Shroud of Turin News, September - December 2024

© Stephen E. Jones[1]

Newcomers start with: "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell"

[Previous: July - September 2024] [Next: January - June 2025].

This is the sixth (see here and here) installment of my Shroud of Turin News for September - December 2024 . As previously posted, I will continue from late September in this edition. The articles are in date order (earliest first). My words will be in [bold square brackets] to distinguish them from the articles' words. This comment on a news article about the Neutron Flux Theory has grown too long, for me to add any other Shroud of Turin News articles to it. So, after I have completed it, I will prepare it as a Turin Shroud Encyclopedia entry on the Neutron Flux Theory, delete this post, and immediately post the Neutron Flux Theory as an Encyclopedia entry. Then, the next day I will resume this Shroud of Turin News for September - December 2024. I may not need to delete it, as I should be able to re-date it after the Encyclopedia post, making this Shroud of Turin News post, the current post again.

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"Nuclear engineer says latest research confirms first-century date of

[Right (enlarge): The radioactive isotopes chlorine-36 (Cl-36) and calcium-41 (Ca-41), and stable isotope chromium-53 (Cr-53), that according to Mark Antonacci's theory should be still detectable on the Shroud. See 01Nov13]

Shroud of Turin," 28 September 2024, Martin Barillas. For centuries Christians have attributed a first-century date to the Shroud of Turin. Nuclear engineer Robert Rucker says that his latest research on the shroud verifies that. "The Shroud of Turin is the second-most valuable possession of the human race next to the Bible itself," Rucker told CNA.[Agreed!] The shroud is currently preserved in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud adjacent to St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Turin (Torino), Italy. For more than 10 years, Rucker has studied the physics of the disappearance of the body of Jesus and its imprint on the shroud. His website, Shroud Research, challenges conclusions that the shroud dates to the period of 1260 to 1380 A.D., leading skeptics to conclude it is a medieval fake. ... In 1988, scientists used tiny samples snipped from the shroud to determine the amount of carbon 14 isotopes they contained, destroying the samples in the process. The radioactive carbon 14 isotope is a variant of carbon-containing excess neutrons, which are particles smaller than atoms. Over time, carbon 14 decays into nitrogen 14 in organic materials such as bone and plant matter. The ratio of carbon 14 atoms remaining in a sample provides the data needed to estimate the sample's age. Rucker said his calculations show that the 1988 carbon 14 dating is erroneous because it does not take into account the radiation emitted from Jesus' body at the resurrection, which included neutrons that were absorbed by the shroud and formed new carbon 14 atoms, thus leading to a misinterpretation of the data ... " [I have not studied Rucker's or Antonacci's Neutron Flux Theory, which attempts to explain why the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud was wrong. So the following are my generic criticisms of the theory (see also 23Jul15). This will help me write chapter 16, "Were the laboratories duped by a hacker?," of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22, 8 Nov 22 & 20Jun24.

• No Biblical support While there is Biblical support for the Light Radiation Theory (see 25Oct24), there is none for the Neutron Flux Theory. Paul, on the topic of the resurrection of Christians' bodies, taught: 1Cor 15:51-53: "we shall all be changed" when "this perishable body must put on the imperishable" and in Php 3:20-21 Jesus, at his return "will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body." In his resurrection body Jesus could pass through walls (Jn 20:19, 26), and instantly appear and disappear (Lk 24:31, 36)[AM00, 235; OM10, 244]. Clearly Jesus' resurrection involved a qualitative change of his earthly body, not a quantitative change to it that the removal of neutrons would be.

• No nitrogen in cellulose The Neutron Flux Theory claims that a neutron flux in Jesus' tomb converted nitrogen-14 in the Shroud into carbon-14, shifting the radiocarbon date of the first-century Shroud ~thirteen centuries into the future to 1325 +/- 65 or 1260-1390[GH96, 264; WI98, 7; OM10, 60-61; DT12, 170]. But there is no nitrogen in the cellulose which comprises the Shroud's linen[CFW]. The chemical formula of cellulose is (C₆H₁₀O₅), so cellulose consists only of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in repeating molecular chains[CLW]. The Neutron Flux Theory therefore claims that that the nitrogen in the Shroud's air spaces was converted to carbon-14 by a neutron flux generated by Jesus' resurrection[AM00, 160, 162]. But even if that was true, the carbon-14 in the Shroud's air spaces would not become part the Shroud's cellulose fibres[RTB]. And when each Shroud sample was reduced to pure carbon as a preliminary to radiocarbon dating it[PM96, 84; IJ98, 162], anything in the sample that was not carbon within the Shroud's cellulose would be excluded from the radiocarbon dating process[RTB]. So the Neutron Flux Theory does not work[RTB]!

• Would add neutrons to cellulose atoms The same neutron flux

[Left (enlarge): Cellulose molecular structure [CDL].

which the Neutron Flux Theory claims would add a neutron to an atom of nitrogen-14 in the Shroud's air spaces and convert it to an atom of carbon-14[RTB], would also add a neutron to atoms in the Shroud's cellulose fibre molecules[RTB]. Specifically one or more of the 6 carbon-12 atoms in each of the Shroud's millions of cellulose molecules would likely be converted to carbon-13[RTB]. One or more of the 10 hydrogen-1 atoms in each of the Shroud's cellulose molecules would likely be converted to deuterium-2[RTB]. And one or more of the 5 oxygen-16 atoms in each of the Shroud's cellulose molecules would likely be converted to oxygen-17[RTB]. The likely effect on the chemical bonds: -O- x 3, -OH x 2 and -CH2OH x 1, would be the disintegration of that cellulose molecule[RTB]. Particularly since the sudden arrival of a neutron from a neutron flux into the nucleus of an atom would likely be energetic[RTB]. This surely would have happened many millions of times across the Shroud, if the Neutron Flux Theory was true. In which case the Shroud would likely have fallen apart in the first century! That it hasn't, and the opposite is true: the Shroud has been closely examined many times and found to be in "good condition"[WM86, 2; GV01, 55; DT12, 13; WI10, 21], is a falsificaton of the Neutron Flux Theory! Neutron Flux Theorists can't have it both ways: the neutron flux emitted by Jesus' resurrecting body converted millions of the Shroud's nitogen-14 atoms into carbon-14, yet it had little or no effect on the atoms in the Shroud's cellulose molecules!]

• Source of the neutrons According to the Neutron Flux Theory, the source of the neutron flux is the resurrecting body of Jesus[CW20, 87]. About 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus[CHB]. Oxygen has 8 neutrons, carbon has 6, hydrogen 0, nitrogen 7, calcium 20, and phosphorus 16[PNE]. If each element, excepting hydrogen, loses 1 neutron, it becomes respectively: oxygen-15 (which has a half-life of ~2 minutes and decays to nitrogen-15), carbon-11 (with a half-life of ~20 minutes and decays to boron-11), nitrogen-13 (which has a half-life of ~10 minutes and decays to carbon-13), calcium-39 which decays instantly to potassium-39), and phosphorus-30 (which has a half-life of ~2.5 minutes and decays to silicon-30). The loss of some oxygen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus may be incompatible with human life, depending on how many neutrons are lost from them. And it would not be a valid explanation that it didn't matter if Jesus' resurrection body was not viable as a human body. The risen Jesus went out of his way to impress on his disciples that his resurrection body was still a human body. To the two disciples on the road to Emmaus he told them to see and touch his hands and feet, with their nail wounds, to confirm that his resurrected body was still "flesh and bones"(Lk 24:39). To the disciples in a locked Jerusalem room, Jesus showed them the wounds in his hands and side and even asked Thomas to feel them (Jn 20:19-20; 26-27).

