Absence of evidence? Make it up!

Another nail in the authenticist coffin. The fourth and last lecture in a series of Zoom presentations hosted by the Oakwood Wesleyan Church in Toronto and delivered by Dale Glover is called ‘Refuting the Skeptics.’¹ The first three were an introduction to the Turin Shroud, how the images were made, and the Shroud and the historical Jesus, but as a skeptic myself, I was particularly interested in the last one. If there is evidence that refutes the non-authenticist argument, I’d like to know what it is.

But there isn’t. Rather to my surprise, most of Glover’s evidence is invented. Sometimes, it is clear that he is quoting someone else’s invention and in other cases it’s not, but whatever the sources, the refutations simply aren’t true. If one of the most widely read authenticists in the world, fighting on his own ground and choosing his own weapons, can’t come up with genuine arguments against those who think differently, then the authenticist cause is weak indeed.

Let’s look at the lecture. As it starts, Glover chooses three significant “skeptical arguments” to refute: the radiocarbon dating, Walter McCrone’s “pro-paint” findings, and historical & biblical inaccuracies; and each of these is divided into sub-headings and bullet points. Every single one is either completely untrue, or a distortion of the truth, or at best a misinterpretation or misrepresentation.

ARGUMENT ONE: THE RADIOCARBON DATING
This is “refuted” under five main headings.

1). “The Unreliability of the AMS Carbon-14 Dating Method.” To support this claim, Glover refers to two inter-laboratory comparison tests and an article on the history of radiocarbon dating by an eminent metrologist of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. These are all so badly distorted as to demonstrate invention rather than quotation.

The inter-laboratory comparisons were both published in Radiocarbon, and are readily available, so it seems a pity that Glover should get his evidence about the first from an article in New Scientist magazine,² which misattributes the sponsor of the experiment, misquotes the conclusions, and relies upon a clearly disgruntled scientist (whose lab did not fare well) for an opinion.

The comparison is the ‘Report on Stage 3 of the International Collaborative Program,’ by T.C. Aitchison et al, published in 1990.³ It deals with results from 38 laboratories, of which 5 were AMS, but, by agreement with the laboratories, the report does not identify them. However, from its data, it is easy to see that the AMS labs clearly came out best. Each lab was judged against “three basic criteria” and given a pass or fail for each one. The last sentence of the abstract says: “In total, 23 out of the 38 laboratories in this stage of the study, FAILED to meet these 3 basic criteria for an adequate performance in the production of ¹⁴C dates.” However, from data Table 3, we can see that three out of the five AMS labs (60%) did not fail any of the criteria. Two AMS labs failed the “systematic bias” criterion, but the other 21 failures came from the other 33 labs. The conclusion to the paper says: “In total, only 15 of the 38 laboratories meet all 3 of these adequacy requirements.” As we have seen, three of the five AMS labs did meet all three criteria (60%), compared to only 12 of the other 33 (36%). The superiority of the AMS method over the others was clearly demonstrated.

The second interlaboratory comparison mentioned, although it actually took place a few years earlier, is ‘An intercomparison of some AMS and Small Gas Counter Laboratories,’ by Richard Burleigh et al, published in 1986.⁴ Contrary to Glover’s statement that 5 AMS labs took part, there were in fact 4 AMS and 2 Small Gas Counters. 18 dates are reported (not 17 as Glover says), 5 from each of two Peruvian textiles and eight from an Egyptian textile. With the exception of two outliers, the results were 1380 AD ± 50, 1560 ± 70, and 2900 ± 300. The first set of results was inconsistent with the historically derived date of the sample (1200 AD), but consistent within itself, suggesting that the provenance of the sample was incorrect. The other results concurred with their historically understood dates. Glover’s statement, “All five labs got the ages wrong by half the known age or more in a total of 7/17 experiments” is an untrue, unjustified, and deliberately misleading interpretation of these results.

Next, Glover writes: “in 2004, the secular Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, thoroughly Investigated C-14 dating and its relation to the Shroud in particular.” He is actually referring to an article by Lloyd A. Currie called ‘The Remarkable Metrological History of Radiocarbon Dating [II],’⁵ which is a rapid overview of the subject, not a thorough investigation, discussing the Shroud where it appears in context, not “in particular.” The AMS method, and its application to the Shroud, are given the highest praise. “Apart from sampling, the AMS measurements were performed taking the strictest quality control measures. Three highly competent laboratories were selected: the University of Arizona, Oxford University, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology [ETH] in Zürich. Samples of the Shroud, plus three control samples of known age, were distributed blind to the three laboratories. Control of this operation (distribution of samples, collection of results) was the responsibility of Michael Tite of the British Museum. The accuracy and precision of the interlaboratory data for the control samples were outstanding, leaving no doubt as to the quality of the AMS measurement technique.” Although he certainly does not suggest that the AMS method is unreliable, Currie acknowledges that there has been controversy surrounding the date, and suggests that contamination could be a contributory factor to the use of very small samples. He says, “a wave of questioning has followed – not of the AMS method, but of possible artifacts that could have affected the linen and invalidated the ¹⁴C result. [Two of three possible hypotheses are mentioned] The third proposal raises the question of non-contemporaneous organic matter – whether from incompletely removed carbon contamination from “oil, wax, tears, and smoke” that the cloth had been exposed to, or from bacterial attack and deposit over the ages. Apart from the effects of such factors on the Shroud, the issue of organic reactions and non-contemporaneous contamination of ancient materials can be a very serious and complex matter, deserving quantitative investigation of the possible impacts on measurement accuracy.” Compare this to Glover’s misquotation: “A wave of questioning has followed [omission: see below] of possible artefacts that could have affected the C-14 result, the question of non-contemporaneous organic matter (artificially adding to the C-14 content in that area or cloth as a whole) from oil, wax, tallow, tears, smoke or from bacterial attack and deposit over the ages – the effects of such can be a very serious and complex matter in relation to the Shroud and is deserving of new quantitative investigation of the possible impacts on measurement accuracy of the 1988 results.” The words “not of the AMS method” have been omitted, and the words underlined are made up, distorting and misrepresenting the tenor of the article.

