fayum, which show short curly hair as the norm.
9). I think I have effectively refuted the alleged coins in an article for the BSTS, and if anything, the credibility of this as evidence, even among authenticists is weaker than that of the pollen.
10). The inscriptions have been so widely discounted by authenticists that it hardly seems necessary for a medievalist even to mention them. They are among the pareidolic impressions obtained by various enthusiasts, whose very enthusiasm has tended to discredit their credibility in sindonology altogether.
11). If the Shroud could be dated to the first century, it is in my opinion overwhelmingly more likely to be Jesus’s than anyone else’s.
12). The Second Edition of the New Catholic Encyclopaedia was published in 2002, after ample time for consideration of all the scientific research, and the article on the Shroud was written by a Jesuit priest. If one had to rely on ‘argumentum ab auctoritatem,’ one could do worse than choose this as an orthodox Christian viewpoint, and it concludes, “In short, while many unanswered questions still remain, not least that of how the images came to appear on the cloth in the first place, it is most unlikely that this object is the authentic burial shroud of Jesus. Instead, while possibly a forgery deliberately intended to deceive the faithful, it very well could have been produced to serve as a devotional object, a pious reminder of how Jesus gave up even his own life for the salvation of humanity.”1
My contributions to Alter’s book occur in his discussion of the radiocarbon date, the Pray Codex, the weave pattern, the pollen, the anatomy of the figure, and the coins. I am quoted rather indiscriminately and not very accurately, although not misleadingly, but it would be much better if readers of Alter’s book referred to the primary sources I reference than take anything quoted as gospel.
==========
1). [Added much later] The Jesuit priest in question was Robert Wild SJ, who had written an article for Biblical Archaeological Review in 1984 called ‘The Shroud of Turin: Probably the Work of a 14th Century Artist or Forger.’ The article was strongly challenged in 2007 by Brendan Whiting, author of The Shroud Story, at catholicleader.com.au. Of Whiting’s book, Ian Wilson wrote (shroud.com/pdfs/whitingreview.pdf), “the Shroud needs this particular book like a hole in the head.” At the end of his article, Whiting wrote:
“Believing the entry on the shroud is out of date, I wrote to the encyclopedia’s publisher respectfully requesting that, when a revised edition is planned, that the entry be revised and the present misleading material be deleted.
This resulted in a reply from the executive editor for the New Catholic Encyclopedia requesting a copy of my book The Shroud Story and indicating that serious attention will be given to revising their article on the shroud for the next yearly update in electronic form, which will be followed at a later time in print form.”
That was nearly 30 years ago, and the New Catholic Encyclopedia has seen no reason to update the entry for the Shroud just yet.
These latest several comments, some by you, Hugh, invite a bit of follow-up, and now before the chance is gone (tomorrow?). Some of them are confusing – and perhaps confused themselves.
Your suggestion to do some “blood-letting” to help answer these Turin Shroud questions, while perhaps meant half in jest, is not far off the mark. There is certainly a need for many more and deliberate experiments involving blood transfer from body to cloth, etc. The current situation in the field is not good, is very patchy, with only a few such attempts having been made over many decades (Barbet, Lavoie, Lind, Antonacci, et al.). They were fine attempts and with helpful results, but still only fragmentary, and not recorded in enough detail.
A more extensive and systematic approach is needed, not merely rare, random, and rushed efforts, conducted after some petty home accident. And no rambling report on it/them, please.
Many researchers in the field have academic or other institutional connections that would permit them to obtain blood and conduct experiments for a few days in or outside of laboratories. Yet they don’t do so. That is unfortunate (an understatement, let everyone know). Even doubly unfortunate, because this is one of many areas of Shroud research where access to the TS itself is not even needed.
Personally I have no institutional or medical connections and no training in science. Whenever I’ve asked anyone at Red Cross or similar organizations about obtaining blood, even my own, for a legitimate experiment, they tell me it’s illegal (in the U.S.). Even fake blood used for medical simulations is apparently illegal for the general public to obtain. Animal blood, too, in my experience. Besides, I wouldn’t know how to properly handle any of it – all the vials, bags, tubes, etc.
Regarding the specific topic (or claim) of dribbling blood onto a cloth from above, again the question must be asked as to whether anyone has ever done such experiments, and with results that conform fairly closely to the shapes of the TS blood flows. I strongly doubt it, for now at least.
Hugh, your little pin-prick experiment, while perhaps well meant, probably produced such a tiny amount of blood that it is not useful in this context. Ditto for that shin scrape case. The TS Man had serious puncture wounds, involving flowing blood, whether slow or fast. The original amount would affect the amount transferred to cloth.
A group of serious, objective researchers is really needed (no Italian Catholics or Atheists, please) to spend a couple of days at a city morgue or similar location doing experiments, both of blood seepage and its transfer to cloth, with bodies that have been donated to the noble cause of Science. And doing those experiments quickly too, within just an hour or two or three of the death, to get as close to the Shroud body conditions as possible. Or do you know of any such efforts that have already been done?
“Left, right, backstep. Left, right, backstep….”
John L.