Neutron flux would have killed the guards and disciples A neutron flux strong enough to convert enough nitrogen-14 to carbon-14, to shift the Shroud's first-century radiocarbon date ~thirteen centuries into the future to 1325 +/-65 (1260-1390), would have killed the guards stationed outside the tomb (Mt 27:65-66). The guards would have been stationed around the circular rolling stone at the entrance of the tomb (Mt 27:60; Mk 15:46), which would have had a gap between it and the tomb entrance around its edges, so the full-force of any neutron flux in the tomb would have been experienced by the guards, unimpeded by the tomb's limestone (which wouldn't have been an impediment anyway since neutrons pass through buildings) . A neutron bomb creates a neutron flux which passes through a military tank's metal armour and kills its occupants[NBW]. They are killed by Neutron Activation which makes a body's chemicals radioactive[NAW]. The guards were alive when an angel descended to roll back the large stone across the entrance of the tomb and announce to Jesus' women disciples who had come to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:1; Lk 23:55-24:1; Jn 20:1), that Jesus had been resurrected (Mt 28:1-6; Mk 16:1-6; Lk 24:1-6]). For fear of the angel the guards became like dead men (Mt 28:1-4). This must have been a paralysis, not unconsciousness, because the guards heard the angel's announcement that Jesus had been resurrected, since after the women had left the tomb, the guards recovered and some of them went into Jerusalem and told the chief priests "all that had taken place" (Mt 28:11-13). The guards evidently were unaware until the angel's announcement that Jesus had been resurrected inside the tomb, and so they had not heard, nor felt, any neutron flux from inside the tomb, which they surely would have if they were not killed instantly by it! Which means that there was no neutron flux inside Jesus' tomb!

Test of the Neutron Flux Theory Mark Antonacci (1949-) correctly has pointed out that if the first-century Shroud's 1260-1390 radiocarbon date was caused by a neutron flux at the resurrection of Jesus, which converted nitrogen-14 into carbon-14, the Shroud would contain the following isotopes that are rare, or non-existent, in nature:

• Calcium-41 (Ca-41):

"... STURP scientists discovered that calcium (along with strontium and iron) was distributed uniformly throughout the Shroud, probably as a result of the retting process when the cloth was originally manufactured. Almost 97 percent of all calcium consists of calcium-40 (Ca-40); the other 3.1 percent consists of Ca-42, 43, 44, 46, and 48. Conspicuously absent is Ca-41, which does not occur naturally. However, if a neutron flux had irradiated the Shroud, it would convert the Ca-40 in the cloth to Ca-41. If Ca-41 were found on the Shroud, it would confirm that the cloth had been irradiated with neutrons. Since calcium has been found distributed uniformly over the Shroud, any portion of the original doth could be examined for the presence of Ca-41"[AM00, 186; 01Nov13a].

This is substantially correct. Calcium-41 is found in nature, but only "in the upper metre of the soil column," because it is only created on Earth by nuclear fluxes from outer space:

"Calcium also has a cosmogenic isotope, 41Ca, with half-life 99,400 years. Unlike cosmogenic isotopes that are produced in the air, 41Ca is produced by neutron activation of 40Ca. Most of its production is in the upper metre of the soil column, where the cosmogenic neutron flux is still strong enough"[ICW]

• Chlorine-36 (Cl-36)

"In addition, when STURP scientists made X-ray fluorescence measurements on thirteen threads that had been removed from the Raes sample, they detected small traces of chlorine. [Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N. "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin," Analytica Chimica Acta 135 (1982): 3-49,47.] If a neutron flux irradiated the Shroud, it would convert chlorine-35 (Cl-35), found naturally, to chlorine-36 (Cl-36). Like Ca-41, Cl-36 does not occur naturally. As stated by Thomas Phillips in the scientific journal Nature, `The presence of either [Ca-41 or Cl-36] would confirm that the Shroud had been irradiated with neutrons'" [Phillips, 1989, p.594]."[AM00, 188 01Nov13b].

Schwalbe & Rogers actually reported that only "smaller traces" of chlorine were detected in the threads:

"In addition, they [the threads] showed smaller traces of potassium, chlorine, and possibly lead"[SR82, 47]

This already is a failure of a test for Chlorine-36 on the Shroud! Because if the Shroud had been irradiated by neutrons, there should be more than traces of chlorine on the Shroud.

• Carbon-14 in blood:

"Moreover, if the Shroud was irradiated with neutrons, it could have affected the blood in another significant way. The solid part of dried blood contain mostly proteins, which typically contains about 12 percent nitrogen by weight. This is a much larger amount of nitrogen than is found in cloth. If a neutron flux irradiated the blood on the cloth, it could convert the nitrogen-14 (N-14) into C-14 on a much larger scale than it would convert in cloth. As such, the blood would carbon date to a much younger date than the cloth. In fact, it could easily date well into the future"[AM00, 188-189 01Nov13c]. This sounds like an admission that there was not enough nitrogen-14 in the Shroud cloth for a neutron flux to account for the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud!]

To be continued in the seventh installment 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
AM00. Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY.
CHB "Composition of the human body," Wikipedia, 28 December 2024.
CDL "Cellulose: A Plant’s Building Block," Duluth Labs, 2016
CLW "Cellulose," Wikipedia, 30 December 2024.
CFW "Cellulose fiber," Wikipedia, 3 January 2025
CW20. Chiang, R.G. & White, E.M., eds, 2020, "Science, Theology and the Holy Shroud: Edited papers from the 2019 International Shroud Conference," Doorway Publications, Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.
DT12. de Wesselow, T., 2012, "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London.
GH96. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK.
IJ98. Iannone, J.C., 1998, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY.
ICW "Isotopes of calcium," Wikipedia, 6 November 2024.
NAW "Neutron activation," Wikipedia, 11 September 2024.
NBW "Neutron bomb," Wikipedia, 25 November 2024.
OM10. Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK.
PM96. Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta.
PNE. "Protons Neutrons & Electrons for All Elements," The Chemical Elements, 2025.
RR20. Rucker, R., 2020, "The Radiocarbon Dating of the Shroud is Explained by Neutron Absorption," in CW20, 87-100.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
SR82. Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., 1982, "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: A Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Analytica Chimica Acta, No. 135, 3-49.
WM86. Wilson, I. & Miller, V., 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London,.
WI98. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY.
WI10. Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London.

Posted 12 January 2025. Updated 18 January 2025.

Science and the Shroud (1): Turin Shroud Encyclopedia

Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

Science and the Shroud (1) #34

This is the thirteenth and final installment (which is an overall adding of references and tidying up) of "Science and the Shroud (1)," part #34 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia, which will help me write chapter 14, "Science and the Shroud," of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22, 8 Nov 22 & 20Jun24. I am basing this on my "Chronology of the Shroud: Nineteenth century," from "1898" onwards and "Twentieth century (1)" to 1902c.

Newcomers start with: "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell"

[Index #1] [Previous: Objections answered (2) #33] [Next: To be advised #35]

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1898a 25 May. In conjunction with the 1898 exposition of the Shroud over 8 days[JP78, 25; WI79, 26, 264; MR80, 122] from 25 May to 2 June[WI98, 298-299; MG99, 24], amateur but experienced Turin photographer Secondo Pia (1855–1941)[DT12, 18; SPW], took two 21 x 27 cm. test photographs of the Shroud[WI97; MG99, 25]. However, these reproduced poorly because of uneven lighting[WI97]. Nevertheless, although they were less than perfect, evident on these negatives was a strange effect[WI10, 18].

1898b 26 and 27 May. Three of Pia's fellow members of the Turin photography club, Prof. Noel Noguier de Malijay (1861-1930), Lt. Felice Fino and Fr Gianmaria Sanna Solaro smuggled their cameras into the exposition and took photographs of the Shroud[WI98, 298], which

[Right (enlarge): Fr. Solaro's life-like negative of the Shroud face[FM15, 71]. As well as Solaro's photograph, Paul Vignon (1865-1943) also verified that a copy of Fino's negative photograph of the Shroud face, and that of a visitor to the exposition, were effectively identical to Pia's negative[VP02, 111]. de Malijay's photograph became lost[VM87, 9.]

when developed, confirmed Pia's discovery that the Shroudman's image is a photographic negative[OG85, 50; VM87, 9].