2). “Breach of Proper Scientific Protocols.” This is a page of scurrilous, unfounded and egregious attacks on the integrity of those involved in the radiocarbon dating. Almost all of it is either untrue, gross distortion, or contemptible insinuation. Glover breaks this section of his alleged refutation into five bullet points:
• Joe Marino has written a book “analysing all of the biased corruption behind the 1988 Carbon-14 dating.” Well, no. Marino has indeed written a book, based on numerous sources, some of which are biased and some of which allege corruption, but is not able to demonstrate that any of the people ultimately involved in the radiocarbon dating were corrupt or that their self-interest prevented a fair and reasonable result.
• “The atheist leader of the C-14 dating, Harry Gove, conspired to eliminate STURP and prevented all but the C-14 in an effort to promote his new technology and hog all the publicity for himself.” This is exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Although Harry Gove had been a prime mover in the development of AMS dating, and does seem to have been personally antagonistic to some of the STuRP personnel, especially Robert Dinegar, he was not the “leader of the C-14 dating,” not responsible for any of the actions of the Holy See and its advisors, and not involved in any part of the sample selection or testing process. Although STuRP had indeed prepared a schedule of 26 new experiments to be performed on the Shroud, the overall rejection of their proposal was minimally related to the radiocarbon dating.
• “The mutually agreed upon proper science protocols demanded that the C-14 test be a “blind test,” meaning none of the labs would know which sample was the Shroud vs. the controls, but the leader of the experiment revealed which samples were which to all the labs before any testing was done.” Not true, although this is the closest anyone gets to finding a flaw in the protocol agreed on by the participants in the process. Michael Tite realised that because of its very rare weave, finding controls that looked like the Shroud was impossible, so anyone who knew anything about it could recognise the Should sample from the controls quite easily. Even so, the samples were sealed in their steel canisters in secret, so that they could be kept as anonymous as possible, and two of the labs re-labelled the samples after they had been burnt to CO₂, so that the engineers who operated the dating machine itself did not know which was which.
• “These scientific protocols required that there be no communication between the labs, but all three labs secretly met in the summer before publicising their results.” This another gross distortion of the truth, deliberately designed to discredit the radiocarbon dating in the absence of any actual evidence that there was anything wrong with it. All three labs carried out their tests quite independently of each other and without communicating at all. They each sent their results to the British Museum for co-ordination. No results were deleted, and there is no evidence of any communication between the laboratories.
• “Immediately after publicly declaring the Shroud to be a mediaeval fake, the Oxford lab suddenly received an anonymous, 1 million pound payment and Michael Tite, the leader of the dating, conveniently obtained a very lucrative and permanent job position as chair at Oxford.” Smells fishy, eh? Well, no, of course not. Edward Hall both founded and funded the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at Oxford in 1954, aged 30, and retired from it in 1989, aged 65. As he had never taken a salary (he was a man of independent means), there was a danger that the position, and the laboratory, would expire. The million pound donation was as a direct result of his own appeal and nothing to do with the Shroud. He having retired, it was natural that Michael Tite would take up the position, having been Keeper of the British Museum Research Laboratory for twenty-five years.

What is Glover’s argument? How does any of this “refute” the radiocarbon results, unless he thinks they were deliberately fraudulently misrepresented. His second point implicates the Holy See and its advisors, who were allegedly bamboozled by “atheist” Harry Gove not to let STuRP (closely associated with the Catholic Church) get involved. If Glover thinks there is a shred of truth in his allegation, he thinks that the Pope sponsored the finding and publication of a medieval date for the Shroud in spite of it being one of the most important relics of Christ’s incarnation in the world, rejecting the involvement of a group of researchers who would have found it authentic.

His next two points imply that Glover thinks the date of the Shroud was found to be ancient by one or more of the laboratories, who then conspired together to hide the fact. He thinks that the pages and pages of data from each laboratory kept by the British Museum were all entirely forged to support an overall medieval date, and that every one of the 21 authors of the published paper, all closely involved in one capacity or another, was suborned into hiding their knowledge of the truth.

Finally, point five suggests that Glover thinks there was a consortium of very rich men who paid Michael Tite – and through him, all the other scientists involved – into falsifying the date of the Shroud, and hiding its true provenance for the next forty years – and counting.

So which of these is it? Who is Glover tossing under the bus in refutation of the radiocarbon claim: Pope John-Paul II? Cardinal Ballestreros? Douglas Donahue? Edward Hall? Willi Wölfli? Michael Tite? Morven Lees? Come one, come all, in fact, because if one was guilty, all the others would have known about it.

The truth is, of course, that neither Glover nor anyone else thinks any of this. There’s no evidence to support fraud or conspiracy and anybody as well-versed as he knows that perfectly well. This whole page is a feeble attempt to throw enough mud in the air to sow doubt in some people’s minds, but, as anyone who supports the hypotheses of Joe Marino or Bob Rucker knows very well, all the serious objections to the radiocarbon dating depend on the genuineness of the sample and the accuracy of the measurements made of it. This is obvious from the next few refutations on the list…

3). “Only one Sample Location Dated.” Glover begins this section with a prophetic quotation from a letter written by Harry Gove, whose attempt to get his own laboratory to be one of those chosen to date the Shroud was unsuccessful, to the Pope. Gove predicted that whatever the result, it would cause controversy, and so it did. However, Glover’s account of what happened is completely untrue. The STuRP team did not “set it up that they would take three samples from different locations on the Shroud.” Nor is it true that “for some reason, it was switched at the last minute to just dating one sample location.” Nor is it true that Gove accepted the Holy See’s decision to date just one small area, and “went ahead with it anyways. Why? Because, I think, publicity was more important for this guy, and promoting his brand new carbon-14 method, through doing it on the Shroud, was more important.” Nonsense. Gove didn’t go “ahead with it anyways” because his lab wasn’t chosen to take part at all, and the method was not “brand new.”

