Over the long weekend of 30 July – 3 August, the Shroud Educational Endeavors Corporation presented an extremely comprehensive survey of the current state of Shroud research to date at the Augustine Institute, St Louis, Missouri, “drawing more than 425 attendees and featuring 85 presentations from 49 global experts representing 10 countries,”1 presenting in 3 rooms simultaneously. Inevitably, many of the presentations were from popular lecturers, authors of popular books or curators of exhibitions, who are not directly involved in research and so presented nothing new, and all covered roughly the same ground. Some were entertaining and some less so, but few were “experts” of any kind, let alone “global,” so I won’t be covering them here.
The three rooms were St Peter (Academic Schedule Track 1), St Paul (Academic Schedule Track 2), and Sts Elizabeth & Zachariah (for ‘Day-Pass Sessions’). To my surprise, and I must say a certain amount of pride, the KeyNote Lecture in St Peter, inaugurating, and, it was to be hoped, setting the scene for all the subsequent presentations, included a spirited recapitulation of my own blogpost, “Caveat Auditor,” warning both speakers and audience of the damage that can be done to their cause by poor research and a cavalier attitude to factual accuracy. The presentation concluded by quoting my own last sentence, “Real Shroud experts cringe with embarrassment when they hear their cause being so casually misrepresented, as they know only too well that with friends like these, the Shroud suffers more than it ever does from its enemies.”
To illustrate this sentiment, Jack Markwardt noted that the official website of the Turin Shroud, the International Centre based in Turin, had recently (2019) changed its name from the Centro Internazionale di Sindonologia, which it had been since its foundation in 1959, to the Centro Internazionale di Studi Sulla Sindone. Markwardt is a keen sindonologist, and wondered why the Centro Internazionale had thought it necessary to change its name. He discovered various explanations, but found none of them really meaningful until he came to this, that ‘sinology’ “had devolved into a discredited term because it has often masked amateurism.” And further, that an appropriate definition of ‘amateurism,’ in this context, was “the quality of being without adequate ability, knowledge or fitness.” Wondering whether it was true that Sindonology had become associated with incompetence, Markwardt had come across my blogpost, demonstrating exactly that, published in the same year that the Centro Internazionale had changed its name.
Then in a magnificent but I’m sure unintentional turn of bathos, the next speaker was Jeremiah Johnston, exactly the kind of Sindonevangelist that Markwardt was so critical of, with terrific enthusiasm and zeal for conversion, and a cheerful disregard for any kind of factual accuracy. I reviewed a number of such popular speakers for “Caveat Auditor” (none of whom Markwardt had even heard of), but that was a few years ago, and they have been joined, or superseded, by others. I haven’t reviewed them so far, as the result would be little more than reprint of my previous review, but seeing as several gave presentations at St Louis, and demonstrated, in spades, exactly what Jack Markwardt was inveighing against, I may survey the field again, later on.
Between the sindonevangelists, of course, there were a number of genuinely scholarly presentations. Most of them were summaries of previously published researches, which I have reviewed before, but some were new, and, like choc chips in a cookie, made ploughing through the dough worthwhile. Even so, as a body of evidence, what eventually emerged was as incoherent and contradictory as we have come to expect from any random collection of authenticist opinions. Even before coffee and biscuits on the first morning, Kelly Kearse explained that characterising the blood on the Shroud as anything other than just ‘blood,’ was unjustified, but successive presentations continued to run with ‘human’ and ‘AB,’ presumably unaware of 21st century research. Gilbert Lavoie explained why in his opinion the image was formed while the man was suspended vertically with the cloth hanging down in front and behind him, and Bob Rucker explained why in his opinion the image was formed while the man was suspended horizontally with the cloth hovering above and below him. Giulio Fanti and Andrew Dalton proposed that the Shroud was tightly wrapped around the body.
I wasn’t at St Louis, but the presentations are being slowly but steadily uploaded onto the ‘Shroud Educational Endeavors Corporation’ YouTube site, and are of excellent quality, with occasional changes of camera angle and full-page copies of PowerPoint slides. As I write this, the first 44 have been loaded onto YouTube under the Shroud Educational Endeavors Corporation heading, and now there is a pause before, I hope, the rest follow. I’m not going to reference every presentation: they’re easy enough to find, under the presenter’s name.
