[Previous: August-September 2024] [Next: To be advised].
This is the fourteenth instalment of my Shroud of Turin News from September-December 2024. I had fallen more than a year behind in posting my News, but I hope to catch up in 2026. On 15 January I started writing my "Open letter to Nature" (see 15Dece25). I will post it here first and then I will email and airmail it as a Word document to the Editor of Nature. But I doubt that Nature will publish it, even though I will make every effort to comply with their Guidelines for publication. 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.
"The Hunt: Will We Ever Know If the Shroud of Turin Is Real?," Artnet, Richard Whiddington, 19 October 2024 [The answer to that first question is "yes" if one's mind is open to the evidence that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet. An example is anti-Shroud blogger Dan Porter who claims that "After studying the Shroud of Turin for nearly 25 years ... I undertook a rigorous reexamination of the facts. This process compelled me to change my position. Though I no longer believe the Shroud is authentic ..." Whereas it took me only a few hours reading the evidence presented in Stevenson and Habermas' Verdict on the Shroud (1981), to accept "that the Shroud is the actual burial sheet of Jesus Christ"[30Aug16].
The Shroud of Turin is, in a way, a mirror: it shows the beholder whatever they wish to see[This is false. There are objectively true, i.e. true for everyone, whether they believe it or not[04Jun10] (see below) facts about the Shroud, published in peer-reviewed scientific journals (see below).]. For devoted Christians, it's the holiest of icons: the linen cloth that wrapped Jesus Christ's crucified body. For skeptics, it's the grandest of hoaxes: a medieval forgery that has been duping worshippers for 700 years. [This a false dichotomy. Most "devoted Christians" in my experience are either indifferent to, or are opposed to, the Shroud. The article itself (see future) notes that, "... the Vatican ... doesn't recognize the Shroud of Turin as a relic of Jesus's physical form, but merely as a mighty symbol." There even are non-Christian Shroudies like the agnostic art historian Thomas de Wesselow and the non-Christian Jew, the late Barrie Schwortz. The real Shroud dichotomy is not between "devoted Christians" and "skeptics" but between those who are open to the evidence that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet and those who are not. ]
The 14-foot-long cloth has markings that correspond to the placement
[Right (enlarge): Full-length negative image of the Shroud[STW]. In "the absence of paint or pigment," is not the: photographic negative[22Dec16]; three-dimensional[05Feb17]; extremely superficial[11Nov16]; non-directional[29Oct16]; no outline[11Jun16]; no style[05Sep16]; x-rays of bones and teeth[20Apr17]; real human blood[03Jun17]; blood clots intact[04Sep17]; blood was on cloth before image[05Nov17]; blood clot serum retraction halos[27Dec21]; distinction between arterial and venous blood flows (discovered 1628)[27Dec21] proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Shroud is "a miracle"?]
of the wounds of Jesus's crucifixion. It also bears the image of a gaunt, long-haired, bearded man, whose appearance, in the absence of paint or pigment, some consider to be a miracle. [In "the absence of paint or pigment" the Shroud is "a miracle" (see right)!]
Over the past century, science has intervened, and chemists, physicists, microbiologists, and botanists have all promised to confirm or deny the shroud's authenticity. Spoiler alert! None has so far succeeded—not sufficiently to silence the other side, in any event. [Actually the sceptics have been almost silenced. See 10Oct25 where they were reduced to a "pathetic beat-up" that "a 14th century philosopher, Nicole Oresme, who had never seen the Shroud, mentioned in a footnote, a rumour ("it was said"), that in the 1355 exposition of "the shroud of the Lord Jesus Christ" at Lirey, France, the "clergy" deceived the public to "elicit offerings for their church ...," which was false. And Oresme did not dispute that it was "the shroud of the Lord Jesus Christ"! And the sceptics' chief spokesman, Joe Nickell (1944-2025) died last year. If Nature publishes my Open Letter, "Were the Shroud radiocarbon daing laboratories duped by a computer hacker?" it will be devastating for Shroud sceptics! Which is why Nature probably won't publish it!]
The latest argument arrived in August 2024, courtesy of Italy's Institute of Crystallography, which declared that the shroud was indeed 2,000 years old. [See 22May22] In keeping with tradition, a counter study is expected. [Shroud sceptics don't do "studies." They take isolated pot-shots at Shroud studies which are by credentialled scientists in scientific journals or they do publicity stunts. A Google seach of "WAXS Shroud de Caro" turned up no sceptic hits, except a blog post by a science teacher!]