4). “Non-Representative Sample #1: Invisible Reweave Evidence.” For this section to make any sense at all, we have to assume that the sample cut from the Shroud was not deliberately given a fraudulent date, but that the date quoted was an accurate representation of the radiocarbon present in the sample. In other words the whole of the previous section is irrelevant, and does nothing to refute the medieval date at all. The reason the radiocarbon suggested a medieval provenance, according to this hypothesis, is that there was an invisible blend of 16th century thread woven into the original 1st century textile, which had become thread-bare over the ages. Several pieces of evidence are given to justify this, all of which are wholly invalid – which Glover knows very well.
• French Invisible Reweaving is an ancient method of repairing textiles and is undetectable. This is untrue. There is a widely circulated pamphlet illustrating exactly how to perform French Invisible Weaving, readily available on eBay. It contains detailed illustrations, clearly showing that so-called invisible mending is not, in close-up, invisible.
• There is cotton in the radiocarbon sample area but nowhere else on the Shroud. This is untrue. There is cotton in varying amounts all over the Shroud, and in 1981, an anonymous researcher at the last STuRP conference reported that cotton was interwoven into a fragment of thread she had examined.
• The radiocarbon area is contaminated. This is true but irrelevant, as there is insufficient contamination to affect the date, as Glover actually admits later on.
• The ‘blue quad mosaic images’ distinguish areas of different chemicals by colour. This is untrue. Glover’s “helpful visual” is deliberately deceptive, and his commentary more so. By showing only one small part of the image, he can point to an area and say, “Here’s the rest of the Shroud cloth. It comes off in the blue quad mosaic image as orange or yellowish colour.” Glover knows very well that actually a third of the Shroud actually comes off as bright blue, but by deliberately hiding that part, he can pretend some kind of uniformity to the main part of the Shroud which is different from the radiocarbon corner. “Here’s the area of the carbon dating,” he goes on, outlining, with his cursor, an area which is not the carbon dating area at all. Then he confuses the colour separation technique of the mosaics with UV-fluorescence, and spectacularly ignores a bright pale blue triangle, which is exactly the same material as the area he identified as dark blue, but which according to his commentary, ought to be a completely different material.

5). “Non-Representative Sample #2: Statistic Problems and Systematic Bias.” We are now so far outside Glover’s home turf it is hardly surprising he flounders. If he has read any of the papers he quotes he misunderstands them and his summaries are incorrect and untrue. Tristan Casabianca did not “sue” the British Museum, nor did he “force the carbon-14 scientists to publish the raw data.” Most of them were dead anyway, and couldn’t be forced to do anything.
• “What was revealed was that they had a total of 16 sub-samples.” That’s untrue.
• “They reported only 12, so what they did is they eliminated… they fudged the data, there’s no way around it – they eliminated the most problematic outlier dates – the sub-sample dates – that didn’t fit with their medieval hypothesis. This was just fraudulent data.” This is completely untrue, as anybody looking at the results released by the British Museum can see.
• “Based on all 16 sub-sample dates, they’ve done a statistical analysis, and they’ve discovered that there’s actually a gradient to the data that they got, of about 36 years per centimetre.” This is untrue. The alleged gradient is found by drawing a straight line through the three published dates from the three labs, which is unjustified.
• “They calculated the line of best fit.” This is untrue. They calculated the straight line of best fit. The actual line of best fit is curved.
• “This proves there’s a 98.6% probability that there’s some kind of systematic error, that stands behind these results.” No, it doesn’t. One interpretation of the ‘line of best fit’ might be a systematic error, but the line of best fit is, as we have seen, no such thing, and the precise positions of the points along the x-axis are little more than guesses anyway.
• “[The] Oxford lab is re-considering the carbon dating of the Shroud.” No it isn’t.
• “Dr Christopher Ramsay. He’s the head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Labs, and even he’s admitting now there is a problem with the carbon-dating of the Shroud.” No, he isn’t. Note that Dale implies that the comment he quotes from Dr Ramsay followed the publication of Tristan Casabianca’s paper, when in fact it was made for a BBC documentary nine years previously.⁶ It’s a very diplomatic quote, but it does not admit that there was anything wrong with the radiocarbon test. Ramsay says, “There does seem to be a conflict in the interpretation of the different evidence, and for that reason, I think that everyone who’s worked in this area – the radiocarbon scientists and all of the other experts – need to have a critical look at the evidence that may have come up, in order for us to try to work out some kind of a coherent story that fits, and tells us the truth of the history of this intriguing cloth.”

ARGUMENT TWO: WALTER MCCRONE’S ‘PRO-PAINT’ FINDINGS
Whether there is, or was at some time, sufficient paint on the Shroud to form the image, or to cause the degradation in the cloth that has resulted in the image, is a genuine topic of debate which is not resolved to this day. The amount, distribution and nature of iron compounds has been studied, somewhat incompletely, and there are definitely differences of interpretation. Although the medieval hypotheses is certainly not “refuted,” the science is subtle and worth investigating.

What a pity then, that Glover’s alleged refutation relies so utterly on denigrating the man rather than his findings. This is muck-spreading of a high order, so high, in fact, as to be transparently untrue, flinging all the accusations of dishonesty right back in the accuser’s own face.

