SHROUD OF TURIN - SKEPTICAL INQUIRER

The skeptical inquirer and the Shroud of Turin

The true skeptical inquirer knows no certainty: that is his misfortune; he is aware of it, and that is his gift.

Imagine slicing a human hair lengthwise, from end to end, into 100 long thin slices, each slice one-tenth the width of a single red blood cell. The images on the Shroud, at their thickest, are this thin. The faint images, golden-brownish, formed by a caramel-like substance, are wholly part of a super-thin film of starch fractions and sugars. Where this film is not brown, it is clear. Knowing the way certain ancient linen was made, the film covering just some of the cloth's fibers can be expected. And knowing that dead bodies produce gaseous cadaverine and putrescine that react with sugars to form caramel-like substances called melanoidins, the color is not only possible, it is expected. Spectral data, chemical tests and photomicrographs: all this is documented in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The honest skeptical inquirer must wonder, How can this be?

It is preposterous to think such images were painted.

The notion that such super-thin images were painted is preposterous. Yes, it is true that one scientist did peer through a microscope and find components of what might have been paint. And because of this he concluded that the Shroud was painted. Walter McCrone was a world renowned microscopist, deservedly so. He was a true scientist and he knew his craft well. We should not doubt that he found iron-oxide and mercury-sulfide, both constituents of paint. But there are many reasons why such chemical particles might be found on the Shroud: water used for retting flax and centuries of dust; particularly dust in churches with frescoed ceiling and walls. All other scientists who examined the image fibers -- many of them as renowned and every bit as qualified -- have disagreed with McCrone. There is, simply, an insufficient amount of paint constituents to form a visible image. Spectral analysis proves that. So does the now certain knowledge of the image bearing super-thin film. Ironically, McCrone identified the super-thin starch substance that ultimately became part of the proof that

his conclusions were wrong.

So what are we to make of a 14th century bishop, Pierre d'Arcis, who wrote in a memorandum of a painter confessing to painting the Shroud's images? In isolation his document is damning. But the skeptical inquirer, being true to his ways, must challenge such a claim with the full conspectus of what was being written at the time. Pierre's peers doubted is veracity and questioned his motives. It was all about money. Pierre was the bishop of Troyes. The Shroud was being exhibited at nearby Lirey and it was to that town that pilgrims with bags of coin were flocking. The d'Arcis memorandum is pointless. The skeptical inquirer is fully justified in his skepticism for no painter painted on a caramel substance and a surrounding clear substance that was a hundred times thinner than a single brush hair.

The carbon 14 dating sample was invalid.

Did not carbon 14 demonstrate that the Shroud was medieval? Could it possibly be wrong? Carbon 14 dating, the skeptical inquirer knows, is useful for dating material going back about 50,000 years. And it is extraordinarily accurate for material less than 10,000 years old. Yes, there can be problems with contamination But the labs that do this work do a very good job of removing contamination with combinations of alkaline and acidic baths. And yes, absolute precision is impossible. In the Shroud carbon 14 samples there was less than one carbon 14 atom for every trillion or so carbon 12 and carbon 13 atoms. But the quantity of material was sufficient and the methods accurate enough to estimate that the material tested produced a statistically certain range of dates: 1260 to 1390 CE. Even so, there might be a reason to suspect some error.

There have been claims that a biological polymer was growing on the Shroud and that this could have affected the date. Not so! The National Science Foundation Mass Spectrometry Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska, using highly sensitive pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry,

could not detect any such polymers on Shroud fibers. Furthermore, it is well known that a biopolymer product would show the same carbon age as the Shroud because the organism would use fixed carbon from the cellulose fibers and not from the atmosphere. Similar claims that a scorching fire, in 1532, might have altered the carbon 14 isotope ratios are scientifically unsustainable. The skeptical inquirer is right to pooh-pooh such ideas.

But as the skeptical inquirer knows, material intrusion is a potential problem in carbon 14 dating. A classic example is the dating of peat from ancient bogs. Miniscule roots from much newer plants get entangled in the peat -- some roots having decomposed into newer peat -- and this will distort the results. Could something like this have affected the results of dating of the Shroud? As it turns out, chemical and visual analyses, done in just the last two years, show unmistakable proof of material intrusion of new linen fibers -- enough material, by some estimates, to make a 1st century cloth seem medieval. The discovery of alizarin dyes (from Madder root), a hydrous aluminum oxide mordant and plant gum along with twisted-in cotton fibers and spliced threads in the carbon 14 sample region shows that the sample area was discretely repaired. These substances are not found anywhere else on the Shroud. Shroud of Turin Story Breaking News

Other recent findings are intriguing

The skeptical inquirer knows about decomposition kinetics. He knows that the cloth is linen. Each thread of the cloth is made up of roughly a hundred fibers from a flax plant. The skeptical inquirer knows about lignin, a complex polymer compound, one of the constituents of flax fibers. He knows that lignin's chemical composition changes over time. He knows that if a microchemical test for vanillin in lignin is negative that the cloth is more than 1300 years old, twice the age that the carbon 14 dating estimated.