[...]Scientific inquiry began in 1898, when Umberto I, Duke of Savoy and 
[Left (enlarge): Secondo Pia's 29 May 1898 negative photograph of the Shroud face, which because it is a photo-graphic positive, proved that the shroudman's image is a photographic negative[09Nov19]. It is therefore, next to the shroudman's image itself, the most important photograph ever taken!]
King of Italy, allowed it to be photographed. The negative showed an eerily defined man who evoked the popular image of Christ from the New Testament gospels. [There is no description of Jesus in the New Testament. The "popular image of Christ" is based on depictions of Jesus based on the Shroud from the 5th century (see below)!]The relic now had a devilishly compelling image, and its fame spread. [He has his god [2Cor 4:4] mixed up!]
Until 1969, this image was all researchers (and conspiracy theorists) had to work with in their attempts to answer two central questions: when was the shroud created and how was Christ's image made? [This was the "Secret Turin Commission of Experts"[16Apr22]. For 3 days from 16-18 June, 1969, the Shroud was studid by a 11-person team of experts. They checked the Shroud's condition, took photographs, took no samples, did no tests, but recommended future tests (not carbon-dating because then it would require too much of the Shroud to be destroyed). However, the 1969 Turin Commission was the first scientific examination of the Shroud, and prepared the ways for the 1973 Turin Commission, which did take samples[16Apr22].]
[...]A marathon five-day research study in 1978 found no sign of artificial pigments [This was STURP's 1978 examination, scientific testing and sample taking, of the Shroud, for 5 days around the clock, from 8-13 October, 1978[20Jun22].] and claimed the blood stains were composed of hemoglobin, a protein that appears in red blood cells. [This happened in 1979 by STURP members Dr John Heller (1921-95) and Alan Adler (1931-2000), neither of whom went to Turin in 1978, but who experimented on sticky tape samples taken from the Shroud in 1978 by STURP chemist Ray Rogers (1927-2005)].] (A 2015 study would go further, labelling them AB blood type.) [I am not aware of this "2015 study." In 1983 Prof. Pierluigi Baima-Bollone (1937-2025), at the 1984 Italian National Shroud Congress, reported that they had confirmed the identification of the blood group AB in Shroud bloodstains[03Jun17] ] One researcher claimed the blood was in fact the red pigment iron oxide [Presumably that was extreme sceptic Walter McCrone (1916-2002), but as Heller pointed out, "There was not enough iron oxide or vermilion to account for one painted drop of blood":
"It was now 1981, three years after the team's trip to Turin. McCrone sent me a Xerograph of his third paper. In it, he stated that the blood was paint, a mixture of iron oxide and mercury sulfide. He claimed that he had found nine microscopic particles of vermilion. Necessary? Yes. Sufficient? No. There was not enough iron oxide or vermilion to account for one painted drop of blood, let alone all the gore on the Shroud"[HJ83, 203].]and a forensic science study in 2018 argued against the shroud's authenticity by showing that the patterns of blood on the shroud were consistent with multiple body positions. [Presumably this was Borrini and Garlaschelli's publicity stunt. If so, see "My critique of Borrini, M. & Garlaschelli, L., 2018, "A BPA Approach to the Shroud of Turin," Journal of Forensic Sciences, 10 July."] Believers replied that such markings likely happened as Jesus' body was transported. [Another false dichotomy: "forensic science" vs "Believers"! ]
The landmark study came in 1988, when the Vatican allowed three universities to carbon date the relic. All results suggested the shroud came from between 1260 and 1390 C.E. [Actually they didn't. For starters, the Nature paper shows that the British Museum's Michael Tite (1938-) fraudulently rounded 1384 to the nearest 10 years, to 1390, when it should have been 1380[22Jan25; 04Jul25].] Opponents pushed back, accusing the universities of shoddy methodology and saying that the sample used came from a portion that had been repaired following the 16th-century fire [This is false. See "Shroud Scope: Carbon Dating Sample" that the latter was not from a fire-damaged area. See also 28Feb25 why the Invisible Repair Theory fails. The true explanation why the first century Shroud had a 13th-14th radiocarbon date, was because it was computer-generated by a hackers program[28Jan25]! ]. The latest study, from the Institute of Crystallography, supports such assertions [No it doesn't. It supports that the Shroud is the burial sheet of Jesus but it does not support the Invisible Repair Theory explanation.].