• Walter McCrone was famous but is now infamous. That’s not true, as anybody looking him up on the internet will discover. He is frequently called the ‘Father of Modern Microscopy,’ was the recipient of numerous awards, and his students and colleagues say nothing but good of him. To call him infamous is a personal, peculiarly authenticist characterisation.
• Walter McCrone was a bigoted atheist who hated superstitious Christians. This is simply a lie. He wasn’t, and there’s no evidence that he was. Glover claims that this is his (Glover’s) assessment from reading his book, but I don’t believe him. He has invented this character out of whole cloth. There is nothing in McCrone’s book or the rest of his life to suggest anything of the sort, and his closest correspondents throughout his studies on the Shroud were Catholic priests. For many years he was on the board of directors of, and then President of the Ada S. McKinley Community Service in Chicago, who have named one of their training facilities after him. His humanity and generosity is widely admired across the microscopical and Chicago social world.
• Walter McCrone was the Richard Dawkins of his day. This is utterly absurd. They have almost nothing in common.
•Walter McCrone has been utterly discredited on his findings both of the Shroud and of the Vinland Map. This is not true. Of the Shroud, exactly the kind of publicity given to him by podcasts such as Glover’s has strengthened, rather than weakened his influence, and of course the Vinland Map (as Glover has finally realised and been generous enough to admit in his comments) has been conclusively determined a fake, and McCrone’s discovery of a modern pigment in it as long ago as 1973 has been entirely vindicated.
• Walter McCrone was not an official member of STuRP (So what?) and did not study the Shroud in Turin in person. So what? Neither John Heller nor Alan Adler, McCrone’s chief chemical ‘opponents,’ even went to Turin in 1978.
• Walter McCrone used outdated technology – the polarised light microscope. So what? Either it showed what McCrone identified or it didn’t. Here is a micrograph of a Shroud fibre from the calf of the dorsal image. Does it show orange-red particles or not?

• “STuRP published all of their results and scientific findings and conclusions in dozens upon dozens of secular scientific peer-reviewed journals.” This is untrue, as Glover knows very well. How many is “dozens upon dozens”?
• Walter McCrone only published his findings in the journal of which he was the editor, which is “cheating.” Why? For the long term editor of a scientific journal not to publish his findings in it would suggest a lack of faith in his own publication. Also, the three essays ‘Light Microscopical Study of the Turin Shroud,’ I, II and III were successive ‘works in progress,’ published in 1980 and 1981. In 1990, after his research was concluded and the radiocarbon test had reinforced his microscopical and chemical findings, he published ‘The Shroud of Turin, Blood or Artist’s Pigment?’ in the Accounts of Chemical Research,⁷ as respectable a journal as any of the “dozens and dozens” Glover claims for the STuRP papers.
• “I tried to look up, on the McCrone Institute website, just to show you these papers, but it seems like even the McCrone Institute is now embarrassed by McCrone’s findings and papers: they’ve totally removed it from the website. Here’s what I got.”

Well, good for Glover. What were his search terms, I wonder? Here’s what I got.⁸

It seems like the McCrone Institute is not embarrassed after all.

Having done his best to discredit McCrone as a person, Glover moves on to his scientific findings and, as before, immediately wades out of his depth.

• “Iron on the Shroud.” McCrone examined about 30 sticky tape slides taken from various parts of the Shroud, and observed small orange red particles on numerous fibres. He recognised them as an iron oxide pigment. He found that simply by looking at the density of these particles and fibres he could distinguish image from non-image, and decided that the image was at least in part due to iron oxide paint. John Heller and Alan Adler examined about 20 of the tapes, but do not seem to acknowledge that any of them had numerous adherent orange-red particles, let alone that they were differentially distributed. McCrone photographed some of his evidence, which was later corroborated by Eugene Nitowski and Joseph Kohlbeck, who took numerous photos of the sticky tapes, many of which show orange-red particles adhering to the fibres, although they did not quantify them, or differentiate image from non-image on that basis. Rather than actually look at the samples through a microscope, Heller & Adler extracted individual fibres using toluene and rinsed them thoroughly to wash off the glue of the sticky-tape. It is hardly surprising that they also washed off the ‘glue’ of any paint medium, and almost all the paint embedded in it. Rather than label any of these scientists liars, it is better to try to understand why they differed from each other on experimental grounds, and I think this explanation is as good as any.
• “[STuRP] actually had dozens of spectral instruments pointed directly at the cloth itself, which all came out negative for the presence of pigments.” This is untrue. It’s not clear that Glover knows what a “spectral instrument” is, but if it means one that actually produced a spectrum, then there were four. Roger and Marty Gilbert measured visible light reflectance and UV-Fluorescence Spectra,⁹ Roger Morris, Larry Schwalbe and Ronald London used an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer,¹⁰ and Joe Acetta and Stephen Baumgart measured infrared reflectance.¹¹ Sam Pellicori used a miniature battery powered spectrometer.¹² Only two of these identified specific elements. Morris et al. identified iron, calcium and strontium. Whereas the latter two were found more or less uniformly all over the Shroud, the iron density was variable, and in a series of measurements across the face appeared to match the density of the image. Glover’s statement that it was found in uniform amounts, the same on the image areas as the non-image areas, is untrue. Pellicori’s results were comparable, although by comparing them to control spectra from different intensities of iron oxide, he concluded that there was insufficient to produce a visible image. This is in line with the idea that the pigment, if any, has largely decayed.
• “The iron on the shroud is in uniform amounts along with calcium and strontium and this gets onto the cloth during the retting process. […] It’s been scientifically proven that during this retting process, certain minerals, like iron, calcium and strontium, will be absorbed into the linen textile, and that’s why there’s iron on the Shroud.” This is no more than a guess. No experiments have been carried out on mineral absorption during retting, and it is not even certain that the cloth was river- or pond-retted rather than dew-retted.

• “Positive Tests for Proteins.” Walter McCrone suspected that the image was due to the application of pigment, which, after some consideration of dry powder, he decided had been in a liquid form, the dry pigment mixed with water and a ‘glue’ of made of proteinaceous tempera. To test for protein he used Amido Black and Fuschin.
• “[The Amido Black test for proteins] is known in science to be very inconclusive.” This is untrue. Glover has made it up. The test is widely used in forensic examinations and is accurately diagnostic on many different substrates, including textiles. Heller and Adler found that when they tried it, the cellulose of the fibres also turned black, but it is not clear that they successfully removed excess dye by rinsing their fibres in acetic acid, as required by the test, which, had they done so, might have been much more specific for protein. Here are two photomicrographs from McCrone & Skirius,¹³ showing linen fibres stained with Amido Black, the first of which are not smeared with particles of protein, and second of which are.

