[Previous: Shroud of Turin News, September-December 2024 ] [Next: To be advised].
This is the sixteenth instalment of my Shroud of Turin News for January - June 2025. I am still catching up with my Shroud of Turin News (see 11May24) while I prepare my "Open letter to Nature" (see 15Dece25; 22Jan25; 10Febr26), which I am working on almost every day. I am also making steady progress, writing my book, "Shroud of Turin: Burial sheet of Jesus" (See 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22, 08Nov22, 20Jun24; 01Dec24 & 15Dec25) almost every day, but my "Open letter to Nature," is my present higher priority. News articles will be in reverse date order (most recent uppermost). My comments will be within [bold square brackets] to distinguish them from the articles' words.
"Unraveling the Myths Surrounding the Shroud of Turin," Skeptic
[Right (enlarge [Amazon.com]): Prof. Andrea Nicolotti (1974-)'s 502 page, 2019 book against the Shroud. In my opinion it is a worthless pile of paper! For example, recently I checked in the book what Nicolotti wrote about the Pray Codex. The book doesn't have a subject index, but it does have a name index, however there is no entry for Gyorgy Pray. So it seems that Nicolotti ignored the Pray Codex in his book! All I could find relevant to the Pray Codex was:
"... the [iconographic] theory assumes that the Shroud is older than all the other iconographic depictions of Christ. The argument is obviously circular and the exact opposite could be affirmed, namely that the Shroud was made on the iconography of Christ"[NA19, 302].This is a thoughtless argument from Professor Nicolotti. As I pointed out in my post of 19May12, "The `poker holes' are real burn holes on the Shroud, but only ink painted circles in the Pray Manuscript." And "There are bloodstains which are real [human] blood on the Shroud" but they are only only "red ink" in the Codex. A medieval forger would not burn holes in his Shroud forgery based on painted circles in the Pray Codex. Nor would he use real human blood on his Shroud forgery to depict the painted bloodstains in the Pray Codex. And the latter goes for "all the other iconographic depictions of Christ" which depict his blood with paint.]
magazine, 4 March 2025, Andrea Nicolotti ... Pseudoscience can often survive because of the continuous publication and dissemination of alleged new discoveries that cast doubt on the findings of "official science." Mass media regularly republish these "discoveries," which question otherwise clear and well-established findings. [See
"Anyone who has already read other books by Nicolotti knows, however, his destructive attitude: his interpretation of the sources is always contrary to the authenticity of the Shroud and the denial of any possibility that the relic is the funeral sheet of Christ is continually repeated. He is anxious to turn off any light, so that the darkness could be total. Nicolotti operates a systematic exaltation of the scholars who believe the Shroud to be false, people he presents as reliable, and an equally systematic denigration of those who consider it authentic, branded as sindonologists who make pseudoscience" (my emphasis)[10Oct25].Nicolotti is a historian. As such he has no authority to demarcate between "science" and "pseudoscience." Nicolotti labels all pro-Shroud evidence and arguments as "pseudoscience" to "poison the well" against the Shroud, so that his sceptic readers won't bother to read it themselves.] The Shroud of Turin is a perfect example: each year, new statements and new "studies" surface, and instill in the public the (false) idea that there is sufficient evidence to think that the relic is not medieval, but does in fact date back to the time of Christ. [Nicolotti does even consider that the reason why, following its 1988 radiocarbon date of 1260-1390, the Shroud sunk to an all-time low in public opinion but since then as further evidence was discovered which supported that the Shroud is indeed Jesus' burial sheeet and problems of the Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date came to light, the Shroud has been steadily rising in public opinion[10Oct25], is because the Shroud "is not medieval, but does in fact date back to the time of Christ" because it is his burial sheet! ]
For example, in recent weeks newspapers around the world have
[Above (enlarge[25Oct24]): Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS) curves. The green "2000 years" curve is from a linen sample recovered from the Jewish fortress Masada which was conquered by the Romans in AD 74 and and thereafter occupied only between the 5th and 7th centuries by the Byzantine monastery of Marda[25Aug24]. The orange curve is from a Shroud sample. As can be seen, the Shroud sample's WAXS curve very closely matches that of the 1st century Masada sample!]