Hi, Hugh,
Bloodletting doesn’t need to be “a thing” for us to experiment. We can take advantage of bloody injuries that we experience. Here is an example of a shin injury that I received a couple of years ago. (I was reaching for an old laptop that was high atop some boxes in an upper shelf of my closet. The laptop–one of the older-style, heavier ones–fell down and hit my shin. Anyhow, as I raised my pant leg, I noticed that there was some bleeding, so I rushed to go and fetch some of the white linen that I keep handy for just such fortuitous injuries–when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!) Anyhow, I took photos (these are just two of them, but it is quite clear that this is not what you get through blood dripping, dropping, or being painted onto linen. This has the marks of a transfer of a blood clot because, well, it is! We’ve even got the serum halo there as a bonus! What is of particular interest is what the blood looks like on my shin versus what transferred–with the unwashed wound as well as the washed wound. Please note, also, with the washed wound we have the situation of what could be (what John Jackson referred to as) “images of blood.” Notice where there are the linear scrapes that are red–but the blood has not exited the skin. But, when one takes a normal (or supernatural type of) photo of the image, that will appear in the image but not as a red bloodstain. Some of the scourge marks (particularly the ones that are less distinct) might be images of blood instead of lighter bloodstains.
But, I found it to be very interesting to see the difference of the washed and unwashed wound and what transferred onto the linen. I washed the wound probably within a few minutes or so of pressing the linen on to the initial, unwashed wound.
Anyhow, my overall point in all of this is that bloodletting is not necessary–we just need to be at-the-ready with our little pieces of linen to take advantage of little bloody accidents that we have from time to time.
I was going to post the two photos of my shin wound, but I don’t see a way to add it. I’ll send those two photos to you and if you get a chance to add it (and are able to), that would be great.
Best regards,
Teddi
If only home bloodletting was still a ‘thing.’ Then we could all experiment!
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hi, Hugh and Everybody,
This is just a quick comment on a single thing–I just, unfortunately, do not have time to even read all of Hugh’s post here (much less all of the comments)–just did a quick scan and something caught my eye–the dribbling of blood. No way, no how is that how the bloodstains on the Shroud came about. The dribbling or dropping or painting of blood would result in more extreme capillarity at the edges than what is had with the bloodstains on the Holy Shroud. Additionally, dribbling/dropping blood would not result in serum halos. The blood on the Shroud is the result of transfers of blood clots–this is why there are scientifically-verified serum halos. Additionally, this is why the capillarity is not as extreme as if the blood went on in a totally liquid state (where there would be greater capillary flow on the fibers and threads on the cloth. No, no, Hugh, lemon juice in blood does not contain serum albumin, so, while it can create a halo that is visible under UV light, that halo won’t test positive for serum albumin. Also, the appearance of the bloodstains is indicative of a transfer of a blood clot–and this, of course, has been noticed and confirmed by experts who would know–such as Dr. Pierre Barbet–who was a battle surgeon in World War I and had plenty of experience seeing transfers of blood clots on bandages. So, a big “NO” to the possibility of blood being painted, dropped or dribbled onto the Holy Shroud.
Best regards,
Teddi
Hi Hugh,
Dialogue is always good, even when some of it goes sideways.
Your responses made some sense to me but not complete sense. I’m thinking you must be a graceful swing dancer – left, right, back step, left, right, back step….
More comments now:
You write, “some of these blogposts are formulated along similar lines”
Yes, and sometimes they work well. But some of your blogpost titles have been far more cryptic than those titles you named. Whimsical wording that extends beyond the titles into the first line or two. (By the way, your newly added search box actually draws up many results, so whenever you allude to a specific blogpost of yours you might still wish to cite its date or title. I would.)
4) Dust/dirt on the Shroud. “I think it’s dusty all over the place,” you say.
Ian Wilson in one of his books relates his first close-up physical encounter with the Shroud and how he suddenly noticed dirt/dust within the foot image areas. He seems to suggest that the cloth was dirtier or dustier there than elsewhere.
5) “I’m not keen on the ‘bands-untying-themselves….'”
I’m not either, and didn’t suggest it. Anyway, that’s an amusing caricature of the position held by myself and at least some other Shroud authenticists. We actually think the Shroud’s “top sheet” was laid over the body and, in the space of about 5 seconds, partly tucked under the outside/upper arm/s, without any bands or ties involved. Some minutes later, when spice sacks or flower bouquets or other objects were brought in, the cloth edges were pulled out and laid atop those objects, to better perfume the body, making the Shroud relatively flat in the process, which is how the image then formed so well. No hocus-pocus in that.
“if it is blood, then it’s very difficult to paint on with a bush [brush].”
Why? Liquid blood is not so thick. Oil paints are probably thicker, more viscous, but are used all the time.
“Kitzinger … admitted … ‘one of a very small group of experts….'”
The word “honest” or “brave” might go before “experts” in that sentence. Others didn’t dare think “outside the box.” And let’s remember that the STURP scientific group’s visit to Turin and its tentative finding of a mysterious origin to the Shroud image had not occurred until 1978. Up until the mid-1970s the Shroud had no proposed provenance before the 14th century, or none that was widely known even among art historians. Probably few of them knew of the recent claims for its earlier whereabouts or had time to ponder them well.
“It is however very difficult to transfer blood from one surface to another….”
Actually it happens all the time. Bandages, clothing, towels, tissues all get bloody every day. But you may have meant your words some other way.
“Dribbling it straight on is easier.”