• The STuRP scientists did not find any protein on the image fibres. “Absolute proof, the body images have no proteins.” This is untrue. If we ignore Glover’s abusive comments on McCrone personally, which we should, we have two scientific accounts of attempts to detect proteins on the image fibres of the Shroud, with wholly contradictory results. This is not proof of anything. It prompts further inquiry. An authenticist, as they always do, rejects the evidence they don’t like as lies. A scientist – and there are a few still working on the Shroud – looks for possible reasons for the discrepancy. Sure, fraud on one part or the other is one of those reasons, but it is certainly not the only one – difference in experimental procedure is more typically the reason – and until these alternatives have been rejected, a more open-minded approach to the investigation is preferred. The trouble with Christians is… they’re so unChristian! It is notable that Heller and Adler did not accuse McCrone of fraud, any more than he accused them. They both attempted to find possible reasons why the other came to the opposite conclusion to themselves, unfortunately without resolving the issue.
• “Unlike McCrone, STuRP performed more than eight different types of chemical experiments, using various reactants for protein detection.” According to ‘A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin,’ Heller & Adler¹⁴ tried eight different tests, but found six of them useless. It is interesting, and somewhat frustrating, that the two they used, and the two that McCrone used, were different.
• “When [Heller and Adler] applied proteases to the Shroud, that yellow-straw colour, it had no effect whatsoever. It did not remove the colour, therefore proving there are no proteins in this.” This is untrue. Tempera is very dilute, and colourless. Unless it had yellowed a great deal with age, there is no reason why protease, even if it removed any protein completely, would change the colour of the substrate. There is good evidence that the yellow colour of both the image and non-image areas of the Shroud is due to degradation of the cellulose, which, of course, would not be affected by protease. Some areas of the Shroud are a darker yellow, which Heller and Adler attribute to ‘serum,’ a much more concentrated protein, which was either yellow to start with or yellowed more intensely than any paint medium, and these areas did become paler, until they matched ‘non-serum’ fibres.

• “Optical Properties of the Image Fibers.” Whenever one releases a video or blogpost into the World Wide Web, it is important to realise that one has no control over who watches, hears or reads it. This series of lectures may have been directed at a small group of interested but not particularly well-informed Christians in Toronto, but it may be seen by anybody, including people who like to check the lecturer’s credentials, and the sources of his facts. I wonder what they will make of Glover’s characterisation of McCrone in this section of his presentation, including “Incompetence,” “flawed methodology,” “amateurish mistake,” and “only a fool.” This contrasts rather sharply with every single article I can find about him on the web. Glover had better be very sure of his ground. But is he?
This is McCrone: “There is a very simple optical test that differentiates blood from red ochre or vermillion – the Becke line test for refractive index. Blood in any form or any organic derivative of blood has refractive indices less than 1.60. Red ochre and vermillion have indices nearly double that of blood, or nearly 3.0. Observing such particles with magnifications of at least 500 times differentiates instantly between these two possibilities, blood or red pigments, simply by focusing up-and-down. The high refractive index particles concentrate the illuminating light beam in the microscope like a lens and show a bright centre as you focus above best focus. Blood or any low refracting particles show a dark centre under the same focusing conditions.”¹⁵
And this is Heller & Adler: “When a red non-birefringent coated fibril and a birefringent red particulate coated fibril were compared side-by-side immersed in benzene (index of refraction = 1.50), the Becke line movements were in opposite directions. Therefore, the refractive index of the non-birefringent red particles is less than 1.5, while it is greater than 1.5 for the birefringent red particles, indicating that they are quite different materials.”¹⁴
As they stand, these two statements are entirely compatible. Both McCrone and Heller & Adler noticed birefringent red particles with refractive indices greater than 1.5. The difference between the two is that McCrone did not see any particles with refractive indices less than 1.5, but Heller & Adler did. Glover speculates that the Mylar tape (refractive index about 1.7) made the non-birefringent red particles appear to have a higher refractive index than they really had, but this is a guess. The reason for the discrepancy is currently undetermined.
• Glover claims that McCrone concluded “the images were painted based on testing a single sample.” “McCrone made this hasty conclusion that all of the bloodstains were painted with these pigments on the basis of looking at one single sample.” “It’s like concluding the Shroud images must be made of bugs’ legs because I found a bug leg on the one sample.” This is completely untrue. McCrone examined thousands of particles on over 30 sticky-tape slides, most of which were ‘blood-stain slides.’ Even regarding refractive indices, he wrote, “On examining thousands of red image particles on the shroud tapes, I saw no low refractive red particles except rose madder particles and a few red silk fibers from the Shroud wrapping cloth).”¹⁵ Either Glover has not read McCrone’s work, or he’s misunderstood it, or he’s just making it up.
• “Negative blood tests.” Is there blood on the Shroud? One way of looking for it is to search for the elements of which it is made. Of course, finding, say, iron or calcium on a cloth does not show there is blood on it, but not finding either iron or calcium, even when using instruments that would surely detect it if it were there, is good evidence that there is no blood. And rather to the disappointment of the whole STuRP team, Morris, Schwalbe and London found no potassium, an important constituent. Attempts to qualify this deficiency have been numerous, contradictory, and unconvincing. One hypothesis is that the limitations of Morris et al.’s instruments meant that they were unable to detect it; another, that somehow, the blood transferred from the body to the cloth left its potassium behind, and a third that the potassium has leached away in the period since arriving on the cloth. None of these has been demonstrated, and in themselves, certainly cannot be said to disprove Mccrone’s hypothesis.

ARGUMENT THREE: ALLEGED BIBLICAL INNACURACIES
These are listed under 6 main headings. Most the statements are themselves largely unevidenced, so the best way of refuting skeptics holding to them is simply to ask them to demonstrate that they must be correct. Remarkably, however, Glover manages to get most of his refutation wrong even here!