1898c 28 May. Pia took a further two 21 x 27 cm. test photographs and four 50 x 60 cm. official photographs of the Shroud[MG99, 25]. Around midnight in his home darkroom[WI79, 27; WJ63, 24-25; CJ84, 49; DT12, 18], as Pia was developing the fourth test photograph of the Shroud mounted over Turin Cathedral's altar (below), he was astonished to see on the emerging negative, that the strange effect which he had seen on the first two test photographs (see above)

[Above (enlarge): Negative of Pia's fourth test photograph taken on 28 May[MG99, 24]. This is the actual negative photograph in which Pia first saw the Shroudman's life-like face.]

was real: the Shroudman's face on the negative had become life-like[MP78, 26; WI79, 27; IJ98, 5; WI98, 17; WI10, 18-19; DT12, 18-19],

[Above (enlarge[SP18]): Negative of the Shroudman's face by Secondo Pia, 1898. Presumably from one of his official photographs.]

as was the rest of his body[WM86, 10; RC99, 13]. Pia realised that the negative of the Shroudman's image is a photographic positive and therefore his image is a photographic negative[TF06, 54]!

The Shroud itself being inaccessible to scientists[MR80, 127; DT12, 100], Pia's photographs became the basis of scientific study of the Shroud[MR80, 126, 185; SH81, 30-31, 56; SR82, 41; OG85, 46; PM96, 213; IJ98, 191; GV01, 51, 156-157; TF06, 54; OM10, 195; DT12, 19-20, 100] for the next ~33 years[MR80, 127] (see future "1931") .

Despite the intention of the Shroud's owner, King Umberto I of Italy (r. 1878-1900) to, after informing the Vatican, make no public announcement until the implications of Pia's discovery were carefully considered, the news of leaked out[AF82, 54]. On 13 June the first press account of Pia's discovery was published in Genoa's Il Cittadino, followed by the national newspaper Corriere Nazionale on 14 June, and on 15 June the story of Pia's discovery was told in Rome's Osservatore Romano[WI98, 299]. No newspaper published Pia's Shroud negative, as photographs had not yet begun to appear in newspapers[AM00, 282]. However, the Christmas edition of the British photographic magazine Photogram published a large reproduction of Pia's photograph[WI98, 299]!

c. 1900. A small group of scientists at the Sorbonne Universty in Paris read the news articles about Pia's discovery and decided to start a scientific investigation into the Shroud[WE54, 17; WI79, 32; OM10, 170; DT12, 100]. The group included Rene Colson (1853-1941), physicist[WE54, 17], Paul Vignon, biologist[OA77, 4] , and Yves Delage (1854-1920), Professor of Comparative Anatomy[OA77, 4] and an agnostic[CJ84, 50-51; DR84, 4; BM95, 20; WI98, 299; AM00, 4; GV01, 51; DT12, 19, 117]. Vignon, who was the moving spirit of the group[WE54, 17], travelled to Turin to meet Pia and examine his Shroud photographic plates[VP02, 109; BR78, 36; MR80, 64]. Vignon satisfied himself of the genuineness of Pia's photographs and of Pia the man[VP02, 109; BR78, 36; MR80, 64]. Vignon returned to the Sorbonne with copies of Pia's photographic plates made by him for their scientific study[WE54, 17; DR84, 4].

That the Shroudman's image is a photographic negative is alone (and it is not alone) a fatal blow to the medieval forgery theory! Because: • The concept of photographic negativity only entered human knowledge when photography was invented in the middle of the nineteenth century[MR80, 64-65; SH81, 31, 57]. • Why would a medieval forger depict a negative image of Jesus on the Shroud when it could not be appreciated until it was photographed 5 centuries in the future[MR80, 65; SH81, 57]. • How could a medieval forger have the skill to depict the Shroud's fine anatomical detail when he would have been working blind, unable to check his work[MR80, 65; WM86, 10-11].

1902a. 21 April. Agnostic anatomy professor Yves Delage

[Left (enlarge)[FYD]. Portrait of Prof. Delage in 1911-12, by Mathurin Méheut (1882–1958)," Station Biologique de Roscoff, France].

(1854–1920)[GM69; MP78, 28; WI79, 32; SH81, 5; CJ84, 50-51; DR84, 4; BM95, 20; AM00, 4; GV01, 51; TF06, 185; OM10, 195; DT12, 117], a member of the French Academy of Sciences[WE54, 17; GM69], the foremost scientific body in the world at that time[MR80, 70; AM00, 4], reported the group's findings to the Academy, in a half-hour lecture titled, "The Image of Christ Visible on the Holy Shroud of Turin"[WJ63, 92; WI79, 32-33; GV01, 53; WI10, 31]. However, the Secretary of the Academy, Pierre Berthelot (1827-1907), an eminent thermo-chemist, was an atheist and he attempted to prevent Delage from presenting his report to the academy[WE54, 25; OG85, 68; AM00, 5; OM10, 196]. Then, after being overruled, Berthelot eliminated from the Proceedings of the Academy those parts of Delage's lecture which mentioned the Shroud and Christ[WE54, 25; AF82, 65; OG85, 68; AM00, 5; WI98, 298; WI10, 30; DT12, 20]! So on 31 May 1902, Delage wrote to the editor of Revue Scientifique, the eminent physiologist Charles Richet (1850-1935), who was to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1913, protesting Berthelot's censorship and including for publication in Revue Scientifique, the text of Delage's lecture which should have appeared in the Proceedings of the Academy[WE54, 26; WI79, 32; OG85, 68, 70-71; DT12, 20]!

Delage's points in Revue Scientifique were: • Negative The image on

[Right (enlarge): Extract of full-length negative of the Shroud from Pia's fourth test photograph of the Shroud above. Vignon would have been be working from a higher quality copy of this. As can be seen, if the Shroudman Jesus' image was a vaporograph, according to Delage and Vignon below, "The shroud was soaked in an emulsion of aloes ...", there would also be an image of the man's sides, since Jesus' body was "wrapped ... in a linen shroud" (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53). That the man's image is only of his front and back, and not of his sides, is explained by STURP physicist John Jackson's "Cloth Collapse Theory"].

