TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (3)
© Stephen E. Jones[1]
This is the fifteenth installment of part #33, "Twenty-first century" (3) of my "Chronology of the Turin Shroud: AD 30 - present" series. For more information about this series see the Index #1. This page was initially based on Ian Wilson's 1996, "Highlights of the Undisputed History: 2000's." Emphases are mine unless otherwise indicated.
[Index #1] [Previous: 21st century (2) #32] [Next: 21st century (4) #34]
2020c 25 March. Death of Dee Donahue (1926-2020), the wife of Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory co-founder Douglas J. Donahue (1924-2000). Both Ian Wilson (1941-) and Harry Gove (1922-2009), wrongly assumed that when the very first Shroud radiocarbon dating run at Arizona laboratory returned a date of "1350"[23Jun18], Donahue's "face became instantly drawn and pale"[GH96, 264; WS00, 9], it was because he was a Christian. But as I pointed out in 06Nov20, Douglas and Dee's children in their parents' obituaries, wrote of their mother that: "Dee was a devout Catholic who volunteered with the Catholic Charities of Tucson and who would often slip into the Benedictine Sisters Monastery down the street from her Tucson home for afternoon prayers," but of their father they wrote not a word of his Catholicism or Christianity (see below). So evidently Donahue's face went pale because of his concern of the effect that a "1350" Shroud date would have on his devout Roman Catholic wife.
2020d 5 May. Publication of art historian Gary Vikan (1946-)'s book, 
"The Holy Shroud: A Brilliant Hoax in the Time of the Black Death."[SM20]. [Right]. The articles' words are bold to distinguish them from mine. See my 21Jun20 ... Gary Vikan has spent some 35 years tracking down evidence refuting the Shroud of Turin's authenticity ... Vikan — former director of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum and a respected art historian ... argu[es] that the controversial burial cloth belonged not to Jesus, but to a medieval artist employed by French monarch John II [r. 1350-64] at the height of the Black Death [in France 1347-52]. Who was this unknown "medieval artist"? Vikan doesn't say here or in his book. He doesn't even have an index entry for him. Yet if the Shroud was a "brilliant hoax" by a 14th century "medieval artist," he would have been the greatest artist ever[DY02]. Yet the Shroud continues to be ignored by Vikan's discipline of Art History, even after it was radiocarbon dated to the 13th-14th century, when it should have been integrated into the mainstream History of Art at that period[DT12, 22]. I knew right away that the Holy Shroud was the fake, for the simple reason that it does not fit into the chronology of Christian relics or iconography, This is strange `logic'. It amounts to saying that, `the Shroud must be 14th century because it doesn't look like it is 14th century'! One of the evidences that the Shroud is Jesus' burial sheet is that the Shroudman's image has no artistic style of any period, because it is acheiropoietos ("not made with hands"), but made by God[03Aug24a]! and because it appears for the first time in the historical record in 14th century France," wrote Vikan in a blog post earlier this year. " This is false! [see 21Jun20] That the Shroud first appeared in the undisputed historical record at Lirey, France in c.1355, is not the same as, "The Shroud "appears for the first time in the historical record." As I wrote in my previous post [03Aug24b]:
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] 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]!I didn't have Vikan's book when I wrote my post of 21Jun20, responding to this article, so tonight (27 August 2024) I checked how Vikan had explained this. On page 15 (the only index entry for "Mesarites") Vikan wrote:
In the summer of 1200, Nikolaos Mesarites, Keeper of the Palace Chapel in Constantinople, inventoried, along with a dazzling array of Passion relics, including the Crown of Thorns, a Holy Nail, and the Holy Lance, the "burial cloths of Christ ... of linen still smelling of perfume." Mesarites doesn't say that those sheets bore an image of Christ. But from the year 1204 ... (ellipses between "Christ" and "of" are Vikan's).So Vikan just ignored what he didn't want to be there! Therefore his book is an excercise in self-deception (as we shall further see). [W]ith the help of a brilliant scientist, I am [now] able to answer the questions of when, why, by whom, and how the Shroud was made." The "brilliant scientist" was a Robert W. (Bob) Morton, a "mostly self-taught" chemist who appears to have held no academic position and may not even be formally qualified![24Jul20]. Morton and his qualified chemist daughter Rebecca Hoppe, both of whom evidently knew nothing about the Shroud, apart from a "television documentary," decided that the image on the Shroud had been made with iron gall ink[21Febr21], "a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from vegetable sources"[IGW] They evidently were ignorant of STURP's findings that the Shroud image was "Not painted" (including ink)[03Aug24c] and "Superficial[03Aug24d] (for starters). Morton sent Vikan this grotesque image of his own face
[Left (enlarge)] made by their iron gall ink method[21Feb21a]. So great was Vikan's need to disbelieve in the Shroud, that astonishingly for an art historian, he called Morton's wrap-around distorted face image, "shroudlike" and he "was convinced" by it"[21Feb21b]! However, in a 2007 seminar in Vikan's own museum, Morton said that, he "did not ... make any claim about whether those methods were used in the shroud housed in Turin, Italy"[24Jul20]!