As for how the image of Christ was transferred onto the linen cloth, theories range from the vaguely plausible—it's a rubbing made from a bas-relief statue [See 10Oct25 why the "rubbing made from a bas-relief statue" explanation fails.]—to the fanciful: it's some type of primitive medieval photograph [For why Prof. Nicholas Allen (1956-)'s Medieval Photograph theory is wrong see 07Aug16; 01Sep16; 05Sep16; 29Oct16; 14Mar17; 05Nov17; 16Jun19; 15Nov20; 05Jun21 & 20Jan24.] or the trace of a burst of radiant energy emitted during Christ's transfiguration. [Whiddington gets his New Testament history wrong. Jesus' transfiguration is recorded in Mt 17:1-8; Mk 9:2-8 & Lk 9:28-36; which was long before Jesus was wrapped in a "linen shroud" (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46 & Lk 23:53). What Whiddington probably meant to say, which I agree with, although he dismisses it as "fanciful" that: "As for how the image of Christ was transferred onto the linen cloth, theories range from the vaguely plausible ... to the fanciful: ... a burst of radiant energy" previewed "during Christ's transfiguration"[05Sep16; 05Feb17; 07Mar19; 08Dec22; 09Sep23]; 11May24; 02Jul24 & 25Oct24].]
My news My 80 year-old quadriplegic wife of nearly 54 years has been given a place in a nearby nursing home! She was admitted Thursday 29 January! This was definitely an answer to prayer. She could have waited years for a place, and the nursing home could have been a long way from where we live. So I can take her to church on Sundays. As she cannot use her arms, hands and legs because of multiple sclerosis, I had been increasingly doing everything for her. This will free up many hours each day to write my blog and book. And when the next exposition of the Shroud occurs I can go to it, now that she will be looked after!
"A Shroud for Our Skeptical Times," National Catholic Register, Editorial, 6 September 2024. Did Jesus already know that 21st-century technology would be the only way to confirm his resurrected reality to an increasingly irreligious society? [The short answer is yes. See below for a long answer.]
[Above (enlarge): Close-up of the Shroud of Turin. [Article The man's yellow `moustache' is actually an x-ray of his teeth! See 20Apr17. The man's body framed by burns from the 1532 fire will coincidentally illustrate a point I make below.]
Reports about recent scientific findings that appear to support the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin garnered widespread coverage in secular media outlets last month [See "Shroud of Turin dates from time of Christ, scientists reveal," The Catholic Herald, 22 August 2024 [25Oct24]; "Another Shroud of Turin study released: bloodstains consistent with crucifixion of Christ," The Catholic Herald, 28 August 2024 [25Oct24].].
But none of those media accounts delved into this central question: [Before we get to the article's "central question," to me the central question of the Shroud is: If Jesus imprinted his crucified image on his "linen shroud" (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53); and has preserved it down through the ages, against all odds[08Oct09; 25Apr14; 20Jan18; 02Sep19]; miraculously preserving his image on it through a 1532 fire which destroyed everything else around it, but left the man's image "almost unscathed"[25Feb13; 04Aug14; 14Mar15; 15Feb16; 20Jan18; 25Sep19]; does Jesus expect that everyone who becomes aware of his Shroud (Christian and Non-Christian), to take it very seriously? Will Jesus forgive those in the Vatican who refuse to confirm that the Shroud is his burial sheet[14Feb14; 17Apr15; 23Jun15; 21Feb20; 29Dec20; 29May21; 11May24]? Will Jesus forgive those of my 
fellow Protestants who ignore that Jesus has left us a photograph of his resurrected body in his tomb, infused with his actual blood? Will
[Right (enlarge): The Shroud showing major bloodstains[30Sep15].]