reported that a group of Italian researchers discovered an innovative way to date the fabric of the Shroud of Turin, and that this dating disproved the results of radiocarbon dating carried out in 1988 (which had placed the creation of the Shroud to somewhere between the 13th and 14th centuries). According to these media reports, the cloth is likely to be around 2,000 years old. [Nicolotti does not give the name of the "group of Italian researchers" and what was their "innovative way to date the fabric of the Shroud," so that his readers could not check it for themselves. It was "Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS)" by Scientists at Italy's Institute of Crystallography of the National Research Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR). And the study was peer-reviewed: "X-ray Dating of a Turin Shroud's Linen Sample" by Liberato De Caro, et al., Heritage 2022, 5(2), 860-870:
"Abstract: On a sample of the Turin Shroud (TS), we applied a new method for dating ancient linen threads by inspecting their structural degradation by means of Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS). The X-ray dating method was applied to a sample of the TS consisting of a thread taken in proximity of the 1988/radiocarbon area (corner of the TS corresponding to the feet area of the frontal image, near the so-called Raes sample). The size of the linen sample was about 0.5 mm × 1 mm. We obtained one-dimensional integrated WAXS data profiles for the TS sample, which were fully compatible with the analogous measurements obtained on a linen sample whose dating, according to historical records, is 55–74 AD, Siege of Masada (Israel). The degree of natural aging of the cellulose that constitutes the linen of the investigated sample, obtained by X-ray analysis, showed that the TS fabric is much older than the seven centuries proposed by the 1988 radiocarbon dating. The experimental results are compatible with the hypothesis that the TS is a 2000-year-old relic, as supposed by Christian tradition, under the condition that it was kept at suitable levels of average secular temperature—20.0–22.5 °C—and correlated relative humidity—75–55%—for 13 centuries of unknown history, in addition to the seven centuries of known history in Europe. To make the present result compatible with that of the 1988 radiocarbon test, the TS should have been conserved during its hypothetical seven centuries of life at a secular room temperature very close to the maximum values registered on the earth."Hardly "pseudoscience"!] However, this "information" is incorrect, and the media did not bother to check the reliability of what they published. If we examine the reports closely, here is what actually happened: The article by the Italian scholars was published in 2022, so it is not new. [It is Nicolotti who is "incorrect". The news articles about WAXS and the Shroud started in 2022, as my posts about it show: 04Apr22; 22May22; 16Aug22; 09Sep23; 11May24; 25Aug24; 25Oct24] The simple facts are that a news outlet in the U.S. broke the news two years late—and then many others simply copied from it. [The simple fact is that Nicolotti is either ignorant, forgetful or lying in this matter!] The proposed dating system is not normally used nor has it been validated by the scientific community. [It is true that WAXS "is not normally used" for dating but that is irrelevant. Wikipedia says that: "In X-ray crystallography, wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) [is] commonly used to determine a range of information about crystalline materials"[WAW]. And as for "nor has it been validated by the scientific community," there is no `validation by the scientific community'. De Caro, et al., published their findings in a peer-reviwed scientific journal (see above) which is all the vaidation by the scientific community they need!] It is based on the use of X-rays (Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering, or WAXS), which are supposed to measure the degradation of cellulose fibers [It does! A search "Wide-angle X-ray Scattering cellulose" revealed a number of journal articles which reported that Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering of cellulose fibres could reveal their structure. Which therefore could reveal the degradation of the structure of cellulose in linen of different ages.]