Maybe easier, maybe just as easy. But liquid blood thus dribbled on would have resulted in blotchy blood stains on the cloth due to rapid capillary action soaking it up and moving it laterally through the cloth. Such formless blotches are not seen in the Turin Shroud blood stains, except perhaps in the feet area because of rather fresh blood flowing from those wounds. The TS blood stains mostly resulted from half dry blood. But that does not dribble well off a rag held above a cloth. The medieval artist or artisan would need a lot of patience and many minutes to get a mere drop or two. And why even bother? In order to fool 20th century viewers?
6) “any palynological evidence…. I know that others disagree.”
Yes, some of us do disagree.
8) “there is no archeological evidence for Jesus’s hair style….”
That’s because artistic (archeological) representations of humans were generally forbidden in ancient Jewish culture due to the 2nd Commandment. That principle was later followed in traditional Islamic art too, hence no depictions of their Mohammed or any other people, at least in Islamic art of the Arabian Peninsula. Instead they opted for geometric or floral designs, or flowing calligraphy.
“literary evidence is so contradictory”
According to biblehub.com, the entire New Testament does not contain even one instance of the word “beard” or “beards.” But that is not evidence that they were rare or non-existent in the 1st century. And “hair” is only mentioned a few times, usually women’s hair, camel hair, goat hair, white hair. Paul’s one and only reference to “long hair” on men as shameful surely referred to the waist-length hair that women of those times commonly had (and still wear today in many cultures of the world).
“authenticists … often drift from possible to probable to certain….”
Yes, they go too far with “certain,” those who do. But some of us are happy enough with “probable” here.
Best regards, Hugh. I’ll probably exit this thread now and move on.
John L.
Hugh,
Yes, the new search box does work. Thanks very much. Better late than never.
Best wishes back,
John L.
Hi John, and other readers.
It seems to have taken nearly all day, but I think I’ve added a Search box at the bottom of the page. Does it work?
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hi John,
Thanks for commenting. Firstly on this blogsite. It seems to have grown rather larger than I originally thought it would, and extended beyond its original purpose. However, as you know, it was never intended as a proselytising site, just a place for me to store my musings, and indeed it took months before anyone even noticed it. I chose this provider because it was cheap, and this format because a) I didn’t really care what the format was, and b) because I didn’t understand all the things you can do with it. I still don’t, although after a lot of promoting and online help I did discover how to extend the comment data range!
One of my heroes is Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionist, who wrote popular columns for Natural History magazine, usually beginning with a story only quirkily connected with his main point, such as the gradual size decrease of the Hershey Bar in response to economic pressure (“Phyletic Size Decrease in Hershey Bars,” a wonderful title which inspired my own undergraduate thesis, “Phototropism in sheep”), and some of these blogposts are formulated along similar lines.
But I appreciate that it is difficult for people to find things, although on my screen, up in the top right hand corner, there’s a bar with a bell, the words “Howdy, Hugh Farey,” a little avatar (very basic), and a magnifying glass, which, if you click on it, reveals a search bar. Otherwise, I use the Google individual site search, by typing site:medievalshroud.com “Teeth” or whatever, and that takes you to relevant pages, after which the ordinary Find function gets you to the right place.
As for the rest….
4) As far as I know there are no extant Quem Quaeritis shrouds left, so it’s difficult to check if they’re dusty or not. As for the Shroud, I think it’s dusty all over the place (all that calcium), not just on the feet, where some minute specks have been identified. After all, we’re not talking about little bits of grit here, but quite fine dust.
5) The off-image blood spot can be interpreted in several ways, and I appreciate that the one which appeals most to you is different from my interpretation. I’m not keen on the “bands-untying-themselves-and-the-shroud-lifting-off-the-ground-and-straightening-out-with-the- body floating-horizontally-within-it” scenario, but happy to accept that other people are.
You’re quite right that I don’t know of any other cloth on which real blood was dripped, but then we all know that the Shroud is unique in many ways. Nevertheless, it seems in keeping with the late medieval blood-cult, and if it is blood, then it’s very difficult to paint on with a bush. Kitzinger, who freely admitted in the same quote that he was one of a “a very small group of experts around the world [who] believe that the Shroud of Turin is really the Shroud of Constantinople” was quite right that no such paintings exist today.
Interpreting the blood-flows is indeed an area of dispute, and, as usual, I appreciate that people differ. It is however very difficult to transfer blood from one surface to another, as various people, such as Art Lind and Kelly Kearse have found. Dribbling it straight on is easier.
6) I don’t think there’s any palynological evidence that places the Shroud outside Europe and have explained why. I know that others disagree.
8) I don’t claim that either the El Fayum or the Dura Europos portraits represent Judean Jews at the beginning of the first century. They are simply the nearest we’ve got. In spite of all Joe’s sources, there is no archeological evidence for Jesus’s hair style and literary evidence is so contradictory as to be thoroughly unhelpful. I do think that this is a case where authenticists (not yourself, of course) often drift from possible to probable to certain without a backward glance.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hi Hugh,
It’s good that you have cast your skeptical eye on Michael Alter, a fellow Turin Shroud authenticity skeptic (your “12 Reasons to Disbelieve”). Thanks for that. Skeptics are often as inaccurate as some pro-authenticity Shroud writers and speakers.
(Incidentally, I wrote this comment before seeing the two comments by Valine and you made on Dec. 6. Rather than rewrite the whole thing, I’ll just send it as is. It still seems valid.)
Yes, Mr. Alter’s list of “fake Turin Shroud” claims seems about half dubious. But I haven’t actually read his skeptical “Resurrection” book or even only his chapter in it on the Shroud, so will have to trust your summary. Regarding a resurrection, however, I share his skepticism, though not in all details.