2020e 27 May. Hoare, C., 2020, "`There WAS a body inside' Shroud of Turin oddity discovery exposed in Bible breakthrough," Daily Express .My words are bold to distinguish them from the articles' ... After years of discussion, the Holy See permitted radiocarbon-dating on portions of a swatch taken from a corner of the shroud to be independently tested at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Rob Walker spoke to Professor Michael Tite [1938-], who supervised the testing process, during the BBC's Witness History podcast. He said in 2018: "The Shroud is one of the most veered [revered] relics of the Catholic Church, a piece of linen cloth that appears to show the imprint of a man who has been crucified ... "But, in the late Seventies, the Catholic Church agreed to a test that it hoped would finally determine whether this could be the shroud of Christ. ... "Professor Michael Tite was, at the time, keeper of the British Museum Research Laboratory and he was given the job of coordinating the work of three labs chosen by the Church to do the radiocarbon dating." ... The experiments concluded with a 95 percent confidence that the Shroud's material dated between 1260–1390AD. As I have pointed out, most recently in 03Aug24 "that date cannot be correct because the Pray Codex (1192-95) alone (and it isn't alone), is clearly based on the Shroud." And as I pointed out above, the Shroud first appeared in the historical record in 1201, in the statement by Nicholas Mesarites that in that year the Byzantine Empire's relic collection in Constantinople included "the sindon [which] wrapped the un-outlined, naked dead body [of Christ]." This can only have been the Shroud, in Constantinople 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! "But I did make a mistake at the press conference, there was a big blackboard behind me and I put 1260 - 1390 and an exclamation mark afterwards which caused me endless
[Right (enlarge): From left to right, Prof. E. Hall (Oxford), M. Tite (British Museum) and R. Hedges (Oxford) on 13 October 1988 in the British Museum, London, announcing with an exlamation mark, that the Shroud had been radiocarbon dated to "1260-1390!"[08Dec22]
trouble. ... "The significance of the exclamation mark was to tell the press that this is what you already knew, Tite is lying. First, the press did not already know before then that the Shroud's radiocarbon date was "1260-1390." Second, even if they did, it did not explain why Tite added an exclamation mark to a scientific result. Third, Tite gave a completely different explantion to another interviewer in 1990: Chantel Dupont. Who put the exclamation mark after the date on the blackboard?
Dr. Tite. I can't remember who did that, the press, Hall or me ... It reflected the mood of the moment" (my emphasis)[DC90].but all sorts of various things were read into the exclamation mark." These included: "derision"[PM96, 108; "triumphant"[GL98, 9; "a total lack of respect"[GM98, 67], "non-professional"[GV01, 133] and "jubilation"[GV01, 133]. ... "There's no real evidence it was painted on there, This is very significant, that Prof. Hall when collecting his laboratory's Shroud sample in Turin on 21 April 1988, accompanied by Tite, examined the Shroud with a magnifying glass, and presumably shared it with Tite, they both could see that the Shroud image was not a painting[27Jul07 & 13Jul21], presumably because each image fibre could be seen, with no colouring matter covering it[08Nov22]! But then, as I pointed out in my previous post[03Aug24]:
The sceptics' case is based on the c. 1389 claim of Bishop Pierre d'Arcis (r. 1377-95) that the Shroud was "cunningly painted" by a confessed artist in the time of one of his predecessors, Bishop Henri de Poitiers (r. 1354–1370)[03Jul18]. So, that the Shroud is not painted is alone (and it is not alone), a fatal blow to the entire forgery theory[27Jul24b]!and the other oddity is if you look at paintings from the Middle Ages they always paint Christ with the nails going through the palms of the hands. "Whereas in reality, you have to put the nails through the wrist, Tite here shows he has some familiarity with Shroudie literature, as it seems unlikely he would have thought of this himself:
Traditional Christian art has depicted the crucifixion nails that the Gospels state were in Jesus' hands (Jn 20:19-20, 24-28; Lk 24:36-40) as being in His palms, including by some who have copied the Shroud. However, as Paul Vignon (1865-1943) had pointed out, and surgeon Pierre Barbet (1884–1961) proved experimentally on cadavers, that when a man's body is suspended on a cross by only a nail through the palm of each hand, the nails would tear through the fleshy vertical structures and the victim would fall off his cross. However Barbet also proved experimentally on other cadavers that a nail through the wrist (as on the Shroud) of each hand would support a suspended man's body without tearing through the bony wrists[13Apr16]."I think a complete replication of the image has not been achieved." Likewise, for Tite to know this, he would have needed to have read widely in Shroudie literature! In Chapter 2 of my book in progress [20Jun24] I write:
No explanation Modern science has no viable explanation of how the Shroudman's image was formed and neither has modern science been able to replicate the Shroud. In 2022, film-maker David Rolfe (1951-) offered the British Museum (which was involved in the 1988 radiocarbon dating), US$1M to replicate the Shroud[17Apr22]. But neither the Museum nor other sceptics who claim to have replicated the Shroud, have taken up Rolfe's offer! In February 2024 Rolfe extended his US$1M challenge to the USA[09Feb24]! It obviously is highly unlikely that an unknown medieval artist could forge the Shroud and modern 21st century science cannot replicate it. But if the Shroud is acheiropoietos ("not made with hands") but made by God[03Aug24], then modern science may never be able to replicate it!"I don't believe it was the Shroud, but I believe it is highly probable that there was a body in there – it was the time of the Crusades and an appropriate way to humiliate a Christian would be to crucify him." Whether Tite realised it or not, this was the theory of Roman Catholic historian, Dr Michael Straiton (c. 1932-). I only now realised that I had dealt with this in my "Shroud of Turin News," May 2020, and before that in my Shroud of Turin News, June 2017, so I won't comment further on it here. Except to point out that if Muslims, during the 1291 Siege of Acre, crucified a crusader in exact imitation of Jesus' crucifixion, such an atrocity would be recorded in history, but it isn't.
2020f 25 September. Death of Arizona radiocarbon dating laboratory co-founder Douglas J. Donahue (1924-2000). As mentioned above in the death notice of his wife, Dee, while their children paid tribute to their mother's Christian faith, they say nothing at all about their father being a Christian. This confirms that Ian Wilson was wrong in assuming that Donahue was a Christian[WS00, 9]. That means all the leaders of the radiocarbon dating laboratories were non-Christians, and therefore anti-Christians (Mt 12:30)!
2020g 19 November. Death of Richard Luckett (1945-2020), former 
[Left (enlarge): Richard Luckett who had been the Pepys Librarian at Cambridge University since 1982, when in August 1988 he leaked, on behalf of David Sox (1936-2016), who received it from Arizona laboratory physicist Timothy Linick (1946-89), Arizona's "1350" date of the Shroud to the London Evening Standard.]
Cambridge University librarian ... a post he held for 30 years until his retirement in 2012. That is ~1982-2012 ... Luckett ... was unmarried. On 3 July 1988, after Arizona laboratory had completed its dating, but Zurich's and Oxford's dating was ongoing, columnist Kenneth Rose (1924-2014), who "never married"[06Aug18a], in the London Sunday Telegraph reported on the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud that: "In spite of the intense secrecy surrounding the investigation I hear signs that the linen cloth has been proved to be mediaeval. The story was picked up by news media around the world"[24Jun14a; 30Dec15a; 15Aug17a; 06Aug18b & 03Aug19a]. Then on 26 August the London Evening Standard ran a front-page story, "Shroud of Turin Really is a Fake," with an accompanying article by Cambridge librarian Richard Luckett stating that "a probable date of about 1350 looks likely" and remarking that "laboratories are rather leaky institutions. This generated another world-wide media frenzy, yet none of the laboratories nor the British Museum knew Luckett or how he had obtained his information[24Jun14b; 30Dec15b; 15Aug17b; 06Aug18c & 03Aug19b]. On 23 September 1988, Ian Wilson publicly named "the Revd. David Sox" as "the ... source of possibly all the leaks" and "his `inside' information ... can only have come from Arizona or Zurich"[24Jun14c; 30Dec15c; 15Aug17c; 06Aug18d & 03Aug19d].