. This system was invented in 2019 by these very same authors, and for the purpose of dating the Shroud, and so is not used by anyone else. [So what? The point is that this technique could be used by archaelogists to non-destructively determine the age of cellulose fibre fabrics, linen and cotton.] The method is highly unreliable, because tissue aging is strongly influenced by environmental factors, such as humidity, temperature, light exposure, storage conditions, and the possible presence of microorganisms or of various chemicals, all of which are unpredictable variables that can heavily alter the results. [Nicolotti, the historian, is making this up. According to the peer-reviewed article above, the structure of cellulose is only affected by temperatute and humidity. And the the age of the Shroud sample is based on a reasonable "average secular temperature—20.0–22.5 °C—and correlated relative humidity—75–55%" whereas, "To make the present result compatible with that of the 1988 radiocarbon test, the TS should have been conserved during its hypothetical seven centuries of life at a secular room temperature very close to the maximum values registered on the earth"! ...] Thus, it cannot provide a reliable dating that is remotely comparable to that provided by the proven Carbon-14 method, which dates the Shroud as being of medieval origin. [Leaving aside that the Shroud radiocarbon dating laboratories were duped by a computer hacker (which my Open Letter to Nature (see above), if it is published, will prove that beyond reasonable doubt and cause Nature to retract the article), there are now five different scientific tests for the Shroud's age which overlap the date of Jesus' crucifixion in AD 30[16Aug22; 09Sep23; 11May24; 25Oct24].] The inventors of the WAXS method are not neutral scientists; they are sindonologists (i.e., people who study the Shroud of Turin from a believing perspective; from the Greek word sindòn, used in the Gospels to define the type of fine fabric, undoubtedly linen, with which the corpse of Jesus was believed to be wrapped), and who for years have been trying hard to prove that the Shroud is authentic [No one is neutral towards the Shroud. Nicolotti certainly isn't! But "sindonologists" don't need to be neutral - all they need to do is present the evidence accurately for the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet and let their readers make up their own minds.]. None of them are experts in either dating or textiles. [De Caro, et al, are experts in dating cellulose-based textiles by WAXS! If Nicolotti followed his own principle, as a historian, he should not be commenting on scientific matters!]
"New research shows that the carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin is fake," Mercator, 14 January 2025, William West. "For most of the 20th
[Left (enlarge): Australian journalist William West's second book, "The Shroud Rises: As The Carbon Date is Buried" (2024), which I don't yet own.]
century, there was a growing conviction around the world that the Shroud of Turin was the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, carrying a mysterious `photographic' image of Jesus' body between death and resurrection. Then came the carbon dating of 1988, allegedly proving the Shroud was a mediaeval forgery. Overnight the Shroud went from Christendom's most prized artefact to being considered a mere icon ... Now, after almost four decades of further research, the Shroud has undergone a form of resurrection. The latest findings indicate it was the carbon dating that was fake, not the Shroud." [Specifically the 1260-1390 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud was the result of a computer hacking! See my proof beyond reasonable doubt of this: 14May 25 & 14June 25. And see "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell." When Nature publishes my "Open letter to Nature" (see above) this will be evident to all but the most invincibly ignorant Shroud sceptic. And also to Shroudies who continue to ignore it, even though I have shown that, "Other Shroudie explanations all fail!" (see 28Feb25). But if Nature does not publishes my "Open letter" then it will be published here on my blog, and also I will submit it to other scientific journal(s). However, for the latter reason I now expect that Nature will publish my "Open letter"!]
[...]In the middle of the two extremes is Michael Kowalski's recent book,
[Right (enlarge): The intriguing cover of Kowalski's book, which I ordered at a very reasonable price on Amazon.com and it arrived on 17 March.]
The Shroud of Christ: Evidence of a 2,000 Year Antiquity. Kowalski, the current editor of the British Shroud of Turin newsletter, is a physics graduate who also studied statistical analysis. [I look forward to reading Kowalski's statistical analysis of the the radiocarbon dating.] [...] Among the most important findings from this research has been the discovery that the image on the Shroud is likely to have been formed by burst of light in the form of ultraviolet radiation [Which is consistent with the Transfiguration of Jesus being a preview of Jesus' resurrection[23Jun15; 05Sep16; 05Feb17; 08Dec22; 09Sep23; 11May24; 02Jul24; 25Oct24].] The key research here was carried out by senior researcher and chief of research at Italy's National Council for New Technology, Energy and the Environment (ENEA), Dr Paolo Di Lazzaro. Working with a team of researchers using fine-tuned excimer laser equipment, he was able to achieve coloration of linen cloth matching the quality and coloration of the image on the Shroud. [See 22Dec11; 06Jan12; 15Jun12; 23Jun15; 11Aug15; 19May16; 05Sep16; 05Feb17; 08May18; 13Mar21; 11Feb22; 29May22; 09Sep23 & 25Oct24].]