As for his, and partly your, skeptical Shroud points, the numbers 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 seem rather weak to me, at least as you briefly described them.
By the way, when you make statements, in this particular blogpost and others, such as “My own investigations (elsewhere on this blog) …,” it might be helpful to cite the date and/or title of your specific blogpost. Most of us readers or browsers simply do not have the time to sift through your (currently, and counting) ten-page list of blogposts, each page bearing about ten individual blogposts, some of them whimsically and therefore not so usefully titled. And your blog has no word search box to help, yet another flaw (probably due to the software you chose). A lot of your statements might otherwise be discussed and debated. Sometimes I think it’s your intention to be obscure – master of omissions that you are. Valine made a similar point about the lack of a search box on your blog and her laborious efforts to locate some terms/subjects. Many other readers have surely experienced such frustrations with your blog.
The exchange between you and Valine has gotten long and complicated, with valid points made on both sides. Here are a few additional remarks which might help (while trying to follow the original enumeration):
2) Regarding the Pray Codex as evidence, Valine might like to read the comments section on your “Marco Corvaglia” blogpost of last April 23. I made a number of comments there in discussion with you and Marco (a diligent skeptical researcher). Some of them referred in detail to the Pray Codex question. Of course the Codex is merely one piece of art historical evidence among dozens.
4) Dirt particles “not definitive”? If not chemically definitive, one still asks why dirt particles would be found on a fake shroud of Jesus or on a mere liturgical prop. Do any of the extant, fake, medieval shrouds of Jesus in France have dirt particles on the feet areas? Please say so if they do.
5) The off-image blood spot was not a splash. It was formed by contact with the body, specifically the elbow or a spot on the back of the arm close by the elbow, which had a tiny pool of blood on it due to gravity pulling the blood down the forearm and under it. Then in the tomb the shroud was first and briefly wrapped tightly, tucked under the outer/upper arms, before being stretched out somewhat into a more flattened configuration, now making that blood spot appear “off-body.”
5) The notion that the blood stains in general were all “dribbled” onto the cloth by an artist at some medieval point in time seems to me ingenious and marvelous but also completely untenable. But please give it a try and let us see the results of your handiwork. And even if so, they would also be unique in medieval art, a neat trick never seen before or since. Hmm. In general the bloodstains on the Turin Shroud look far more realistic than those on any medieval painting of Jesus or anyone else. Renowned art historian Prof. Ernst Kitzinger of Harvard University said in 1979, “there are no paintings that have blood marks like those of the Shroud” (Lavoie, Unlocking, 1998). You also skeptically say that the blood “must have dried before the body was taken off the cross,” implying that it could not have stained the Shroud. But we do not know when the extant blood rivulets down the forearms formed. There may well have been more than one rivulet. If so, the earliest ones would have dried completely, yes, and therefore not transferred to the cloth, but the later ones would still be moist, gel-like, when the body was entombed and finally wrapped.
6) As for the pollens question, Hugh, you and I discussed it at length in your comments section of your early 2024 blogpost “Sewers, Cesspits….” There seems good reason to conclude that at least the genera of many of the pollens found on the Shroud indicate a desert origin (but yes, species level identifications are admittedly trickier). So, I will gladly believe that the Shroud was fabricated in 14th century northern France when someone shows me a map of northern France with dry sandy deserts clearly indicated on it.
8) As for Jesus’ hair length, you rightly say that there is almost no relevant 1st century evidence. Yet you’ve pointed to the El Fayum portraits as evidence of short-haired Jewish males in the 1st century. But the Fayum oasis in Egypt apparently had a very mixed society, and the Jews who lived there, or who were affluent enough to afford portraits, were apparently assimilated Jews, adopting aspects of Greek and Egyptian culture. So they were very probably not representative of Jews who lived in their native Palestine and especially those who lived in its more impoverished, backward regions such as Galilee. In 2022 Joe Marino compiled a fine short article on the question, “Does the Long Hair on the Man of the Shroud Prove…?” (see academia.edu) And most of that information is not new, but has been known and been very accessible for a long time.
John L.
Hi Valine,
One of Barrie’s favourite stories was of a man who went up to him after one of his presentations and said, “Thanks very much, Mr Schwortz, but you’ll never convince me,” to which Barrie replied, “What makes you think I want to convince you of anything? I don’t care what you believe. I only want to give you the facts so you can decide for yourself.”
I think that’s mostly what I’m trying to do: present facts, correct misconceptions, and let people decide for themselves. And if, after reading all the primary sources, you conclude that the Shroud is authentic, then that’s fine by me. It’s even fine by me if people don’t read any of the evidence and reach their conclusion on faith alone. What I don’t like is people who “know” that the Shroud was taken from Constantinople by the Templars, and given by Geoffrey the Templar to his son Geoffrey of Lirey, that the cloth is a common first century weave and that image shows a typical first century Jew, and converts to a perfect 3D statue when viewed through equipment used by NASA to model the moon. All those are quite demonstrably untrue, but still used as evidence for belief in authenticity. Belief, even if it happens to be a correct belief, on the basis of falsehoods is a dangerous path to take. For an interesting “caveat,” have a look at “Calling All Presenters….” on this blog.