the shroud is a negative[DY02, 72; WE54, 18], in which light and dark are reversed[DY02, 72]. • Anatomical perfection The negative of the image reveals an unexpected anatomical perfection[DY02, 72; WE54, 18; WI79, 33; WI10, 30-31]. Head was repellent but after reversal of light and shade becomes admirable and expressive[DY02, 72; WE54, 19]. No head of Christ painted by Renaissance artists is superior to that of the ShroudDY02, 72]. • How was the image formed[DY02, 72; WJ63, 99]? Not by direct contact as it would be rough representation (see below)[DY02, 72]. • Painting for pious fraud[DY02, 72]? Rejected because Shroud is authenticated from the 14th century and if its was a faked painting the artist, who has remained unknown, would be superior to the greatest Renaissance painters[DY02, 72; WE54, 19]! Difficult enough to paint as positive[DY02, 72], but incredible to have been painted as a negative[DY02, 72]. Impossible except by photography, unknown in 14th century[DY02, 72]. Forger painting a negative needed to know how to distribute light and shade so that after reversal would give figure of Christ with perfect precision[DY02, 72]. Why would a medieval forger have taken this trouble when his forgery's beauty could only be appreciated after the invention of photography in the early 19th century[DY02, 72]? He would have been working for his contemporaries, not for the 20th century[DY02, 73]. • Image is realistic, without errors, non-traditional and conforming to no artistic style[DY02, 73]. • Blood which is not in the form of drops flowing immediately from the wounds, is strikingly realistic (Delage was both a Doctor of Medicine and a Doctor of Science[GM69])[DY02, 73]. • Scourging caused by dumbbell-shaped flagrum, unknown in the 14th century[DY02, 73]? Convergence towards points two scourgers' hands were[DY02, 73]. A medieval forger would not think of that[DY02, 73]. Compare medieval artists' pictures[DY02, 73]. • Naked. Most irreverent[DY02, 73]. A loincloth could not fail to have been added[DY02, 73]. A medieval Shroud intended for the faithful should not shock their feelings or scandalise them[DY02, 73-74]. Loincloths have been added to copies of the Shroud[DY02, 74]. • Nail wounds in the wrists not through the palms in conformity with anatomical requirements and against tradition[DY02, 74]. • No outline. Continuous gradation without sharp contours, different what an artist would depict[DY02, 74]. • Physio-chemical. Not a painting by the hand of man[DY02, 74; WJ63, 99]. Some physio-chemical process[DY02, 74]. How can a corpse produce on its enveloping shroud an image which reproduces its details[DY02, 74]? Not contact with body soiled with sweat and blood[DY02, 74]. Would be rough image and deformed when cloth is spread flat[DY02, 74]. • Projection. Image is an almost orthogonal projection[DY02, 74; WJ63, 99]. • Three-dimensional. Not Delage's word. Intensity of image at each point of the cloth varies inversely with the distance of that corresponding point of the body[DY02, 74]. This intensity decreases very rapidly and vanishes at a distance of a few centimetres[DY02, 74]. • Vaporograph. What radiation or image-producing substances can emanate from a corpse[DY02, 75]? The cloth was impregnated with an emulsion of aloes in olive oil, which contains a thin layer of aloetin, that becomes brown under alkaline vapours[DY02, 75]. This was Vignon's idea[DY02, 75]. The body was covered in febrile sweat rich in urea[DY02, 75]. The urea formed ammonium carbonate, which in a calm atmosphere, emitted vapours[DY02, 75], more diluted the further they were from the emitting surface[DY02, 76]. The shroud was soaked in an emulsion of aloes which became brown under the influence of alkaline vapours and formed a tint the more intense the nearer it was to the body's surface[DY02, 76]. Hence the negative image[DY02, 76].

Problems of the vaporograph theory: 1) If the "shroud was soaked in an emulsion of aloes which became brown under the influence of alkaline vapours" and formed "the negative image" then there would be an image on the man's sides, not only of his front and back (see above). 2) The "mixture of myrrh and aloes" spices in Jn 19:39-40 were not "on" (epi), nor "around" (peri), but "with" (meta), Jesus' body[BW57, 47]. That is, they were alongside Jesus' body[BW57, 97; WI79, 246]. So the aloes would only contact the side of Jesus' body, where there is no image (see above)! 3) Sweating is controlled by the central nervous system, so Jesus' would have stopped sweating when he died at "the ninth hour" (Mt 27:46-50; Mk 15:34-37; Lk 23:44-46), i.e. ~3pm. Jesus was entombed just before sunset (Lk 23:54), which would have been ~6pm[RTB], so Jesus' body would be cold after he had been dead for ~3 hours[RTB]. 3) Vapours don't travel in straight lines, but diffuse in all directions[PM96, 219]. So they would have diffused down through the cloth[PM96, 219], which they didn't because the man's image is extremely superficial (see 11Nov16) . 4) Vignon only had Pia's photographs, so he would not know that the Shroud image is not a substance added but is a physical change in the flax image fibres[see 11Jul16]. And 5) that the Shroud image is extremely superficial residing on the topmost fibres and not penetrating down through the thin Shroud cloth[RTB].

Identity of the corpse "Should I speak of the identity of the person who left his image on the shroud?" (my emphasis)[DY02, 76; WJ63, 100]. Unless this is a translation error, Delage sounds like a Shroudie! • On one hand we have the shroud impregnated with aloes - from the East outside Egypt[DY02, 76]. And a crucified man who had been scourged, pierced in his right side and crowned with thorns[DY02, 76; WJ63, 100]. On the other hand we have an account that Christ had undergone in Judea the same treatment as the image on the Shroud[DY02, 76]. Is it not natural to bring together these two parallel series and refer them to the same object[DY02, 76; WJ63, 100]? • For the image to be produced and not later destroyed, it is necessary that the body should remain in the Shroud at least 24 hours, the time necessary for the formation of the image and at most a few days, after which putrefaction destroys the image and finally the shroud[DY02, 76; WJ63, 101]. This is precisely what tradition asserts happened to Christ[DY02, 76]. Who died on Friday and disappeared on Sunday[DY02, 76]. • And, if not Christ it must be some criminal, but how is that to be reconciled with his admirably noble expression[DY02, 76]? • Probility not Jesus. Here Delage pioneered the `probability not Jesus' argument! Five circumstances (to mention only the principal ones), which are exceptional: East outside of Egypt, spear wound in side, crown of thorns, duration of burial and physiognomy[DY02, 77]. If for each there was 1 chance in 100 that each occurred in someone other than Jesus, that would be 1 chance in ten thousand million[DY02, 77]. [That is 10^(2+2+2+2+2) = 10^10 = 10, 000,000,000)]. Not exact but to show the improbability of all these conditions occurring in another person[DY02, 77]. Another person would be pure invention, not mentioned in history, tradition or legend[DY02, 77]. This is a good point to be used against the `crucified crusader' theory. Not Irrefutable but striking bundle of probabilities[DY02, 77]. • It is not scientific to shrug one's shoulders to avoid discussion[DY02, 77]. It is up to those opposed to Delage's arguments to refute them[DY02, 77]. They are not received by some because a religious question has been unfairly grafted on to this scientific question[DY02, 77]. • If it was not Christ but Sargon or Achilles or one of the Pharaohs, no one would have any objections[DY02, 77]. In refusing to insert my note in the Proceedings it has been forgotten that much more hypothetical theories have been published[DY02, 77]. But then there was no matters touching religion[DY02, 77]. ︎Conclusion. • "I have been faithful to the true spirit of Science in treating this question, intent only on the truth, not concerned in the least whether the truth would affect the interests of any religious; party. There are those, however, who have let themselves be swayed by this consideration and have betrayed the scientific method."[DY02, 79]. • "I consider Christ as a historical person and I see no reason why people hould be scandalised if there exists a material trace of his existence"[DY02, 79].

1902b April-May. Publication of French biologist and Roman Catholic colleague of Delage, Paul Vignon (1865-1943)'s [Left [DP83].] important pro-Shroud book, Le linceul du Christ: étude scientifique (Masson et Cie, Paris)[WE54, 27; MP78, 28], followed in the same year by its English translation, "The Shroud of Christ" (Archibald Constable, Westminster)[TF06, 54; DT12, 100]. The results of the group's research were published in Vignon's book[ZT84, 31]. On the first page of Chapter I, Vignon stated:

"Plain, simple observation will prove to us that the impressions are not the work of a painter, but they are the actual marks, left by a human body on the linen cloth-marks produced long ago by some action, other than direct contact, set up between the dead body and the linen cloth ... No one in the Middle Ages had the knowledge necessary for their production by handicraft"[VP02, 15]