1). The hair of the man in the Shroud does not match that of a 1st century Jew. In the absence of any information of images of 1st century Jews, this cannot be more than a guess. But…
• Nazirites were the exception to the norm, in that they swore an oath not to cut their hair for the duration of their vow. Glover implies that Jesus might have taken a Nazirite vow, although this seems to contradict the Last Supper (although some determined adherents of this hypothesis point out that we are not told in the Gospels that Jesus actually drank any of the cup that he shared with his disciples). The fact that Nazirites distinguished themselves by not cutting their hair suggests that the norm was for men to keep their hair cut.
• “The world renowned ethnologist, Carlton S. Coons has clearly stated that, ‘after analysing numerous photos of the Shroud man, I conclude that he was a very definite physical type, found in ancient and modern Sephardic Jews.‘” Glover is referring to the now discredited Carleton Stephens Coon, whose ideas about race and sub-species of Homo sapiens were heavily criticised even as long ago in 1939, when he wrote, “the earliest Homo sapiens known, as represented by several samples from Europe and Africa, was an ancestral long-headed white man of short stature and moderately great brain size.”¹⁶ Coon’s conclusions about “physical types” are no longer generally considered valid.
• “The world renowned historian Daniel Ropps […] “Hair worn long, parted in the middle, and having what looks to be a long, unbounded pigtail in the back is absolutely typical for Jewish men of ancient first century times.” This is untrue. Even the quote is wrong: “unbound” makes a little more sense than “unbounded.” However, came up with it was distorting the findings of Henri Daniel-Rops and Hugo Gressman, who are usually mentioned together in this context. Both of these scholars used the Old Testament and Middle Eastern bas reliefs and paintings from Egypt to Mesopotamia for their research, and tentatively decided that long hair was supported by their research, although without committing themselves. The source material is Hugo Gressman, ‘Die Haartracht der Israelen,’¹⁷ and Henri Daniel-Rops, ‘La Vie Quotidienne en Palestine au Temps de Jésus.’¹⁸
• The Arch of Titus.” You can clearly see certain Jews with longer hair that’s shoulder length.” No, you can’t. None of the people accompanying the menorah have beards. On the other hand they do all wear laurel crowns, and may actually be victorious Roman soldiers, not Jewish captives.
• The Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians. ” οὐδὲ ἡ φύσις αὐτὴ διδάσκει ὑμᾶς ὅτι ἀνὴρ μὲν ἐὰν κομᾷ, ἀτιμία αὐτῷ ἐστιν, γυνὴ δὲ ἐὰν κομᾷ, δόξα αὐτῇ ἐστιν; ὅτι ἡ κόμη ἀντὶ περιβολαίου δέδοται.” (1 Corinthians 11:14-15) ‘The solution to this question must be sought in the two different words for hair that the Greek uses [triches and kome]. The first one means hair as such; the second, which is used here, means the hairdo, hair that is neatly held by a ribbon or lace like a woman’s. This is not true. Ancient Greek does not distinguish triches from kome. Of course we can’t be sure what St Paul meant by ‘long hair’ – to the neck, to the shoulders, to the waist? – so it seems futile to try to interpret what he says in a metrological sense. The only specimen of 1st century Jewish male hair ever discovered was by Simon Gibson, in Akeldama. “The length of the hair was medium to short, averaging 3-4 inches. The color was reddish.”¹⁹

2). The gospel of St John refers to strips of cloth like a bandage, not a single sheet. There has been much discussion of the meaning of othonia, which is used to describe various long thin cloths from bandages to strips of sail-cloth, and it is perfectly possible to reconcile John with the synoptic evangelists if you wish to. However, Glover illustrates this point with a silly demonstration from the same BBC documentary mentioned previously, showing that the Shroud measures 8 x 2 cubits. it doesn’t, and nobody who has explored this aspect of the Shroud at all can possibly think that it does.

3). The man in the Shroud is too tall for a 1st century Jew. This is another silly claim which requires no refutation. People come in a range of heights, regardless of what a national average may be at any time, and anyway it is impossible to measure or calculate the height of the man in the Shroud, so vague are the indications. But Glover will refute it nevertheless. He thinks that 5’10” is a good estimation of the height of the man in the image, but cuts his real height down to 5’9″ (1.75m) on the grounds that the Shroud has probably been stretched over the centuries. According to Glover, this exactly fits the stature of the 1st century human remains found in Galilee, and the “idea male height” specified in the Talmud. Neither of these is true.

In the absence of any 1st century Jews, estimation of height depends on the measurement of the femur, and a multiplication factor to convert it into standing height. Yossi Nagar, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, concludes that the “average stature,” between 332 BC and 638 AD was “166cm for males, 147cm for females.”²⁰ Arensburg & Smith calculated 169cm from burials at Jericho,²¹ and Arensburg, Goldstein, Nathan and Rak found 1659mm from burials at En-Gedi.²² Glover goes on to suggest that his 1.75m exactly matches an “ideal male height” of “4 ells,” as listed in the Talmud. However his source for this is a 1910 book on ‘Talmudic Archaeology,’²³ which says: “from many particularly Halachic statements, it is clear that the normal stature of a human being was considered to be 3 cubits up to the shoulders, and 4 cubits up to the crown of the head (about 1.76m).” This makes no sense (the head representing a quarter of the total height of a man) and is probably due to a misunderstanding of Eruvin 48a, where a person’s body “typically measures 3 cubits”, but in a bed he needs an extra cubit to enable a bit of free movement.²⁴

In the previous section Glover showed us Rachel Jackson solemnly presenting Rageh Omaar with a “cubit” of 55cm, so that he could measure out the Shroud (440cm x 110cm) as 8 cubits by 2 cubits. However, if a man is 175cm and 4 cubits high, a cubit is 44cm, far too small for the Shroud, or if he is 175cm and 3 cubits high, a cubit is 58cm, which is far too large.