Another thing I think investigators need to be wary of is negative evidence. The famous epithet: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” is not aways true, but it ought to be borne in mind. The peer-reviewed paper summarising STuRP’s findings in Analytica Chimica Acta says, “No pigment particles can be resolved at 50X magnification in image areas.” This may have been true, but it leaves open the possibility that many pigment particles might be seen at 100X or 400X magnification, and sure enough, both McCrone (anti-) and Nitowski (pro-) found, and photographed, plenty of pigment particles at these large magnifications.
Similarly, “it hasn’t been done” is not the same as “it can’t be done.”
Anyway, back to your enquiry about the “forger profile.” Filling in uncertainties with sensible possibilities, I’d suggest something like this. The prior of a Cistercian monastery a few days ride from Lirey (such as Clairvaux) wanted to enhance the annual “Quem Quaeritis” ritual on Easter Sunday, which called for a linen cloth representing the shroud of Christ to be presented to the congregated brothers in the abbey church after being fetched from the Easter Sepulchre, where it had been wrapping a wooden ‘gisant’ of Jesus’s body since Good Friday. It was to be held out in front of the (huge) high altar, and was to show traces of the body which had ‘resurrected’ from it.
Among the monks of any large monastery were many skilled in various crafts, from gargoyle carving to vestment embroidery to manuscript illuminating, and the prior selected one of them, a graphic artist, to produce this ‘shroud.’ A suitable size and shape was taken from the fabric store, and the chosen monk decided, because it was so long and thin, that he would suppose that it wrapped Jesus from top to bottom, thus produce two images end on, rather than, as actual shrouds are arranged, from side to side, possibly producing two images side by side.
Using a solid wooden bas relief, either the one they already had in the Easter Sepulchre, or one carved for the purpose, he laid the cloth over it face up and dabbed a colourant on, in a fairly indistinct but indicative way, producing one image, and then turned it over, laid the cloth over it again, and produced the back image. Because the more protuberant parts of the carving received the most pressure, they took the most colourant, while the less protuberant features received less.
And so it was done, and used for twenty years or so, until customs changed, or usage made it too fragile or damaged, and it was ‘retired’ and given to someone who might appreciate it, such as the Dean of Lirey. Unfortunately, the Dean thought he might get away with pretending it was a genuine relic, but someone complained to the local bishop, who soon found out where it had come from and had it withdrawn.
The craftsman, like almost all of the artists of the time, remains unknown. Have a look at this enormous tryptich, recently sold for millions (https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/school-archives-news/the-miraculous-survival-of-the-sherborne-almshouse-triptych/). It is similar to literally dozens of similar pieces of church artwork all over Europe, and like them, the artist is completely unknown. Your idea that historians ought to be able to pin down the name of the artist is far from accurate. You have to remember that there was really no such thing as an “artist” in our sense; there were simply jobbing craftsman, or talented monks, who did what they were commissioned to do and moved on.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hi Hugh,
Thank you for such a thoughtful reply, and especially for this very sharp phrase: “Many authenticists […] slip very easily from ‘not impossible’ to ‘probable’ to ‘proven,’ without even noticing.” That is going straight into my mental toolbox.
1) “On the one hand / on the other hand” and radiocarbon
You are absolutely right that I misused that expression. My b. I was not really setting up two equivalent “hands.” What I meant to convey was much more modest: that the radiocarbon dating, *as carried out*, certainly gives one pause and must be taken seriously, but that given the questions about sampling and homogeneity, I do not see it as “signed, sealed, delivered” on medieval provenance.
I am happy to concede your point that inhomogeneity does not formally preclude a medieval date. My concern is more along the lines of: the more the data look patchy or uncertain, the weaker they become as a stand-alone pillar for any specific date range, whether medieval or otherwise. So I will gladly retire my clumsy “on the one hand / other hand” and reframe it more humbly as:
* If the sample was from an invalid or anomalous area, then the result does not securely date the main cloth.
* If the sample was from a valid, representative area, then the result has strong evidential weight… for something. (This brings to mind Rucker’s research)
Where I am at the moment is simply that I do not think we yet have universal agreement on which of those is true.
2) Pray Codex
Thank you for the links to “The Pray Codex” and “Three Marys Iconography.” For me, at this stage, the Pray Codex is interesting not because it has a full checklist of Shroud traits, but because *some* of the details are at least suggestive:
* The apparent herringbone-like pattern.
* The crossed hands.
* The poker-hole type shapes.
* The lack of a visible modesty cloth in that particular scene.
I fully agree that absence of other Shroud features you mention (full body image, scourge marks, side wound, clear beard pattern, double image etc.) argues against treating it as anything like “proof.” For now it is in my “this is curious enough that I should not wave it away too quickly” mind-bucket, while I poke more holes into both trains of thought.
5) Blood flows, Lavoie, and the forger question
I completely accept that I am not a medical expert and that my eye is not trained to distinguish “dribbled” from “non-dribbled” blood with any authority. Where it keeps tugging at me is this: the way the blood patterns are on the shroud makes the hypothetical forger becomes *remarkably* sophisticated!!!
He would have had to:
* Devise a full-body image that encodes depth information.
* Arrange blood flows that *look* anatomical to many later medical observers.
* Produce scourge marks with varying radii and orientations for different heights
* And do all this in a way that, so far, resists being reproduced with any known combination of hot bas-relief, direct contact, vapor diffusion, radiation, or freehand artistry.