What struck me immediately was the bravery and determination of the speakers whose first language isn’t English. I doubt if many anglophones would have been able to do the same in France, Italy, Spain, or Finland. Several of these were about the Sudarium of Oviedo, but I also found Tristan Casabianca’s presentations worth listening to. The first one began with a robust defence of ‘Sindonology,’ and complemented Markwardt’s inaugural lecture rather well. Casablanca pointed out that there is an ongoing scholarly debate, using a succession of papers published in the reputable journal Archaeometry as an example (and gently deprecating the current urge to publish in less reputable, ‘predatory,’ journals). The selection of two of these was particularly intriguing: Elio Quiroga Rodríguez’s ‘Unveiling deception: An Approach of the Shroud of Turin’s Anatomical Anomalies and Artistic Liberties,’ and Casabianca’s subsequent ‘Commentary’ on it. The reason these are interesting to me has little to do with what either of them say, but in the editorial comments made on them, openly available online, which perhaps shed some light on the editorial process. Both papers, it seems, were too high in unnecessary invective for acceptance. Rodríguez’s paper referred to the Catholic Church’s “alleged hypocrisy” in that it “promotes the Shroud as a special object” while Casabianca’s contained “an unacceptable level of personal attack,” with references to “superficial knowledge.” Both authors had to resubmit their papers. Sindonology, it seems, has to be saved from itself by impartial reviewers: perhaps Markwardt was right after all.
Casabianca’s second presentation revealed some new information he had been sent by the Tucson and Oxford laboratories regarding the 1988 radiocarbon dating, but they did not contribute much to the overall picture, and although the disparate extracts Casablanca showed did cast some light on how the laboratories’ results were co-ordinated, they did nothing to strengthen any hope that the Shroud was not medieval. It’s also worth noting that the ‘fraudulent or incompetent’ line of attack has practically withered away under the onslaught of the neutron enrichment hypothesis, which is completely predicated on the accuracy and precision of the measurements of the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio. At least four other presenters tried to explain this in their own words, none of them half as well as Bob Rucker himself, who developed the hypothesis, and who introduced his own talk by saying: “I am assuming what I believe to be true, and that would be that the equipment at the laboratories correctly measured the [ratio of] carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the samples they were given, […] that the equipment was operating properly, the individuals were not cheating or intentionally trying to alter them, and that the chemicals and everything else that they were doing was reasonable. And they always do, they typically do control standards in order to validate their analysis. […] It’s most reasonable to assume that they correctly measured the carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the samples they were given.”
An interesting discovery, adduced to support the idea that the Shroud may have come from India, was a quote from the 1970 Pakistani Journal of Sindhology, by Nabi Bakhsh Kazi, who wrote a whole article on the word ‘Sindon.’ From this Casabianca quoted “the Greek word sindon has its origin in the word Sindin.” Bakhsh Kazi is less confident, but refers to numerous English, German and Arabic dictionaries which also associate the word with India, although interestingly they are divided into those who think it was linen and those who think it was silk, or even cotton. Contemporary scholarship has trended towards an Egyptian etymology, deriving it from the shendyt or skirt worn ubiquitously in hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Another interesting presentation was Massimo Paris‘s detailed description and history of the Holy Sepulchre, including the information that it was most unusual for a first century tomb to be closed by a ‘rolling’ stone, and that the vast majority were actually sealed by a roughly square plug.2
Meanwhile, out of left field came Pam Moon‘s “Yoke Crucifixion” model, with Jesus hanging from a single bar like an Olympic gymnast, Mark Fisher‘s circlet ‘Crown of Thorns’ exposition, to challenge the prevailing “helmet” hypothesis, and Al Reed‘s assertion that the image is not naked but was originally wearing a loincloth, now not recognisable.