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
AF82. Adams, F.O., 1982, "Sindon: A Layman's Guide to the Shroud of Turin," Synergy Books: Tempe AZ.
AM00. Antonacci, M., 2000, "Resurrection of the Shroud: New Scientific, Medical, and Archeological Evidence," M. Evans & Co: New York NY.
BM95. Borkan, M., 1995, "Ecce Homo?: Science and the Authenticity of the Turin Shroud," Vertices, Duke University, Vol. X, No. 2, Winter, 18-51.
BR78. Brent, P. & Rolfe, D., 1978, "The Silent Witness: The Mysteries of the Turin Shroud Revealed," Futura Publications: London.
BW57. Bulst, W., 1957, "The Shroud of Turin," McKenna, S. & Galvin, J.J., transl., Bruce Publishing Co: Milwaukee WI.
CJ84. Cruz, J.C., 1984, "Relics: The Shroud of Turin, the True Cross, the Blood of Januarius. ..: History, Mysticism, and the Catholic Church," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN.
DR84. Drews, R., 1984, "In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on Its History and Origins," Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham MD.
DT12. de Wesselow, T., 2012, "The Sign: The Shroud of Turin and the Secret of the Resurrection," Viking: London.
DY02. Delage, Y., 1902, "Letter to M. Charles Richet," in Review scientifique, 31 May, in OG85, 70-80.
FM15. Fanti, G. & Malfi, P., 2015, "The Shroud of Turin: First Century after Christ!," Pan Stanford: Singapore.
FYD. File:Yves Delage. Photogravure. Wellcome L0012332.jpg, Wikimedia Commons, 7 September 2020.
GM69. Green, M., 1969, "Enshrouded in Silence: In search of the First Millennium of the Holy Shroud," Ampleforth Journal, Vol. 74, No. 3, Autumn, 319-345.
GV01. Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL.
IJ98. Iannone, J.C., 1998, "The Mystery of the Shroud of Turin: New Scientific Evidence," St Pauls: Staten Island NY.
JP78. Jennings, P., ed., 1978, "Face to Face with the Turin Shroud ," Mayhew-McCrimmon: Great Wakering UK.
MG99. Moretto, G., 1999, "The Shroud: A Guide," Neame, A., transl., Paulist Press: Mahwah NJ.
MP78. McNair, P., 1978, "The Shroud and History: Fantasy, Fake or Fact?," in JP78, 21-40.
MR80. Morgan, R.H., 1980, "Perpetual Miracle: Secrets of the Holy Shroud of Turin by an Eye Witness," Runciman Press: Manly NSW, Australia.
OG85. O'Rahilly, A. & Gaughan, J.A., ed., 1985, "The Crucified," Kingdom Books: Dublin.
OA77. Otterbein, A.J., 1977, "American Conference of Research on the Shroud of Turin," in SK77, 3-9.
PM96. Petrosillo, O. & Marinelli, E., 1996, "The Enigma of the Shroud: A Challenge to Science," Scerri, L.J., transl., Publishers Enterprises Group: Malta.
OM10. Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK.
DP83. Extract from de Gail, P., 1983, "Paul Vignon," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 6, March, pp.46-50, 46.
RC99. Ruffin, C.B., 1999, "The Shroud of Turin: The Most Up-To-Date Analysis of All the Facts Regarding the Church's Controversial Relic," Our Sunday Visitor: Huntington IN.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
SH81. Stevenson, K.E. & Habermas, G.R., 1981, "Verdict on the Shroud: Evidence for the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ," Servant Books: Ann Arbor MI.
SK77. Stevenson, K.E., ed., 1977, "Proceedings of the 1977 United States Conference of Research on The Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Bronx NY.
SP18. "SECONDO PIA (1855–1941): Shroud of Turin, c. 1898," Christie's 2024.
SPW. "Secondo Pia," Wikipedia, 1 April 2024.
SR82. Schwalbe, L.A. & Rogers, R.N., 1982, "Physics and Chemistry of the Shroud of Turin: A Summary of the 1978 Investigation," Analytica Chimica Acta, No. 135, 3-49.
TF06. Tribbe, F.C., 2006, "Portrait of Jesus: The Illustrated Story of the Shroud of Turin," Paragon House Publishers: St. Paul MN, Second edition.
VP02. Vignon, P., 1902, "The Shroud of Christ," University Books: New York NY, Reprinted, 1970.
VM87. van Haelst, R. & Morgan, R., 1987, "Honouring an Almost Forgotten Shroud Scholar: Don Noguier de Malijay," Shroud News, No. 40, April, 8-10.
WE54. Wuenschel, E.A. 1954, "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961.
WI79. Wilson, I., 1979, "The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?," [1978], Image Books: New York NY, Revised edition.
WI97. Wilson, I., 1997, "A Calendar of the Shroud for the Years 1694-1898," BSTS Newsletter, No. 45, June/July.
WI98. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY.
WI10. Wilson, I., 2010, "The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved," Bantam Press: London.
WJ63. Walsh, J.E., 1963, "The Shroud," Random House: New York NY.
WM86. Wilson, I. & Miller, V., 1986, "The Evidence of the Shroud," Guild Publishing: London.
WR10. Wilcox, R.K., 2010, "The Truth About the Shroud of Turin: Solving the Mystery," [1977], Regnery: Washington DC.
ZT84. Zeuli, T., 1984, "Jesus Christ is the Man of the Shroud," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 10, March, 29-33.

Posted 29 December 2024. Updated 11 January 2025.

Objections answered (2): Turin Shroud Encyclopedia

Copyright © Stephen E. Jones[1]

Objections answered (2) #33

This is "Objections answered (2)," part #33 of my Turin Shroud Encyclopedia, which will help me write Chapter "21. Objections answered" of my book in progress, "Shroud of Turin: Burial Sheet of Jesus!" See 06Jul17, 03Jun18, 04Apr22, 13Jul22, 8 Nov 22 & 20Jun24. It follows my "Objections answered (1) #25" of 07Jul23.

I am basing this "Objections answered (2)" on an online article, "The

[Right (enlarge): Spencer McDaniel - Bad Ancient]

Shroud of Turin Is Definitely a Hoax," by a Spencer McDaniel." She (a transgender person) is described as:

"Spencer McDaniel is an aspiring scholar of ancient Greek cultural and social history. She graduated with high distinction from Indiana University Bloomington in May 2022 with a BA in history and classical studies (Ancient Greek and Latin languages), with departmental honors in history. She is currently a student in the MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at Brandeis University. Some of her main historical interests include ancient religion, mythology, and folklore; gender and sexuality; ethnicity; and interactions between Greeks and "foreign" cultures. She is the author of the blog Tales of Times Forgotten, where she writes regular, in-depth posts about ancient history and related topics."

Newcomers start with: "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell"

[Index #1] [Previous: Image of Edessa #32] [Next: Science and the Shroud #34]

---

As with the format of "Objections answered (1)," I will present McDaniel's objections to the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet under headings using her words as far as possible. They will be in bullet points, enclosed in single quotation marks as from an imaginary objector, which will be closer to what will appear in my book.

• `The Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD by an artist trained in the Gothic figurative style'

"Unfortunately, we can be virtually certain that the Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France in around the 1350s AD by an artist trained in the Gothic figurative style as part of a faith-healing scam"[MS20].

McDaniel is a scholar but her article is not scholarly. She cites no references for her assertions and neither does it have a bibliography of what Shroud literature she has read (if any).

Who was this "artist"? And who was the artist who "trained" him "in the Gothic figurative style"? McDaniels is postulating not one, but two unknown artists! Where are her supporting references from Gothic art experts that the Shroud is a work of mid-14th century Gothic art? And since the Shroud image is not painted (from my book in progress):

Not painted It has been known since at least the 1930s that the Shroudman's image is not painted. By examining the Shroud with a magnifying glass during the 1931 exposition, English Roman Catholic prelate Arthur Barnes (1861-1936), could see individual threads in the image area with no colouring matter covering them[BA34, 10-11, 14. See below]. Sceptics now admit that the man's image is not painted. Prof. Edward Hall (1924-2001), then Director of the Oxford radiocarbon dating laboratory, when in 1988 collecting his laboratory's Shroud sample, examined the Shroud with a magnifying glass and satisfied himself that the image was not painted[WI98, 198]. Sceptic Joe Nickell (1944-) has admitted that, "...convincing evidence for any painting medium (that is, oil, egg tempera, etc.) on shroud image fibers is lacking"[NJ87, 99]. Former Nature editor Philip Ball (1962-), likewise conceded, "the shroud ... does not seem to have been painted ..."[BP05]. The Shroud of Turin Project (STURP) confirmed in 1981 that no paint, pigment, or dye constitutes the man's image[SS81].