In fact, of course, neither Glover nor Mark Antonacci, from whom he acquires this information, have any idea what ‘the ‘Talmudische Archäologie’ or the Talmud actually says. This is all absurd and it would have been better not to venture into these waters at all.

4). The man in the Shroud looks older than 33. Well, so would you if you’d been scourged and crucified, is the obvious response, but there’s no need to over-egg the pudding. Glover goes on about “all the qualified experts who have studied the Shroud man closely,” who “seem to agree that he was between about 30-45 years old.” All? Qualified? Experts? Can anybody name just one? I thought not…

5). The image does not reflect Jewish burial customs, which St John specifically mentions. By all accounts, the burial of Jesus was an exception to whatever rules there may have been, and to be quite honest, we have no idea what the customs of the day were anyway. Archaeologically, second temple burials are known almost exclusively from stone ossuaries; we know almost nothing about the practice of laying dead people out, and anyway, when St John, mentions the customs of the Jews, we can’t be sure if he is referring to pre- or post- 79AD, and the destruction of Jerusalem. The author of John’s gospel probably lived somewhere in Turkey, and may not have known what the customs of Jerusalem were. Still, we can speculate.
• Crucifixion victims were usually thrown into common graves. This is probably true, as in fact most people were, or at least laid reverently to rest in them. The number of cave-tombs around Jerusalem would not be sufficient to house the majority of the population and there is minimal evidence to explain what happened to them all. Nevertheless, since at least one crucifixion victim has been found in an ossuary, it is certain that not all crucifixion victims were placed in common graves to rot away.
• There is no evidence of myrrh or aloes on the Shroud. There is no evidence that myrrh or aloes were ever associated with Jewish burials at all. Only St John mentions it, and it is not clear if he meant it practically or metaphorically.
• The body wasn’t washed. If the Shroud image represented an actual crucifixion victim, it is clear from the blood on the arms that he wasn’t thoroughly washed, but according to Fred Zugibe, there is no way some of the scourge marks would be visible if his back, at least, hadn’t been washed. There is a popular idea that bodies shouldn’t be washed if they are covered in blood, but I think this is a misunderstanding. While it may be important that as much of a person as possible should be kept together, there is nothing to imply that it must be kept on the body. Victims of bombings are buried with absorbent cloths used to collect fallen blood, and it should be possible to do the same with bloodstains. Wipe the body clean, then keep the wipes with body for burial. Not, I have to say, that there’s any evidence that that happened.²⁵
• “Skeptics used to say Jewish burial customs did not include putting coins over the eyes, but modern research has proven they did to prevent the eyelids from opening.” This is completely untrue. Somebody has literally just made it up.

6). The Shroud as a textile does not match anything made in the 1st century. This is absolutely true, in spite of rather desperate attempts to discredit it. So here we go:
• A quote from John Tyrer, Chartered Textile Technologist at the Manchester College of Technology. “The Shroud is a very poor product by comparison (to mediaeval European fabrics). It is full of warp and weft weaving defects. The impression I am left with is that the cloth is a much cruder and probably earlier fabric than the backing and patches. This I think lifts the shroud out of the Middle Ages more than anything I have seen about the textile.”²⁶ This is a fairly banal comment – of course the Shroud is older than the backing cloth and patches, by about 300 years – and the words in brackets are an invention. Tyrer was comparing the Shroud specifically to the patches and backing cloth, as they appeared on the X-rays taken by Robert Mottern, Ronald London and Roger Morris in 1978.²⁷ A longer and more considered article by Tyrer is ‘Looking at the Shroud of Turin as a Textile,’ in which he discusses various aspects of the cloth, and although he concludes that a 1st century origin is possible, he is cautious about the Z-twist, the 3/1 herringbone weave, and the necessity for 4 healds. “It may be, therefore, that the Shroud linen was originally intended as an expensive apparel fabric that was hastily pressed into service for funerary purposes (Luke 23, v.53). On the other hand, the smooth surface of a twill would probably be an ideal base upon which a forger could paint.”²⁸

Next Glover quotes three specific examples of ancient cloth that he claims compare with the Shroud. Although he gives no sources, let’s try to track them down.

• “A 4/1 twill dating from 1450 BC in Egypt.” This is described by August Braulik in an article called ‘Altägyptische Weberei’ (Ancient Egyptian Weaving) in ‘Dingler’s Polytechnische Journal.’²⁹ The text reads:

“Gewebe Nr. 36. Von der Mumie des Königs Thutmes II., 18. Dynastie, etwa 1450 v. Chr. (nach Brugsch 1700 v. Chr.). Fundort: Cachette Der-el-Bahari. Flachsfaser sehr fein, sehr gut erhalten, Kettendichte 40, Feinheit Nr. 26 engl. Schussdichte 10 Faden, im Grund Nr. 26 engl. Fransenschuss ist Nr. 40/2 5fach eingetragen. Auf 1 cm sind 10 Fransenschuss, daher in der Leiste per 1 cm 10 + 50 = 60 Schussfäden. Die Abbindung in der Kante ist aus Fig. 1 ersichtlich. Der Grundschuss a bindet durchwegs Leinwand, der Fransenschuss b geht über die ersten 5 Kettenfäden hinweg, bindet bis Faden 12 in Leinwand und geht von da auf der unteren Gewebeseite flottliegend zum Fangfaden zurück.” And here is Fig. 1.

By no stretch of the imagination are we looking at a piece of 4/1 twill. I think it may be being mistaken for a couple of other fragments of cloth, but they are not made of 4/1 twill either.

• “2/2 twill leggings discovered to date from 800-500 BC.” These certainly exist, but they are made of wool, are not 3/1, and were unlikely to have been woven on a loom similar to the one the Shroud must have been made on.

• “Linen cloths with a 3/1 weave exactly like the Shroud found in Palmyra dating to 136-300 AD.” This is untrue. We have no such thing.