The best of the rest included Cheryl White and Peter Mangum‘s review of the meaning of the Shroud to its owners and spectators throughout its long sojourn in Turin, “not a problem to be solved, but a grace to be received,” and Bill Lauto‘s explanation of a “First Century Earthquake During Christ’s Crucifixion,” with “Evidence of an 8.8 Magnitude Earthquake in Jerusalem in AD 33,” or more precisely, in very small type, “AD 31 ± 5 years.”3
I’m very much looking forward to seeing the work of John Jackson, Joe Marino and Teddi Pappas, among others, as their presentations get loaded onto YouTube in due course.
=========================
1). From the résumé by Myra Khan Adams on the shroud2025conference.com website.
2). Also see ‘Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’ ‘ on this blog.
3). For the evidence for this, see Jefferson Williams et al., ‘An Early First Century Earthquake in the Dead Sea,’ International Geology Review, 2012
Hi Jack,
Frankly I doubt if the Centro has ever heard of my blog, let alone read it, so it’s unlikely in the extreme that I had anything to do with its changing its name. As for Fr Spitzer, I have contacted the Magis centre in the past, and there have been slight improvements to the factual accuracy of Fr Spitzer’s lectures, but really, like all the other Sindonevangelists, he and they don’t really care.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hi Hugh,
Just to follow up on my general comment yesterday about the 2025 St. Louis Shroud conference, here’s a comment specifically about Jack Markwardt’s keynote address there. It seemed mostly correct to me, or its ending, certainly, criticizing the many sloppy pro-Shroud talks now online (YouTube, “Jack Markwardt – In Defense of Sindonology”). So I have no major criticisms to make, merely a few nuances to add.
He mentioned some apparently odd claims made by the Centro in Turin in 2019 when it changed its name. But personally I’d say that the 5-syllable (6- in Italian) and two-part Greek term was a bit unintelligible to many average folks out there, and was perhaps reason enough to simplify the Centro’s name. Also, the word “sin” in English is far better known than “sindon” and carries a very negative meaning, another possible distraction for some people. Anyway, the name change hasn’t really improved the situation. Exaggerations and amateurish mistakes by shroudies still abound. Podcasters and others, you know.
But it was good to see Jack tackle this problem of sloppy Shroud promoters. He is a late-comer to it, though, rather M.I.A. before (“I didn’t really care about these people”; quotation from minute 44). While he’s written and given many fascinating and worthwhile papers and talks over the years, he has rarely if ever in the past been an activist in confronting the many mistakes and wilder claims by the online pro-Shroud crowd. He has not been alone in such reticence. But he’s very welcome now to make more such efforts. His targets themselves might even welcome the correction.
(Incidentally, Jack may have set a record in page-turning during his talk. How many words were on each page of his notes? Only three? And the cameraman there did a fine job of making sure that the lectern lamp was usually positioned directly in front of Jack’s face. Nice touch, that. A new version of “camera obscura”?)
Back to Jack, and also to you, Hugh. You rightly took a bow for being honorably quoted in Jack’s keynote lecture. But while often reasonable, you have also, in my view, often been unreasonable in making some of your skeptical, “medieval shroud” claims. Jack himself is no great fan of yours in general (see minute 32). I’m still wondering why he didn’t comment on your recent, super-skeptical “Antioch Hypothesis (4)” blogpost of September 12. I found it rather flawed in spots, but didn’t have time to polish my draft critique before the comments window closed.
It’s also unclear to me what connection if any existed between your September 25, 2019 blogpost “Caveat auditor” and the Centro’s 2019 change in its name from “Sindonology” to “Shroud Studies.” Was it a case of cause and effect? Jack seems to suggest so, stressing that both occurrences happened in the year 2019 (minute 32 or so). But did the name change occur only after your blogpost appeared? Was the change made in the last three months of that year 2019 or in the first nine months? Jack didn’t explain. Also, your blogpost did not include the words “sindonology,” “sindonologist,” or even “sindon” anywhere in it. Nor did any of your quotations of others there. So, was your blogpost “the” prompt or even “a” prompt to that name change? Has anyone at the Centro ever said so? The problems you highlighted there (and very well, thank you) had been spreading online for years before. Anyway, let’s hope the Centro has actually contacted some of those offenders and corrected them, not merely changed its name in response, if it really did.