Jesus forgive Shroud sceptics who know the evidence for the Shroud being his burial sheet, but not only ignore it, reject it? Given that the Shroud is a "perpetual miracle":
"There are many astounding facts about the Shroud of Turin that are hard to believe but the massive and daily increasing body of evidence for its authenticity continues to build up as proof that this extraordinary piece of cloth is two thousand years old, bears an inexplicable image upon it of a man's body, is the actual- sheet bought by Joseph of Arimathea and used as the burial shroud of Jesus Christ, who therefore actually lived and died as the gospel accounts tell us, and that the miraculous image upon it contains a great deal of scientific and technological data which only in the past few years have we begun to develop sufficient scientific knowledge to interpret, leaves no doubt in my mind that it will never be proved false and that it also proves, for those who want proof, that Christ not only lived and died as we have been traditionally taught but that through this last great miracle, this perpetual miracle, He can continue to work amidst humanity at a time when such work is sorely needed ..."[MR80, 26]which can be seen anytime on the Internet. And since Jesus is "God ... [who] became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:1,14), once he provides a person with evidence of one of his miracles (including the Shroud - his "perpectual miracle"), continuing disbelief in Jesus is not an option - it is the Sin of Unbelief! To `doubting Thomas,' once Jesus provided him with evidence of his resurrection, Jesus commanded him to "Do not disbelieve, but believe":
"Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, `Peace be with you.' Then he said to Thomas, `Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe'"[Jn 20:26-27].What was Jesus' response to those who ignored and even rejected his gracious supernatural miracles to help them believe in him? To the inhabitants of first century Jewish towns who saw first-hand Jesus' "mighty works" but "they did not repent" and believe in Jesus? Read Mt 11:21-24. To sceptics who rejected Jesus' miracles because they did not want him to reign over them, read (Lk 19:12,14-15,27)]
Assuming the image visible on the fabric of the shroud really is that of the Crucified Christ — supernaturally imprinted there by Jesus himself, as he lay in the tomb between his crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on the first Easter Sunday [It would have been at the instant of Jesus' resurrection. Dead bodies don't imprint their image on their burial cloths!] — why did the Son of God choose to leave behind this scientifically verifiable evidence of his death on the cross? [Before today's scientific age, for Christianity's first ~1500 years there was no Bible in common languages, so Jesus' face on the Shroud, which began to appear in Christian art from the 5th century (see below) was the 
[Left (enlarge): Fresco of Jesus in the catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Via Labicana, Rome, Italy, 4th century [sic]. This is such a radical departure from the "beardless Apollo" depictions of Jesus then current, that the simplest (if not the only) explanation is that the artist had seen the Image of Edessa/Shroud in Edessa, and painted it from memory about AD400[04Oct16; 22Jan24!].
basis of "icon evangelism"[22Sep12; 27Jul17; 08May18; 09Nov24]. So the Shroud has had an immeasurably great influence on the spread of Christianity!]
The answer could be that even though the physical sciences would not develop for another 2,000 years to the point where they could conclusively authenticate the shroud [The physical sciences cannot "authenticate the shroud" but they would have disauthenticated it[AA91, 67; AA96, 82; AA0a, 114; AA0b, 132. AA0c, 11], if the Shroud was a medieval forgery. That they haven't means it isn't!], Jesus already knew that a day was coming when this kind of evidence would be the only way to confirm his resurrected reality to many of the souls who live in the rationalistic and materialistic cultures of today. [Jesus in his man-nature was limited in knowledge. He didn't know who in a crowd had touched his garment (Mk 5:30-32; Lk 8:45-48). But in his God-nature, Jesus knew all things (Jn 16:30; 21:17). So Jesus in his God nature would have known and, in cooperation with the other persons of the Trinity - the Father and the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19; Lk 3:21-22; 2Cor 13:14; 1Pet 1:2), arranged that that his crucified image would be imprinted on his "linen shroud" (Mt 27:59; Mk 15:46; Lk 23:53), such that after photography was invented in the 1820s, the Shroud would be photographed in 1898 by Secondo Pia[05Jun21] and revealed that it was a photographic negative.]