(and it is not a statue), the Shroud cannot be a work of Gothic art!

[Left (enlarge[11Jul16]): Photomicrograph taken by optical engineer Kevin Moran (1934-2019) of 15 microns (15 thousandths of a millimetre) diameter Shroud fibres attached to one of Max Frei (1913–83)'s Shroud sticky tapes. Each image (yellow) fibre can be clearly seen, with no colouring matter (paint, pigment or dye) covering it. The yellow colour of the image fibres is due to a physical change in the flax: dehydrative oxidation and conjugation of cellulose[27Jul24]. The boundaries between the image (yellow) and non-image parts of each fibre are only about 1 micron (1 thousandth of a millimetre) wide. No human artist/forger can paint, etc., with such precision. These fibres are too thin (about half the thickness of an average human hair, and there must be many millions of them), to be individually painted or dyed, etc, by a medieval forger!]

• `The Shroud of Turin is a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD as part of a faith-healing scam'

The words "faith-healing scam" are Joe Nickell's, which McDaniel plagiarises by not putting them within quotation marks and not including a reference attributing them to Nickell[PGW]:

"In 1389 a bishop reported to Pope Clement VII that it had been used in a faith-healing scam in which persons were hired to feign illness, then, when the cloth was revealed to them, to pretend to have been healed, `so that money might cunningly be wrung' from unsuspecting pilgrims. `Eventually,' he said, after `diligent inquiry and examination,' the `fraud' was uncovered. The cloth had been `cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who painted it' (D'Arcis 1389)"[NJ15]

And it is Nickell who is running a `sceptics scam' in making a living off unsuspecting sceptics by continuing to repeat Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95)' false, "The cloth had been `cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who painted it'" claim, when (as we saw above) Nickell admitted in 1987 (~37 years ago) that the Shroudman's image is not painted!

As for Nickell's `faith healing scam' claim, he bases this on d'Arcis claim in his 1389 memorandum that:

"This story was put about not only in the kingdom of France, but, so to speak, through out the world, so that from all parts people came together to view it. And further to attract the multitude so that money might cunningly be wrung from them, pretended miracles were worked, certain men being hired to represent themselves as healed at the moment of the exhibition of the shroud, which all believed to be the shroud of our Lord"[WI79, 267] "

There are multiple problems with d'Arcis' statement above: • d'Arcis' claim above is at best hearsay[SD89, 15; AM00, 152-153], or at worst he just made it up[AM00, 153]. • d'Arcis provided no documentary evidence to support his claims[SD89, 15; AM00, 153]. And as we have seen there was no "artist who painted" the Shroud because it is not "painted," so that key claim in d'Arcis' memorandum is false! • The evidence is overwhelming that the Shroud is "the shroud of our Lord." So it is possible that there were real miracles of healing associated with that first undisputed exposition of the Shroud. • Neither Geoffroy I's widow, Jeanne de Vergy (c.1332–1428), nor the Lirey church, were wealthy after the c. 1355 exposition. Following her husband's 1356 death, Jeanne had to appeal to the young future king Charles V (r. 1364-80) for her infant son Geoffroy II (1352-98) to be granted the two houses in Paris that Charles' captured father, King John II (r. 1350-64) had promised Geoffroy I (c. 1306-56)[WI98, 279]. And the small wooden Lirey church fell into disrepair[WI79, 213; SH81, 29; WI91, 25; TF06, 47] until it was replaced in stone over 170 years later in 1526[WI98, 287]. Yet according to d'Arcis and Nickell, Jeanne de Vergy, and/or the Lirey church, would have been fabulously wealthy from all that "money" they allegedly had "cunningly ... wrung from" the "multitude"! This is further evidence that d'Arcis was not simply mistaken, but was actually lying in his memorandum! Significantly, d'Arcis in his memorandum had to defend himself from the allegation that he was "acting through jealousy and cupidity and to obtain possession of the cloth for myself":

"The scandal is upheld and defended and its supporters cause it to be spread abroad among the people that I am acting through jealousy and cupidity and to obtain possession of the cloth for myself"[WI79, 269]

McDaniel continues:

"We know this primarily because there is no definitive record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century and the earliest definitive record of the shroud is a letter recording that the forger who made it had confessed, but also because of a wide array of other factors. For instance, the shroud doesn't match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD or the specific description of Jesus's funerary wrappings given in the Gospel of John. The fabric of the shroud has also been conclusively radiocarbon dated to the Late Middle Ages"[MS20].

• `There is no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century' I have left out "definitive" here and next because the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: "firm, final, and complete; not to be questioned or changed," and so McDaniel is trying to win her argument by a definition!

This is both fallacious and false. It is fallacious that if there was "no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century," it would not automatically prove that the Shroud was "a hoax that was originally created in France around the 1350s AD by an artist." Shroud sceptics would need to prove that. But, as the Irish theologian Patrick Beecher (1870-1940) pointed out in 1928, even if there was no "documentary evidence" for the origin of the Shroud, it "carrie[s] in itself its own proof of its genuineness":"

"Some eighteen months ago the London Times had a photograph of a bronze statue that was found at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Experts examined it and pronounced it a genuine Greek statue. It was accepted as such; no one doubted the opinion that was expressed; and it will be labelled for all future time as a Greek statue. Suppose some one had objected and said: `No, I refuse to believe that it is a Greek statue unless I get documentary evidence as to when and where it was made, and how it came to be at the bottom of the sea.' Would that attitude be regarded as reasonable? ... NO, rather he would be looked upon as eccentric in not being able to see that the statue carried in itself its own proof of its genuineness. Very well, but we have vastly stronger intrinsic proof for the genuineness of the Shroud." (emphasis original)[BP28, 136-137].

And it is false that there is no record of the shroud prior to the fourteenth century. For starters see in my "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell":

After the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, Nicholas Mesarites (c. 1163-aft.1216), the Keeper of the Byzantine Empire's relic collection, recalled that in 1201[11Nov17] the collection included "the sindon [which had] wrapped the un-outlined (Gk. aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]"[11Jun16]. "sindon," "un-outlined," "naked." This can only have been the Shroud, 59 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date and 154 years before the Shroud first appeared in c. 1355, in undisputed history, at Lirey, France[27Jul24]!

• `The earliest record of the shroud is a letter recording that the forger who made it had confessed' This is false! Because the Shroud is not painted (see above), there was no "forger who made it" and therefore no confession. d'Arcis provided no checkable details about the forger because there wasn't one: d'Arcis made him up! That is, in this d'Arcis was lying, just as he was lying about the "money" that Jeanne de Vergy and/or the Lirey church had "cunningly ... wrung from" the "multitude" (see above). d'Arcis really was "acting through jealousy and cupidity ... to obtain possession of the cloth for [him]self" (see above)! And as for "The earliest record of the shroud" being in Bishop d'Arcis' 1389 memorandum, see again, for starters Nicholas Mesarites' statement that in 1201, Constantinople's relic collection included "the sindon [which had] wrapped the un-outlined (aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]"!