All these developments – the duplication of the qualities of the image on the linen cloth, the new dating techniques that dated the Shroud to the first century, and the discovery of the flaws in the carbon dating of the Shroud in 1988 - [Obviously it was not "flaws in the carbon dating" that produced the `bull's eye' 1325 ±65 radiocarbon date of the Shroud[05Mar15; 24Nov15; 10Dec15; 30Dec15; 15Jul18; 28Oct18; 05Jan19; 20Mar19; 29May19; 09Jan21; 13March 21; 21Nov23; 11May24; 04Jun24; 20Jan25; 28Feb25]. It was that the dates of their Shroud samples which appeared on the screens of the AMS computer terminals at Arizona, Zurich and Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratories were not real dates, but computer-generated ones, produced by a hacker's program[13Aug14; 29May19; 21Nov23; 22Jan25; 28Jan25; 09Sep25]! The hacker being Arizona laboratory physicist, Timothy W. Linick (1946-89)[05Jul14; 31Mar15; 27Apr15; 29Mar16; 07Apr25 & 14May25].]
– now support the conclusion that the Shroud is indeed genuine: the actual burial cloth of Jesus. [Indeed. The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet! ] In the process, they also support the conclusion that Jesus not only lived, but he died by crucifixion and rose from the dead in a process involving a massive burst of radiant energy that formed the mysterious image on the 2000-year-old burial cloth. [It did not have to be "massive". A "massive burst of radiant energy" would have destroyed the Shroud. It could have been the equivalent of "34 thousand billion watts"[22Dec11; 06Jan12; 15Jun12; 23Jun15; 11Aug15; 19May16; 05Sep16; 05Feb17; 08May18; 13Mar21; 09Sep23; 25Oct24; 10Feb26]. However, if that "34 thousand billion watts" of ultraviolet light from Jesus' resurrection had irradiated the Shroud for "durations shorter than one forty-billionth of a second":
"Di Lazzaro and his colleagues at Italy's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) conducted five years of experiments, using state-of-the-art excimer lasers to train short bursts of ultraviolet light on raw linen, in an effort to simulate the image's coloration. The ENEA team, which published its findings in 2011, came tantalizingly close to approximating the image's distinctive hue on a few square centimeters of fabric. But they were unable to match all the physical and chemical characteristics of the shroud image. Nor could they reproduce a whole human figure. The ultraviolet light necessary to do so `exceeds the maximum power released by all ultraviolet light sources available today,' says Di Lazzaro. It would require `pulses having durations shorter than one forty-billionth of a second, and intensities on the order of several billion watts.'"[VF15]then Jesus' resurrecting image could have been imprinted on the Shroud without destroying it!] This is consistent with 1Cor 15:52 that at Christians' resurrection:
"in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed."The Greek word translated "moment" is atomos, which means "an indivisible point of time." And in Php 3:20-21, it says that at Jesus' return, he "will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body":
"20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself."Therefore, if at Christians' resurrection their lowly bodies will be changed into being like Jesus' glorious body, in an atom of time, it is reasonable to assume that at Jesus' resurrection his lowly body was also changed into his glorious resurrection body in an atom of time!]
To be continued in the seventeenth instalment of this post.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
Bibliography
NA19. Nicolotti, A., 2019, "The Shroud of Turin: The History and Legends of the World`s Most Famous Relic," [2015], Baylor University Press: Waco Texas.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
VF15. Viviano, F., 2015, "Why Shroud of Turin's Secrets Continue to Elude Science," National Geographic, 17 April.
WAW. "Wide-angle X-ray scattering," Wikipedia, 10 January 2026.
Posted 7 March 2026. Updated 27 March 2026.
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