• Mechthild Flury-Lemberg compared the seam stitch to one found in Masada. Flury-Lemberg never saw any of the Masada textiles. She compares the seam on the Shroud to a diagram in Hero Granger-Taylor’s report on the Masada Textiles,³⁰ and finds it similar. So it is, but then the stitch is not rare throughout the ages and across the world. Hero Granger-Taylor herself says: “I mostly work on textiles of the Roman period, and particularly on those found at Masada, which date mainly to the period 66-74 AD, so only a short period after Christ’s crucifixion. I have to say that the linen textiles from Masada very much resemble each other and are not at all like the Shroud so it is a relief to me that you do not think that the Shroud dates from this time and place. To answer your question, whether the very characteristic weave, warp-faced 3:1 chevron twill, was developed for a special purpose, the answer is yes: this weave creates a very smooth dense surface and the signs are it was developed for painting and printing on.”³¹

And there we have it. All the refutations… er… refuted. This is a pity, as it weakens the authenticist argument – although, to be fair, since only about 100 people witnessed the original podcast and even fewer will read this, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the great scheme of things. And there is a debate to be involved in. Just as authenticist arguments have not convinced medievalists, so medieval arguments have not convinced authenticists. Claiming that one or the other has been proved is self-evidently untrue, at least in the sense that it has achieved overwhelming consensus. Any particular individual, me or Glover or Joe Marino or Andrea Nicolotti, for example, may feel that he has examined the evidence sufficiently deeply to come to a definitive conclusion, and may attempt to demonstrate to the world that his interpretation is correct, but personal conviction is neither consensus nor reality, except to the person themselves. An honest debate is one in which each side presents its evidence, explains what it means to them, and hopes the audience will be swayed to their point of view. A dishonest debate presents evidence which isn’t true, or tries to win by emotional blackmail rather than reason. Maybe one day I’ll write a post called the Honest Authenticist – but I may have to invent him first!

1 ‘Oakwood Bible Study #4: Refuting the Shroud Skeptics,’ Real Seekers,
youtube.com/watch?v=UFnwmziRZkQ&t=4473s

2 ‘Unexpected Errors Affect Dating Techniques,’ Andy Coghlan, New Scientist, 1989

3 ‘Report on Stage 3 of the International Collaborative Program,’ T.C. Aitchison et al., Radiocarbon, Volume 32, 1990

4 ‘An Intercomparison of some AMS and Small Gas Counter Laboratories,’ Richard Burleigh et al., Radiocarbon, Volume 28, 1986

5 ‘The Remarkable Metrological History of Radiocarbon Dating [II],’ Lloyd A. Currie, Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2004

6 ‘The Shroud of Turin,’ directed by David Rolfe, BBC, presented by Rageh Omaar, 2008

7 ‘The Shroud of Turin, Blood or Artist’s Pigment?’ Walter McCrone, Accounts of Chemical Research, 1990

8 Shroud of Turin Research at McCrone, McCrone Research Institute, mccroneinstitute.org/research/shroud-of-turin-research-at-mccrone/

9 ‘Ultraviolet-Visible Reflectance and Fluorescence Spectra of the Shroud of Turin,’ Roger and Marion Gilbert, Applied Optics, Volume 19, 1980

10 ‘X-Ray Fluorescence Investigation of the Shroud of Turin,’ Roger Morris et al., X-Ray Spectrometry, Volume 9, 1980

11 ‘Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy and Thermographic Investigations of the Shroud of Turin,’ Joseph Accetta and Stephen Baumgart, Applied Optics, Volume 19, 1980

12 ‘Spectral Properties of the Shroud of Turin,’ Sam Pellicori, Applied Optics, Volume 19, 1980

13 ‘Light Microscopical Study of the Turin Shroud I,’ Walter McCrone and Christine Skirius, The Microscope, Issue 28, 1980

14 ‘A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin,’ John Heller and Alan Adler, Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences Journal, Volume 14, 1981

15 Judgement Day for the Turin Shroud, Walter McCrone, 1996

16 The Races of Europe, Carleton S. Coon, 1939

17 ‘Die Haartracht der Israelen,’ Hugo Gressman, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Volume 34, 1920

18 La Vie Quotidienne en Palestine au Temps de Jésus, Henri Daniel-Rops, 1961

19 ‘The Only Ancient Jewish Male Hair Ever Found,’ James Tabor, Bible History Daily, 2024

20 ‘Human Osteological Database at the Israel Antiquities Authority,’ Yossi Nagar, Bioarchaeology of the Near East, 2011

21 ‘The Jewish population of Jericho,’ Baruch Arensburg and Patricia Smith, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 1983

22 ‘Skeletal remains of Jews from the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods in Israel,’ Baruch Arensburg et al., Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, Volume 7, 1980

23 Talmudische Archäologie, Volume I, Samuel Krauss, 1910

24 Eruvin 48a, sefaria.org

25 ‘The Man of the Shroud was Washed,’ Frederick Zugibe, Sindon, 1989
‘The Body of Jesus was not Washed, According to the Jewish Burial Custom,’ Bonnie Lavoie et al., Sindon, 1981

26 ‘Shroud X-Radiographs,’ anon, Newsletter of the British Society for the Turin Shroud, Issue 8, 1984

27 ‘Radiographic Examination of the Shroud of Turin: A Preliminary Report,’ Robert Mottern, Ronald London and Roger Morris, Materials Evaluation, Volume 38, 1979

28 ‘Looking at the Shroud of Turin as a Textile,’ John Tyrer, Textile Horizons, 1981

29 ‘Altägyptische Weberei,’ August Braulik, Dingler’s Polytechnische Journal, Volume 311, 1899

30 ‘Textiles from Masada: A Preliminary Selection,’ Avigail Sheffer and Hero Granger-Taylor, in Masada IV, Lamps, Textiles, Baskets, Wood, Bones, ed. Yigael Yadin, 1994

31 Personal communication.