• `The shroud doesn't match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD' This also is false. McDaniel's claims about the Shroud are largely arguments from ignorance because evidently she knows little of pro-Shroud literature. Today (21 December 2024) I briefly looked at the comments under her post, and in one of her replies she admitted, "I had not heard of Thomas de Wesselow ..."! Contrary to McDaniel's unsubstantiated assertion that, "The shroud doesn't match the kinds of funerary wrappings that were used in the Judaea in the first-century AD," Jewish scholar Victor Tunkel (1933-2019) confirmed in 1983 that "the Shroud [is] perfectly compatible with what he would expect of a Jew crucified in first century AD. Palestine"!:

"As a subject the Shroud traverses many religious divisions, and on 12 May it was a particular privilege to hear the views of a Jewish scholar, Victor Tunkel of the University of London. Victor Tunkel began his talk with a gentle reproof to many Shroud writers for relying too heavily on Christian sources rather than consulting the acknowledged complex world of Jewish Law and practice. He pointed out the lack of need for many of the theological arguments concerning whether the body of Jesus would or would not have been washed before burial. It was quite unnecessary to postulate the man of the Shroud having gone unwashed due to haste. Jewish Law is quite explicit that anyone who died a bloody death, as from crucifixion, would have gone unwashed, because it was important in Pharisaic belief for all elements of the body, including the life-blood, to be kept together. This was so that the body would be kept complete for a physical resurrection at the end of time. The same need for lack of disturbance of bloodstains meant that while one who died an unbloody death would have been buried in relatively normal clothes - shirt, breeches, etc - Jesus would have been wrapped in a single sheet called in Hebrew a sovev (the word means `to surround' or `go around') readily corresponding to what we know of the Turin Shroud. Victor Tunkel accordingly found the Shroud perfectly compatible with what he would expect of a Jew crucified in first century AD. Palestine." (my emphasis)[WI83, 9].

• `The shroud doesn't match the description of Jesus's funerary wrappings in the Gospel of John.' McDaniel asserts with no references:

"In Judaea during the first century AD, people did not normally wrap whole bodies in a single rectangular piece of linen; instead, people wrapped the body in strips of linen and wrapped the head separately from the body using its own piece of linen. The Gospel of John 20:6–7 actually explicitly describes Jesus’s head and body having been wrapped separately in precisely this manner."

Because McDaniel is ignorant of pro-Shroud literature (see above), she fails to distinguish between the burial of Jews who died a normal, unbloody death, like Lazarus (Jn 11:1-44), and Jews who died a bloody death, like Jesus, as explained above:

"The same need for lack of disturbance of bloodstains meant that while one who died an unbloody death would have been buried in relatively normal clothes - shirt, breeches, etc - Jesus would have been wrapped in a single sheet called in Hebrew a sovev ... readily corresponding to what we know of the Turin Shroud."

And the Gospel of John does not purport to provide a "description of Jesus's funerary wrappings" at the time of Jesus' burial. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke do that:

Mt 27:59-60 "And Joseph [of Arimathea] took the body [of Jesus] and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud [sindon] and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock."

Mk 15:46: "And Joseph [of Arimathea] bought a linen shroud[sindon], and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock."

Lk 23:53: "Then he [Joseph of Arimathea] took it [the body of Jesus] down and wrapped it in a linen shroud [sindon] and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid."

The Gospel of John's account is a "description of Jesus's funerary wrappings" after Jesus had been resurrected:

Jn 20:3-8 "3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths [othonia "strips of linen" NIV] lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth [soudarion], which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;"

So at the time of Jesus' burial, his wrists, ankles and chin would have been bound with strips of linen[othonia] to keep them together; a facecloth [soudarion] was moved to the top of Jesus' supine head; within an all-enveloping shroud (sindon = Heb. sovev). After Jesus' resurrection, the strips of linen (othonia) and the facecloth (soudarion) were in the empty tomb, but the Shroud (sindon) was no longer there-Jesus had taken it with him out of the tomb! See my "Servant of the priest" mini-series.

• `The fabric of the shroud has also been conclusively radiocarbon dated to the Late Middle Ages.' The 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud cannot be correct! Not only are there historical refererences to what can only be the Shroud, long before 1260, for example Nicholas Mesarites' above recollection that in 1201, Constantinople's relic collection included "the sindon [which had] wrapped the un-outlined (aperilepton), naked dead body [of Christ]," which can only be the Shroud. There also are artistic references to what can only be the Shroud long before 1260. For example, the 1192-95 Pray Codex

[Right (enlarge): The Entombment of Christ (upper) and Three Marys [sic Mk 16:1-6] at the tomb (lower). The images are claimed as one of the evidences against the radiocarbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin (Wikipedia's words. My emphasis)[PCW]!]

which contains four pen and ink drawings that are at least 100 years earlier (i.e. 1095)[MP98, 33]. Two of those four drawings contain at least fourteen unique correspondences with the Shroud (see 04Oct18), far too many to be the result of chance!

• `The proportions of the figure on the shroud are anatomically incorrect.' Another unsubstantiated assertion from McDaniel! One of the earliest supporters of the Shroud being Jesus' burial sheet was the agnostic, Professor of Anatomy at the Sorbonne, Yves Delage (1854–1920):

"Yves Delage (13 May 1854 – 7 October 1920) was a French zoologist known for his work into invertebrate physiology and anatomy. He also discovered the function of the semicircular canals in the inner ear. He is also famous for noting and preparing a speech on the Turin Shroud, arguing in favour of its authenticity. Delage estimated the probability that the image on the shroud was not caused by the body of Jesus Christ as 1 in 10 billion"(Wikipedia's words. My emphasis)[DYW]

And he did this because of the anatomical realism of the Shroud!:

"Yves Delage, who at the turn of the century was the Sorbonne's distinguished professor of comparative anatomy. It is ironic that Delage, who was a religious agnostic (and continued to be an agnostic during and after his study of the Shroud) was thus cast as the champion of the Shroud's authenticity ... Delage insisted that the anatomical detail revealed by Pia's photographs was too correct to have been produced by an artist" (my emphasis)[DR84, 4]

"In early 1900, after hearing of the mysterious photographs taken of the Shroud by Secondo Pia in 1898, he [Vignon] met with Pia and was convinced that the image on the Shroud could not have been painted. Vignon worked closely with Yves Delage, a professor of anatomy at the Sorbonne. Their association was unique in that Vignon was a devout Catholic while Delage was an agnostic. Delage concurred that the photographs of the Shroud were anatomically correct and could not have been produced by an artist" (my emphasis)[GV01, 51]

"It was only in 1898, when the first photograph of the Shroud was taken by Secondo Pia, that the full detail of the man on the Shroud was seen in the negative produced by Pia ... The first medical study of Pia's photographs was carried out by a team at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1900, led by a biologist, Paul Vignon. Their findings were presented by one of the team members, Prof Yves Delage, in a lecture to the Paris Academy of Sciences. He explained that, from a medical point of view, the wounds and other markings on the Shroud were so anatomically flawless that they could not have been the work of an artist. It was his conclusion that the Shroud bore the image of Christ, created by some unknown process as he lay in the tomb" (my emphasis)[OM10, 170].

Due to their ignorance of pro-Shroud literature, sceptics assume that the Shroudman is lying flat (see 22Jul12) and therefore his body looks anatomicaly distorted. But in fact, he was lying on the Shroud in his hanging-on-a-cross position, fixed by rigor mortis (see 05Jun22), which could only be broken at the shoulders, not at the larger abdominal and leg muscles:

"The dorsal view of the legs provides crucial evidence of the state of the body and its position in death. As we have seen, the left foot appears half-hidden, as if it slightly overlapped the right, and this ties in with the fact that the right calf is much more strongly marked than the left, implying that the left leg was raised a little off the cloth. This arrangement, which is not how the lower legs and feet rest naturally, is best understood in terms of rigor mortis. When someone dies, their body initially goes limp, but within three hours (sooner if the body is hot) a complex chemical reaction in the muscles causes them to become rock hard, and the body remains fixed in position. This is the condition known as rigor mortis. The man wrapped in the Shroud would seem to have died with one foot crossed over the other, his left leg fractionally bent, a position maintained after death ... The position of the hands is also revealing. They are crossed over the genitals, which is lower on the body than we might expect. If you lie down on a flat surface and attempt to recreate the pose, you will find that your upper arms naturally rest on the ground and your hands cross nearer your navel, about 6 inches higher up the body than on the Shroud. To imitate the Shroud's image, you have to lift your arms and hold them almost straight - an unnatural resting position. What can account for this posture? The answer, I think, is that the man's arms were fixed in rigor mortis and maintained the stiff position they had on the cross, except that they would originally have been splayed out either side of his head. The rigor in the shoulders must have been broken - an operation requiring quite a bit of force - so that the arms could be contained within the narrow sheet (and help preserve the man's modesty)"[DT12, 144-146]

Note that the above explanation is by Thomas de Wesselow, who McDaniel admitted above "I had not heard of..."!

