It is "totally impossible" that the Turin Shroud is authentic yet has a radiocarbon date of 1260-1390 (Prof. Edward Hall)

Here is a quote to add to Prof. E. Hall (1924–2001), Dr M. Tite and Dr. R. Hedges' collective insistence that "the odds against" the Shroud

[Above: Prof. Edward T. Hall, on 13 October 1988, at a press conference in the British Museum, where it was announced that the Shroud had a radiocarbon date of "1260-1390!"]

of Turin being that "of the historical Jesus" and yet having a radiocarbon date of "1260-1390" (or 1325 ±65) "astronomical":

"Accordingly, early that Thursday afternoon [13th October 1988] I joined this gathering in a dingy, poorly lit and overcrowded basement room of the British Museum. At one end of the room had been set a low platform which three men ... Dr Michael Tite, with the Oxford radiocarbon-dating laboratory's Professor Edward Hall and Hall's chief technician, Dr Robert Hedges. ... their only `prop' was a blackboard behind them on which someone had rather crudely scrawled: `1260-1390!' ... For as Dr Tite explained, these numbers represented radiocarbon dating's calculation, to a ninety-five per cent degree of probability, of the upper and lower dates of when the Shroud's flax had been harvested. Representing an average of the laboratories' findings, which had proved in excellent agreement with each other [FALSE!-See my post of June 13, 2014] they indicated that the Shroud's raw flax had most likely been made into linen on or about the year AD 1325, give or take sixty-five years either way. ... The Shroud simply could not possibly be any true shroud of the historical Jesus. For as those on the platform collectively insisted, the odds against this were now `astronomical'. (Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud," pp.6-7).

And to add the statement of Prof. Harry Gove (1922-2009), the unofficial leader of the Shroud radiocarbon dating project, that the "probability that the shroud dates between 1260 and 1390" and yet its actual date is "first century" is "about one in a thousand trillion":

"The other question that has been asked is: if the statistical probability that the shroud dates between 1260 and 1390 is 95%, what is the probability that it could date to the first century? The answer is about one in a thousand trillion, i.e. vanishingly small." (Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," p.303).

The quote is in a private letter from Prof. Hall to wavering pro-authenticist agnostic Noel Currer-Briggs (1919-2004) in the latter's book "Shroud Mafia" (1995), where Hall states that it is "totally impossible" (his emphasis) that the Shroud has a radiocarbon date of "1260-1390" and yet its actual date is "AD 100" (or less):

"Professor Edward Hall, who was responsible for the Oxford laboratory's dating, says in a letter in answer to my enquiry about these earlier dates:

`It is all a matter of statistics! There is a five per cent chance of the date lying outside the 1260-1390 bracket. 1237 (for example) would indeed be possible but only a one in fifty chance. It is when you get to dates of AD 100 where it becomes totally impossible'"

(Currer-Briggs, N., 1995, "Shroud Mafia: The Creation of a Relic?," Book Guild: Sussex UK, pp.114-115. Emphasis original).

But the flip-side of this is that since the Shroud is authentic, as the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates, then according to Prof. Hall, Dr. Tite and Prof. Gove's own words, the odds are "astronomical," about "one in a thousand trillion," and indeed totally impossible," that the Shroud has a radiocarbon date of 1260-1390!

This is further evidence for my theory that the radiocarbon dating laboratories were duped by a computer hacker! I have added that quote of Prof. Hall, in whole or part, to #1, #2, #3, #4 and #10(2) of that series.

Posted 20 December 2014. Updated 5 November 2023.