That is why papers such as Jackson, Jumper and Ercoline’s work on the “3D characteristics” and the “correlation of image intensity with body shape” on https://shroud.com/78papers.htm keep my little propeller hat spinning. If this is all an artistic construction, it seems to require a very unusual artist working with an equally unusual technique.
Out of genuine curiosity, do you personally have a favorite “forger profile” in mind? A rough idea of what sort of person, context, and motive you think is most plausible for producing such an object, if it is a forgery? And, if so, do you have any thoughts on why art historians have not been able to pin that person or workshop down, given how distinctive the image is? In my mind: if this is a forgery, as an art work, it is up there with Michaelangelo and Da Vinci –> such that all art historians have failed in not finding the artist.
7) Confirmation bias, anatomy, and “too vague” evidence
Re: “It means that any indecisive evidence is sometimes taken as positive for one point of view and negative for another, when in fact it is too vague for either position” – that is exactly why I tend to like the chemistry. You can make math and statistics do a lot of things, but elements will simply react. Heller and Adler found no evidence of organic dyes, phenolic stains, lignin residues, or fats/oils in unsaturated form at levels that would be visible as color.
Here I’d also note that there’s a difference between indecisive evidence and simple “we have no clue.” The fact that the Shroud still falls somewhat into that “we have no clue how the image was made” category (oversimplification, I know), combined with the chemistry, are the reasons I would consider myself an authenticist – albeit a young one, very new to the Shroud scene.
The more I know, the more I know there is more to know. Thank you for a lovely discussion full of shroud.com rabbit holes, spinning propellers on beanies, and different conclusions even on the basis of identical evidence. As Barrie says (and I’m paraphrasing from memory): “You decide.”
Hi Valine,
Thanks for your comments, again.
1) The expression “on the other hand” implies some kind of weighing of equivalent statements, and finding one more cogent than the other. However your ‘hands’ hold quite different statements. You could have written:
a – on one hand, if the radiocarbon date was from an invalid part of the Shroud, then it cannot be considered reliable.
b – on the other hand hand, if the radiocarbon date was from a valid part of the Shroud, then it can be considered reliable.
Or:
c – If the data are homogeneous, then they can indicate a medieval provenance.
d – If the data are inhomogeneous, then they cannot indicate a medieval provenance.
Either of those would be fine, but by choosing (a) and (d) you do not compare two equivalences, you simply select two mutually supportive statements. As it happens, I agree with the first (If they didn’t date the Shroud, then they didn’t date the Shroud), but not the second. Inhomogeneity does not preclude a medieval provenance, as all your alleged “multiple peer-reviewed studies” specifically state. In fact, as Remi van Haelst, and Schwalbe and Walsh (twice) decided, the data still indicate a medieval provenance in spite of their inhomogeneity.
2) “The Curious a” is more of a record of a discussion than a study of the Pray Codex. I recommend “The Pray Codex” (at https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n84part4.pdf) and “Three Marys Iconography” (at https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n81part4.pdf).
5) I think Lavoie made an intelligent guess, but I don’t think he demonstrated what a real body would do, and the very few people who have tried it did not achieve that position. Even if it were possible for blood to have flowed down the arms in that way, it must have dried before the body was taken off the cross and could not have dripped or splashed. It’s true that various possible interpretations have been devised to try to account for each blood flow, but I find them too ‘post hoc propter hoc’ for credibility. All the blood flows look similarly dribbled on to me.
7) There is an interesting ‘confirmation bias’ process which goes:
a) If some evidence does not positively contradict my point of view, then it can be considered as supporting it.
b) If some evidence does not positively demonstrate your point of view, then it can be considered as refuting it.
It means that any indecisive evidence is sometimes taken as positive for one point of view and negative for another point view, when it fact it is too vague for either position. In response to Alter’s claim that the anatomy of the body-image is too irregular to derive from a real man, I disagreed, and said that, “The subject of the anatomy of the man in the Shroud is another irresolvable question.” Your response was that certain configurations are “consistent” with a real body/Shroud arrangement. Quite so, but other configurations are equally consistent with a bas relief imprint, so I replied that the Shroud image was “too vague […] to be evidence that it cannot have been artistically derived.” If your latest reply is that the evidence is also “too vague […] to be evidence that it cannot have been anatomically derived,” then I agree, but if you think that the vagueness supports authenticity and refutes a medieval provenance, then I disagree.
8) Again, people are very variable. No one should claim that Jesus could not have had fair hair over his shoulders or a bushy beard or was 4′ high or 7′ high or whatever. On the other hand it would be very wrong to claim that any of those is “consistent” with what we know of first century Jews. Many authenticists – and thank goodness you’re not one of them – slip very easily from “not impossible” to “probable” to “proven,” without even noticing.
Your last sentences are a pleasure to read. Our individual conclusions should be based on everything we read and discover, and should acknowledge that other people may come to different conclusions, even on the basis of identical evidence, without being evil, stupid or lunatic.
Best wishes,
Hugh
1) If “the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin,” then the fact that its results “indicate a medieval provenance” is irrelevant. All that would show is that a non-original piece of cloth dates to the Middle Ages, while the original Shroud itself could still date to the time of Christ. On the other hand, if the radiocarbon data are inhomogeneous or at best statistically questionable, then the claim that they “indicate a medieval provenance” is itself unreliable and cannot be asserted with confidence.