In May 2014 I was told by a Shroudie who knew Sox, that a possible connection between Luckett and Sox was "pillow-talk." That Luckett died "unmarried" (see above), Rose "never married" (see above and Sox was a homosexual (later confirmed 15Aug17d), supports my theory that the explanation of how Luckett knew the "1350" date of the very first dating run at Arizona laboratory was that Rose, Luckett and Sox were members of an informal network of homosexuals[24Jun14d; 05Mar15; 30Dec15d; 22Nov16]; 15Aug17e; 06Augu18 & 03Aug19]. And that Sox, who worked as a teacher at the American School in London from 1978 to 1995[22Feb16a], overlapped ~13 years from 1982 to 1995 with Anthony Linick (1938-), who worked there as a teacher from 1982 to 2002[22Feb16b]. Anthony was the half-brother [22Feb16c] of the alleged hacker, Arizona physicist Timothy W. Linick (1946-89)[22Feb16d]. According to My Hacker Theory, Anthony was told that "1350" date by Timothy, and Anthony passed it on to Sox, who told it to Luckett[15Aug17f].
2022a 17 April. "The $1m challenge: If the Turin Shroud is a forgery,
[Above (enlarge)[22May22]: David Rolfe (1941-) holds up a negative image of the face on the Turin Shroud: "They said it was knocked up by a medieval conman, and I say: well, if he could do it, you must be able to do it as well."]
show how it was done," The Observer, Joanna Moorhead. Expert on revered relic calls on British Museum to back up the results of its disputed carbon dating tests ... So convinced is Rolfe that he's issuing a challenge worth $1m to the British Museum. "If ... they believe the shroud is a medieval forgery, I call on them to repeat the exercise, and create something similar today,” he says. ... "They said it was knocked up by a medieval conman, and I say: well, if he could do it, you must be able to do it as well. And if you can, there's a $1m donation for your funds.” ... The British Museum is less willing to get involved this time around. "Any current questions about the shroud would be best put to those who currently care for it in the royal chapel of the cathedral of Turin,” a spokesperson said. What a cop out! It was the British Museum's Michael Tite who wrote the 1989 Nature article which claimed that the Shroud was dated "1260-1390"[MR90, 7]. As historian Mark Oxley (c. 1949-2021) asked, "Could a fourteenth century forger ... produce an artifact that can still not be replicated by ... twenty-first century science?":
"The Shroud presents many challenges. It challenges those who claim it is a mediaeval forgery to replicate it. Nobody has yet been able to do so with any credibility. This must be an argument in favour of its authenticity. Could a fourteenth century forger, with the limited scientific knowledge of his time, really produce an artifact that can still not be replicated by all the wonders of twenty-first century science?"[OM10, xii].Evidently the answer is NO!
To be continued in the sixteenth 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
DC90. Dupont, C., 1990, "An interview with Dr. Mike Tite," BSTS Newsletter, No, 25, April/May, 2-3.
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," Review scientifique, 31 May, in O'Rahilly, A. & Gaughan, J.A., ed., 1985, "The Crucified," Kingdom Books: Dublin, 76-77.
GH96. Gove, H.E., 1996, "Relic, Icon or Hoax?: Carbon Dating the Turin Shroud," Institute of Physics Publishing: Bristol UK.
GL98. Garza-Valdes, L.A., 1998, "The DNA of God?," Hodder & Stoughton: London.
GM98. Guscin, M., 1998, "The Oviedo Cloth," Lutterworth Press: Cambridge UK.
GV01. Guerrera, V., 2001, "The Shroud of Turin: A Case for Authenticity," TAN: Rockford IL.
IGW. "Iron gall ink," Wikipedia, 31 May 2024.
MR90. Morgan, R., 1990, "Interview With Dr. Michael Tite by Orazio Petrosillo and Emanuela Marinelli, 8 September 1989, during the Paris Symposium," Shroud News, No 59, June, 3-9.
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.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
SM20. Solly, M., 2020, "Shakespearean Stabbings, How to Feed a Dictator and Other New Books to Read," Smithsonian Magazine, 5 May.
WS00. Wilson, I. & Schwortz, B., 2000, "The Turin Shroud: The Illustrated Evidence," Michael O'Mara Books: London.
Posted 25 August 2024. Updated 10 September 2024.
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