Recent media accounts centered on a pair of findings. The first involves research, initially published in 2022, that indicates the shroud is indeed around 2,000 years old and not merely a few hundred years old, as suggested by research conducted in 1988 using a less reliable method of dating the cloth's age. [See above] That 1988 research was seized upon by skeptics as definitive proof that the shroud was a medieval forgery [The 1988 radiocarbon date of the Shroud of 1260-1390 was the result of a computer hacking. See "My Hacker Theory in a nutshell"]— even though by that time other scientific evidence, unrelated to the cloth's dating, persuasively pointed toward the conclusion that the shroud is indeed Jesus' burial cloth. [The evidence is overwhelming that the Turin Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet!] Perhaps the most powerful evidence is the origin of the image imprinted there: According to researchers, it was caused by an inexplicable, superintense burst of ultraviolet radiation.[Indeed! In 2011, Italian scientists working under the auspices of ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, reported that they had discovered the closest to the image of the Shroud on linen in terms of extreme superficiality, colour and lack of fluorescence:
"Instead, the results of ENEA `show that a short and intense burst of VUV directional radiation can color a linen cloth so as to reproduce many of the peculiar characteristics of the body image on the Shroud of Turin, including shades of color, the surface color of the fibrils of the outer linen fabric, and the absence of fluorescence.'"[11Aug15; 05Febr17]But to do that instantly for a linen cloth the size of a "human of average height," let alone double that, front and back, as the Shroud is, would require VUV laser energy of "34 thousand billion watts":
"However, ENEA scientists warn, `it should be noted that the total power of VUV radiations required to instantly color the surface of linen that corresponds to a human of average height, body surface area equal to = 2000 MW/cm2 17000 cm2 = 34 thousand billion watts makes it impractical today to reproduce the entire Shroud image using a single laser excimer, since this power cannot be produced by any VUV light source built to date (the most powerful available on the market come to several billion watts)'"[11Aug15; 05Febr17].Which is no problem for the Shroud, since Jesus was raised by the power of God (1Cor 6:14; Col 2:12), which is unlimited (Gn 18:14; Jer 32:17; 27)! And there were no lasers in the Middle Ages, "The first laser was built in 1960 ..." (Wikipedia).]
[...]
It's not the purpose of this editorial to delve further into the specifics of this debate. And it should be noted that the Church itself has never offered a definitive judgment about the shroud's authenticity [See above "Will Jesus forgive those in the Vatican who refuse to confirm that the Shroud is his [Jesus] burial sheet"! And see 15Dec25 that "it is duplicitous (two-faced) of the Vatican not to affirm that the Shroud is Jesus' burial cloth."], preferring instead to invite more scientific investigations into this still-unsettled question[The Roman Catholic Church doesn't even do that! Why is the Roman Catholic Church leaving it to others, including non-Christians, to "offer... a definitive judgment about the shroud's authenticity"? ].
But it's also worth noting that in our increasingly irreligious age, a multitude of people can accept only the judgment of the physical sciences, and not merely when it comes to judging the shroud's authenticity. They look to the natural sciences as the highest authority regarding every aspect of human existence. [The Shroud is scientific proof beyond reasonable doubt of the core claim of Christianity that "Jesus Christ ... suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried ... [and] on the third day he rose again from the dead" (Apostles' Creed). And therefore that Christianity is true (i.e. objectively true, true for everyone, whether they believe it or not[04Jun10]). And Christianity "commands all people everywhere to repent" and believe in Jesus, because God "has fixed a day on which he [Jesus] will judge the world in righteousness":
Acts 17:30-31 "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."]
To be continued in the fifteenth 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
AA91. Adler, A.D., 1991, "Conservation and Preservation of the Shroud of Turin," in AC02, 67-71.
AA96. Adler, A.D., 1996, "Updating Recent Studies on the Shroud of Turin," in AC02, 81-86.
AA0a. Adler, A.D., 2000, "The Shroud Fabric and the Body Image: Chemical and Physical Characteristics," in AC02, 113-127.
AA0b. Adler, A.D., 2000b, "Chemical and Physical Characteristics of the Bloodstains," in AC02, 129-138.
AA0c. Adler, A.D., 2000c, "Chemical and Physical Aspects of the Sindonic Images," in AC02, 10-27.
AC02. Adler, A.D. & Crispino, D., ed., 2002, "The Orphaned Manuscript: A Gathering of Publications on the Shroud of Turin," Effatà Editrice: Cantalupa, Italy.
HJ83. Heller, J.H., 1983, "Report on the Shroud of Turin," Houghton Mifflin Co: Boston MA.
MR80. Morgan, R.H., 1980, "Perpetual Miracle: Secrets of the Holy Shroud of Turin by an Eye Witness," Runciman Press: Manly NSW, Australia.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
STW. "Shroud of Turin," Wikipedia, 25 January 2026.
Posted 20 January 2026. Updated 3 February 2026.
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