Artist and physicist, Isabel Piczek (1927-2016), after a careful study of

[Above: Artist Isabel Piczek's reconstruction of how Jesus body was bent forward due to rigor mortis having set in while he was left hanging dead on the cross for several hours[PI96].]

Shroud photographs, has depicted what the Shroudman would have looked like in profile, lying on the Shroud in death.

• `The proportions of the figure on the shroud closely match the proportions of figures in Gothic art of the fourteenth-century.' Yet another unsubstantiated assertion from McDaniel! See previously, "Where are her supporting references from Gothic art experts that the Shroud is a work of mid-14th century Gothic art"? There would not be any! Compare artist and physicist Isabel Piczek's reconstruction above of how Jesus body was bent forward due to rigor mortis on the Shroud, with McDaniel's chosen

[Right (enlarge): Central tympanum, Chartres Cathedral, France. Note that these are not Gothic art depictions of Jesus, of which there aren't any, or McDaniels would provide them. McMcDaniel asks us in her post to: "Notice the small foreheads, long lower faces, long arms, and long bodies—all features of Gothic art that are found in the Turin Shroud"! But this is a straw man fallacy by McDaniel, born of her ignorance of pro-Shroud literature! She sets up a false, lying flat, carri-cature of the Shroudman and then claims it matches the Shroud! When I was doing my Biology degree we were told not to write a scientific paper until we spent a year thoroughly researching the literature on our chosen topic. McDaniel aspires to be a scholar but she has evidently spent little or no time researching pro-Shroud literature. She should be ashamed of her lack of ingrained scholarly rigour!]

example of `Shroud-like' Gothic art above! On the topic of Chartres Cathedral, if McDaniel ever reads this my reply to her post (which now appear close together in Google searches), she might want to read my 2018 post, "Shroud-like Jesus in a stained glass window (c.1150) in Chartres Cathedral, France" Not only does it have un-Gothic, Shroud-like, depictions of Jesus, some of the stained glass windows dated c. 1150 have features (e.g. the reversed 3 bloodstain) which are original on the Shroud (~110 years before the Shroud's earliest 1260 radiocarbon date)! Also, to bring McDaniel up to speed on pro-Shroud literature, she might also read my 2024 post "The Turin Shroud in a nutshell."

• `The bloodstains on the shroud are not consistent with how blood flows naturally, which suggests the stains have been painted on.' McDaniels continues to parade her ignorance of pro-Shroud literature! First, as Dr Pierre Barbet (1884–1961), Chief Surgeon of St Joseph's Hospital, Paris, and a battlefield surgeon in World War I, discovered in the 1930s, that the bloodstains on the Shroud are almost all clotted, not flowing, blood:

"As I lacked the chance of making such decisive experiments, it was precisely the study of these pictures of the clots which led me to the conclusion that they really were counter-drawings of congealed blood. ... In the eyes of a surgeon they possess a most striking realism, which I have never yet seen in any painting. All painters ... paint flows of blood with more or less parallel edges, and are well content as long as they follow the laws of gravity ... But these are flows of liquid blood, of blood which is not clotted. And they imagine that they are thus being realistic. There is no flow of blood on the shroud; there are only the counter-drawings of clots; these clots represent that part of the blood which has congealed on the skin, while flowing over it."[BP53, 27-28]

Second, the blood on the Shroud is not paint but real, human, blood. From my book in progress (references omitted):

Real, human blood The bloodstains on the Shroud are real human blood. Real blood The Shroudman's blood is real. At STURP’s final public meeting in New London, Connecticut, on 10-11 October, 1981, when Adler was asked how he could answer McCrone's claim that there was no blood on the Shroud but merely red ochre and vermilion, Adler put on the screen a table listing 12 tests of Shroud samples which he and Heller had conducted that confirmed the presence of blood. Adler concluded, `That means that the red stuff on the Shroud is emphatically, and without any reservation, nothing else but B-L-O-O-D!’ Human blood The blood is human. In 1980 Adler and Heller, analysing STURP’s 1978 sticky tape samples, found that under ultraviolet light a sample from a Shroud bloodstained area returned a fluorescent antibody result consistent with a primate origin. This supported a human source for the blood marks, as the only non-human primates in medieval Europe were a small population of Barbary Macaques in the mountains of Gibraltar. And the image on the shroud is that of a human, not an ape! In 1978, Dr Pierluigi Baima-Bollone (1937-), Professor of Legal Medicine at the University of Turin, was permitted to remove fragments of threads from the Shroud. In 1983, Baima-Bollone and Dr Agostino Gaglio (1950-2013), also by means of fluorescent antigen-antibody reactions, confirmed that the Shroud blood is indeed human blood. Blood group AB Then in 1983 at the 1984 Italian National Shroud Congress, Profs Baima-Bollone and Gaglio reported that they had confirmed the identification of the blood group AB in Shroud bloodstains."

• `The fabric of the shroud was made using a complex weave that was common in the Late Middle Ages but was not used for burial shrouds in the time of Jesus.' The Shroud's "complex weave" is three-to-one, herringbone twill:

"From previous visual study of the Shroud weave, a certain amount of information had already been deduced. The overall style of the weave had been generally agreed to be a three-to-one herringbone twill- each weft thread passing alternately under three warp threads and over one, producing diagonal lines, which reverse direction at regular intervals to create the herringbone pattern. That was in itself interesting, as most known Palestinian, Roman, and Egyptian linens of around the time of Christ tend to `plain weave'- i.e., a simple `one over, one under' style. The more complex three-to-one twill of the Shroud is certainly known from the period, but in silks rather than linen ... The lack of linen samples by no means invalidates the authenticity of the Shroud, merely suggesting a somewhat costly manufacture, as indeed one would expect of a purchase of the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea"[WI79, 69]

"As for the linen itself, the weave is a three-to-one herringbone twill: in running through the warp, the weft passes under three threads and then over one, but each successive thread of the weft begins at an ascending point one thread earlier (and then, in series, at a descending point) in the pattern, producing the diagonal `herringbone' design. This particular pattern is known from antiquity as well as from the Middle Ages, although the ancient examples are silk rather than linen. It is, at any rate, a more elaborate and complicated weave than the usual over-under-over `plain' pattern, and suggests that the cloth was relatively expensive"[DR84, 12].

Again, McDaniel cites no sources, so presumably she is just making it up! If the Shroud's weave was "common in the Late Middle Ages" then there would be many examples of it today. But in fact there are only two known examples of three-to-one herringbone twill weave in linen: a 14th century coarse fragment in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the `canvas' of a 16th century painting by Martin de Vos (see "c. 1375"). And as for three-to-one herringbone twill weave "was not used for burial shrouds in the time of Jesus" McDaniels cannot know this, and so I assume she is making this up also! Since the "more complex three-to-one twill of the Shroud is ... known from the period, but in silks rather than linen" there is no reason why it was not used for linen burial shrouds in the time of Jesus. A likely reason why there are no surviving examples of first century three-to-one herringbone twill weave in linen, other than the Shroud, is because linen cloths were recycled into burial shrouds, and they decomposed with their bodies[MR80, 72; WI10, 31].

By her failure to read pro-Shroud literature for herself, and to gullibly rely on anti-Shroud sources, tragically McDaniel is yet another Shroud sceptic example of `the blind being led by the blind' (Mt 15:14; Lk 6:39):

[Above (enlarge)[FPB]: "The Blind Leading the Blind," 1568, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525-69)].

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
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Posted 16 December 2024. Updated 4 January 2025.