Moreover, here below is a text by Gian Maria Zaccone from the January 2020 issue of Sindon. It diverges from Jack M.’s interpretation of the reasons for the name change:
“As already clarified several times, the orientation of the members of the Commission regarding the so-called “authenticity” is not homogeneous, as well as the religious belief: what they have in common is a solid and recognized scientific competence in their research domain, the interest in the Shroud and objectivity and professionalism in their approach. We do not believe in “Sindonology” as a science: it is a term that represents a multidisciplinary “container” in which scholars who apply the skills and methodologies of their usual research domain to the study of the Shroud operate. There are therefore no “Sindonologists” but chemists, physicists, historians, theologians etc. who dedicate part of their studies to the Shroud. For this reason, the Center has recently changed its name to avoid misunderstandings, and today it is named International Center for Shroud Studies.”
By the way, that error-ridden 2018 “Faith and Science” pro-Shroud talk by Fr. Spitzer is currently (Nov. 2025) still up on YouTube, without any corrections or apologies, and with “46K” views so far, plus hundreds of positive (and often weird) comments. It would be nice if some of his Catholic comrades would persuade him to delete it. If they even care. Have you ever tried, Hugh? Spitzer has another half dozen talks on YouTube as well, maybe more. His style frequently involves shouting and lots of agitation. As you’ve said, “With friends like these….”
John L.
Hi John,
Thanks for commenting. In the immediate post-conference euphoria roughly half the presentations were posted on YouTube, and my Part One was, inevitably, based on them. I’m not sure I’d use the term ‘hobbyist’; I think the two sides were more ‘evangelical’ and ‘academic,’ and from those posted so far, it seems that the evangelical side vastly outnumbered the academic. The rest of the conference is taking a long time to make it to the internet, but so far I have not been any more enthused. I was particularly looking forward to John Jackson, Joe Marino and Teddi Pappas’s presentations, but only Joe’s has been posted up to now. I’m not holding my breath, to be honest.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Hi Hugh,
Your “SEEC … Review Part One” of the summer 2025 St. Louis Shroud conference seems to me both right on the mark and rather wide of it, in turns.
You mention the large number of semi-experts on the Turin Shroud, all pro-authenticity, who spoke at the conference. But the event was an experiment involving two tiers of interest, a hobbyist one and an expert one, mostly keeping to separate rooms, which partly excuses some of the mistakes of the less expert speakers. Besides, when was the last conference of skeptical Shroud experts such as you, whether true or semi-experts? How many speakers did it draw? And how many dubious statements did they make?
As you wrote, at least several of the presentations seemed mostly rehashes of talks or articles, or both, already given years ago by the same presenters. Little or nothing new there. A bit too much self-promotion on display. But when given newer titles, such talks do add to one’s cv as more “expertise,” and might even appear vaguely “peer-reviewed.”
I attended the conference as an audience member and clearly remember, as you relate, at least a couple of speakers claiming that the blood on the Shroud is of “human” or “AB” type. That alarmed me for the same reason that you mention. Kelly Kearse’s cautious and authoritative findings to the contrary have been widely known for about a dozen years now: Yes, it’s blood, but we can’t say anything more specific. The question then arises as to whether those mistaken speakers, even now in November, still believe their claims. Have they been personally informed of the facts? Did they miss Kelly’s presentation? Will they repeat the misinformation again and again?
You rightly mentioned Massimo Paris’s fine Holy Sepulchre talk and his remarkable news about the typically squarish, plug-shaped blocking stones of the 1st century Jerusalem area. His talk was also well illustrated with many excellent slides.