In either case, the conclusion of a medieval provenance does not hold. In short: garbage in, garbage out.
2) I tried looking through your website for detailed counterpoints explaining why you regard the Pray Codex as more different from the Shroud than similar. (Side note: in a future update to the blog, it might be helpful to add a WordPress Search block in the Block Editor. Being able to search all posts easily is important for weighing arguments for and against in the search for truth. 🙂 ) The best I could find was this post: https://medievalshroud.com/shroudstory-adventures-1-the-curious-a/. I could not find much there that clearly lays out the dissimilarities you see. Would you be willing to articulate those more explicitly? To me, several features look like very significant parallels: (a) the naked crucifixion victim with no visible thumbs, (b) the apparent blood stain on the forehead, (c) the L-shaped pattern of burn holes, and (d) the herringbone-like pattern of the cloth. These seem like crucial similarities that deserve careful consideration.
3, 4, 6) 🐇🕳Thank you for the rabbit holes! haha🐇🕳 Will be delving more into these before I formulate an opinion. Cheers to the best data 😉
5) Regarding your comment that “the dribbles down the arms are only credible if the hands were held almost vertically above the head while they were formed”: Lavoie’s experiments show that if there is a single nail at the feet acting as a pivot, the body can slump forward in such a way that the arms naturally move into the position needed to create those blood flows. Like washing your face in the sink!
As for: “and must have dried by the time Jesus was taken down from the cross, yet there is a liquid ‘splash’ off one elbow. The dribbles down the hair look as if they were dribbled onto the outer surface, not oozed through from wounds in the scalp,” the Shroud of Turin Research Project papers on Shroud.com (for example, the Gilberts’) indicate that the image of the man and the blood on the Shroud arise from at least two physically different phenomena. In that case: (a) the blood visible in the hair could originally have been on the face and later migrated or transferred, producing something like a “face-mask” effect, and (b) the apparent liquid “splash” off one elbow is further evidence that the blood and the body image formed under different conditions and at different times, rather than a simple, single-stage staining event.
7) Not necessarily. In response to: “Various people have come up with various ways of contorting bodies and wrapping cloths in such a way that the image matches the body. The fact that there are so many of them in such different positions demonstrates that the image…,” I would draw the opposite conclusion.
The fact that multiple configurations have been proposed shows that there are several plausible ways the cloth and body could have been arranged to produce the observed image. The image only had to be formed in one real historical configuration. All it takes is one viable position to demonstrate that the image formation is physically possible.
8) I did…and before writing my last comment, too! Regarding: “There is almost no evidence for the way first century Jews wore their hair,” I would add that there also seems to be no solid evidence that their hair could not have been as it appears on the Shroud. As with several of your comments to Michael Alter’s 12 points, these observations certainly make one think, but they don’t seem strong enough to justify the conclusion that “things did not happen as on the Shroud.”
9-12) Thank you for your search and for helping keep sindonology in good shape and an honest search. We must examine the data for and against.
The evidence for medieval provenance is not enough to convince me, in the face of the evidence for authenticity.
Hi Valine,
Thank you so much for commenting – and with such precision. I agree that Michael Alter’s 12 points are not what I would call the best “reasons to disbelieve,” but they were his, and he quoted me in writing them, so I thought I ought to comment.
1) One single peer-reviewed study has concluded “that the radiocarbon sample was not part of the original cloth of the Shroud of Turin.” Other papers have queried the validity of the statistics deriving from the radiocarbon date, and concluded that there is an inhomogeneity among them. Not one of them denies that the results all indicate a medieval provenance.
2) In my opinion the differences between the Pray Codex illustrations and the Shroud image far outweigh the similarities in number and value.
3) The official report on the textiles of Masada does not suggest any similarity between any of them and the Shroud. I have discussed this at length elsewhere on my blog. However, Michael Alter considerably over-eggs his pudding here.
4) No. As I discuss in “The Levi-Setti spectra,” the rock samples from the Shroud’s foot region are more typical of French limestone than they are of anything in Jerusalem.
5) No. The blood flow patterns do not correspond credibly to wounds consistent with crucifixion. There is no better medical accuracy than anybody can achieve by dribbling blood in what they assume to be appropriate places. The scourge marks do not correspond to any known archaeological evidence. The dribbles down the arms are only credible if the hands were held almost vertically above the head while they were formed, and must have dried by the time Jesus was taken down from the cross, yet there is a liquid ‘splash’ off one elbow. The dribbles down the hair look as if they were dribbled onto the outer surface, not oozed through from wounds in the scalp. The wriggles from the side wound are inconsistent with blood emerging from a spear thrust while the body was upright. The lack of blood on the back of the body suggests that the man was washed, while the presence of blood on the face and arms suggests that he wasn’t. And so on.
6) The Gundelia tournefortii pollen, identified by Max Frei-Sulzer, has been repudiated by both Thomas Litt, who thought it was a generic thistle and Marcia Boi who thought it was helichrysum, and in general there is insufficient evidence for any pollen which would definitively place the Shroud in the Middle East. Avinoam Danin, in the very book you reference, said, “From what I learned from our investigations, I am sorry to state that at present we cannot use the pollen for any geographical indication.”
7) Various people have come up with various ways of contorting bodies and wrapping cloths in such a way that the image matches the body. The fact that there are so many of them in such different positions demonstrates that the image is far too vague for its alleged anatomical correctness to be evidence that it cannot have been artistically derived.