Parts of Dr. Lavoie’s presentation seemed to me real low points in the conference. His “evidence” for his notion of an “upright Jesus” at the moment of image formation included such dubious bits as a verse from the Gospel of John about Jesus being “lifted up,” and one decades-old photograph of a young woman’s hair, no doubt freshly shampooed that morning and therefore fluffy, spreading outward, sideways from her head while she was lying down, just as the hair of Jesus should have spread outward if he had been lying down when the image formed (never mind all the dust, dirt, blood, and sweat making it stiff and wiry, and/or the burial servants presumably taking a few seconds to smooth his hair down the sides of his head). Dr. Lavoie’s old and odd claims, repeated in his two presentations at the conference, even got additional privileged treatment at a station within the major Shroud Exhibit of the Othonia group downstairs (otherwise a rather fine exhibit, I thought). Surely Dr. Lavoie has friends in the field whose advice would have helped him.
Other thoughts? Prof. Fanti’s proposal of a tightly-wrapped shroud around the body seemed a real stretch of the imagination to me.
I’ve read that the conference was voted an “overwhelming success” by its attendees. I liked it, too, but would not go so far. And let’s remember: About half of all the attendees (or more) were merely enthusiasts with little or no expertise; many or most of them also came from right around St. Louis and so their travel and hotel costs were minimal; and they only bought tickets for a day or two, not the whole four-day event. Of the three or four dozen presenters, most were probably very pleased to give their talks, of whatever quality, so they naturally rated the whole experience very highly. Some or many probably had their costs covered by their home institutes. Etc., etc.
Hugh, it was also a pity that the organizers apparently did not direct every speaker, before the conference, to read your cautionary blogpost of June 14 titled “Calling All Presenters.” Some or many of your points were certainly valid.
Looking forward to Part Two of your “SEEC” conference survey, with maybe a bit more praise to it, if you see fit.
John Loken
Hi Richard,
I wasn’t specifically invited, but then I don’t think anybody was. I was given ample notice and as much opportunity to go as anyone else, I guess, but the conference was a long way to go, and at a particularly busy time of the year for me, so I didn’t apply. As it happened, I gather from a YouTuber called Joy Tapp, I don’t think there was a single medievalist present. However, it looks as if they managed to tie themselves up in knots without my help, and in spite of Jack Markwardt opening the conference with what I might well have included had I been there. In my absence I ended up in the prime spot, and not relegated to late afternoon in Room B, so I really can’t complain.
Best wishes,
Hugh
the question looming over this is: was Hugh invited? and if not, why not?
Hi César,
Giulio Fanti’s entire lecture was about how the Shroud was a “unique tight wrapping,” which he illustrates with the cover of his book, The Holy Fire and the Divine Photography, and he has a detailed discussion of how the wrinkles produced from such a tight wrapping may be visible on the Shroud. Andrew Dalton’s lecture was mostly about how the body was “bound” with strips, after the spices, in boxes or bags, were placed alongside it.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Thanks for the in progress summary.
Hugh said: Giulio Fanti and Andrew Dalton proposed that the Shroud was tightly wrapped around the body.
I saw just the opposite
Hi Anon,
Thank you for drawing MacDonald to my attention; I don’t think I’ve heard of him before, although the general idea of the Gospels (or at least the literary aspects of them) owing some creativity to classic allusion is a fairly common trope, and not improbable.
Best wishes,
Hugh
Dennis R. MacDonald suggests that the episode of the Gerasene Demoniac in Mark is, in part, an allusion to Odysseus’s encounter with the Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey. He also suggests that the stone in front of the sepulchre is a further allusion to the stone Polyphemus uses to trap Odysseus and his crew. While the Cyclops is a giant and can move a massive rock unaided Mark needs Joseph of Arimathea to be able to move one by himself but at the same time for it to be too heavy for three women to do together. The solution he comes up with is to make it a rolling stone which he describes as “exceedingly great”.
MacDonald also draws attention to the Codex Bezae version of Luke noting the scribe may have recognised the Homeric connection and added the detail of the sepulchre as having “placed against it a stone that scarcely twenty people could roll”. This, MacDonald observes, echoes Homer’s description of Polyphemus sealing the cave: “Then he lifted up and set in place a great door stone, a mighty rock; two and twenty stout four-wheeled wagons could not lift it from the ground, such a towering mass of rock he set in the doorway.”