8) “The depiction on the Shroud is not inconsistent with ancient artistic representations, such as those at Dura Europos and Fayum portraits.” This is just wrong. Why not Google “El Fayum portraits” and see for yourself?
9 – 12) It is quite true, in your words, “that the image formation remains unexplained is enough for many to consider authenticity,” and that’s fine by me. It is, however, not enough to convince me, in the face of the evidence in favour of a medieval provenance.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hi Hugh! As always, great write up! The points you brought up are certainly ones to make one think…not sure I’d go as far as “disbelief” for the following reasons:
1. Radiocarbon Dating to the Medieval Period
The 1988 radiocarbon dating placed the Shroud between 1260 and 1390 CE[1]. However, multiple peer-reviewed studies have since questioned the validity of the sample used[2]. Chemical analyses have shown differences in the sample area compared to the rest of the Shroud, suggesting contamination or reweaving[3]. The C14 dating is questionable and should be re-done.
2. Lack of Pre-Medieval Documentation
While direct documentation is sparse, the Pray Codex (c. 1192–1195) does seem to refer to the Shroud because it contains an illustration with several features MATCHING the Shroud, such as the herringbone weave and the unique hand posture–showing possible existence before the 14th century[4][5].
3. I’ll start off with the more I know about the shroud… the more I know I don’t know! Ha! I remember reading somewhere that Linen textiles with complex weaves have been found at Masada (1st century CE), demonstrating that such weaving was possible in the ancient Middle East… that said I’ve been struggling to find the citation and neither “I think I see” nor “I think I read” are founded on data.
4. Dirt Particles Not Definitive
Soil samples from the Shroud’s foot region have been found to contain aragonite, chemically similar to Jerusalem limestone, supporting a possible origin in that region[6]. While not conclusive, this evidence is consistent with a Jerusalem provenance.
5. Blood Not Consistent with a Wounded Body
As you note, forensic tests have identified the presence of human blood on the Shroud[7]. The “pattern of the flows”, as you mention, correspond anatomically to wounds consistent with crucifixion, including scourge marks and a side wound[8]. The medical accuracy here makes one ponder how that could be achieved with. “deliberately dribbling”.
6. Plant Particles Not Definitive
Pollen grains from plants native to Jerusalem and surrounding areas have been identified on the Shroud, including Gundelia tournefortii, which blooms in the spring, the time of Passover[9]. While some findings are debated, the presence of Middle Eastern pollen is notable.
7. Anatomy of the Image is Irregular
Medical experts have found the anatomical features on the Shroud to be consistent with a real human body subjected to crucifixion, including correct proportions and wound locations[10].–not to mention Ercoline, Down, and Jackson’s 96 male volunteers which ~match the shroud!
8. Hair Representation Inconsistent with First-Century Jews
There is limited evidence for first-century Jewish hairstyles. The depiction on the Shroud is not inconsistent with ancient artistic representations, such as those at Dura Europos and Fayum portraits[11]. In any case, pausing for a minimal facts approach, the STURP data really makes it seem like the shroud wrapped a real crucified man… and I don’t know about you but after a long run my hair is a mess! Imagine after crucifixion! Given all the points of discussion that exist around the shroud, this is the least relevant imo–if you think it’s important for other reasons… would love to hear your thoughts!
9. Coins on the Eyes Do Not Exist
The claim of coin images is controversial and not widely accepted among Shroud researchers. And as you mention most authenticists do not rely on this as evidence for authenticity[12].
10. Inscriptions Do Not Exist
Ditto.
11. 🙂
12. New Catholic Encyclopaedia’s Skepticism
While the New Catholic Encyclopaedia expresses skepticism, it acknowledges that the image formation remains unexplained, leaving open the possibility of authenticity. The Jesuit priest’s stance does not equal the stance of the Catholic church–which to date has not officially taken one. That the image formation remains unexplained is enough for many to consider authenticity — maybe even another Jesuit priest.
References:
[1] Damon, P. E., et al. “Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud of Turin.” Nature, vol. 337, 1989, pp. 611–615.
[2] Rogers, Raymond N. “Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin.” Thermochimica Acta, vol. 425, 2005, pp. 189–194.
[3] Rogers, Raymond N. “Scientific Method Applied to the Shroud of Turin: A Review.” Shroud.com, 2004.
[4] Stevenson, Kenneth E., and Gary R. Habermas. Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Servant Books, 1981.
[5] Benford, Sue, and Joseph Marino. “Textile Evidence Supports Skewed Radiocarbon Date of Shroud of Turin.” Shroud.com, 2002.
[6] Heller, John H., and Alan D. Adler. “A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin.” Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal, vol. 14, no. 3, 1981, pp. 81–103.
[7] Baima Bollone, Pierluigi. “The Shroud of Turin: Blood Studies.” Shroud.com, 1998.
[8] Zugibe, Frederick T. “The Crucifixion of Jesus: A Forensic Inquiry.” Shroud.com, 2005.
[9] Danin, Avinoam. “Botany of the Shroud: The Story of Floral Images on the Shroud of Turin.” Shroud.com, 2010.
[10] Zugibe, Frederick T. “The Man of the Shroud Was a Real Person.” Shroud.com, 2001.
[11] Wilson, Ian. The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved. Bantam Press, 2010.
[12] Wilson, Ian. “The Turin Shroud: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?” Shroud.com, 1978.