In 2004, a startling discovery was made. A faint second face was found on the back of the Shroud. This second face was directly behind the face on the front of the cloth as though paint or stain had soaked through. But when we probe between the two facial images, when we look at the interior of the threads, when we examine individual fibers, we discover that nothing has soaked through. The faces are thin and superficial to the extreme outer surfaces of the Shroud.

History weighs in with arguments that support a very early Middle East provenance.

Whatever the Shroud of Turin is, it is not a painted, medieval fake-relic. The unmistakable images of a crucified man were not created by any known artistic method. And thus, the honest skeptical inquirer will turn to history for clues. In doing so he discovers that newly found, newly translated and newly interpreted documents provide a plausible historical scenario for something that is not a medieval fake-relic.

Almost certainly, an image-bearing piece of cloth taken from Edessa in 944 by the armed forces of Byzantine Emperor, a cloth described on that occasion by Gregory Referendarius, the archdeacon of Hagia Sophia, is the Shroud of Turin. This image-bearing cloth disappeared from Constantinople in 1204 in the hands of French crusaders. We can trace it to Athens in 1207. But there the trail grows cold. If the Edessa Cloth, later in Constantinople called the Holy Mandylion is indeed the Shroud it reemerges in the annals of history in Lirey about 1355. The gap of about 150 years is uncomfortable but such gaps are not unusual in the pursuit of history. It is in the plumbing and searching for details that historians find connections that bridge historical gaps, all too common gaps in all ancient history. The description by Gregory, a drawing from the late 1100s, tantalizing clues sifted from commonly redacted and exaggerated legends and letters and citations from documents that no longer exist: these things are plausible.

It may have ended up in Besançon. There is some reason to think this might be so. There is good reason to believe it was acquired by the French knight, Geoffrey de Charny by 1349 but not much earlier. We know, without any doubt, that it was displayed in Lirey just before Geoffrey was killed at the Battle of Poitiers. And there is no doubt, whatsoever, that cloth displayed in Lirey is the cloth that now resides in Turin.

Botched carbon 14 dating, images formed by the caramel-like substance, a plausible history that tracks back to the 6th century while suggesting an earlier provenance: all that is undeniable. But is that enough? Is the Shroud of Turin, as millions believe, the genuine burial shroud of the historical Jesus? While the evidence is good, it is not conclusive.

Some claims in support of authenticity are dubious.

Some claims, sometimes presented to try and establish the cloth's authenticity, just are not evidentiary. For instance, claims of barely perceptible images of Roman lepta coins over the eyes of the man is flimsy and so far lacks scientific confirmation. And speculation, sometimes touted as theory, that the images were formed by radiation released from a miraculous resurrection event, is scientifically preposterous. We need not debate resurrection or cerebrate on the physical nature of a miraculous resurrection. That work belongs to philosophers who might wonder if God, in performing miracles, might leave bits of sub-atomic particles lying about in all the right places, in just the right measures, at just the right time, to imprint, on purpose or by accident, an image on the cloth?

Radiation, almost certainly, could not have formed the caramel-like substance that makes up the images: not electromagnetic radiation; not ionizing particles such as protons, electrons, and alpha particles; and not non-ionizing particles such as neutrons. Enough energy to induce a chemical change in the super-thin film that holds the image would have visibly altered the characteristic molecular arrangement, the fibrillar structure of the flax fibers. That did not happen.

In the historical context, some evidence is dubious. That the Shroud may have been the hands of the Knights Templar; or the Cathars (the Albigensians) in Languedoc or in Greece or hidden away in Constantinople, as some of proposed, is at best only possibilities. Possibilities don't close gaps and don't make for good history. The skeptical inquirer is right to question such arguments but not to assume that gaps mean there is no history.

It is the face on the Shroud that intrigues us the most.

The Shroud is a fourteen foot long piece of linen cloth. On one half of its length (the lower half in the accompanying picture), there is a frontal image of a man from head to foot. On the other half, upside down as though standing on his head, is an image of the man's backside. We can clearly see the shape of the man's head, torso and legs. We notice that his arms are before him and crossed at his. If we look carefully, we can see features of the man's face: his eyes, his nose, his mustache and beard.

It is that face that is the most intriguing issue for the skeptical inquirer. There is something in the passionate exactness of the picture, something of a sleight-of-hand quality that resonates with whatever we believe. The picture is quite astounding. To the unquestioning believer in the Shroud's authenticity, it is not an image made by the hand of an artist: God made the image or it is an unlikely accident of nature. On the other hand, the hardened skeptic, both the atheist and the miracle-eschewing believer in God, cannot help but believe that the images are faked. He is as skeptical of the Shroud as much as the creationist-fundamentalist is skeptical about the evolution of the earth and its creatures. Each in his own way must reject the conclusions of science and history. It is to the honest skeptical inquirer, whether motivated by faith in the unexplained or by doubt born of modern sensibilities, that the quest for elusive truth belongs.

The skeptical inquirer knows well that the familiar face, the so photorealistic face that astounds is not the face that is actually on the Shroud. The face on the Shroud is bleary, ghostlike picture. It looks something like a soaked-in, blurred stain. However, when the Shroud of Turin is photographed -- something that happened for the first time in 1898 -- a startling image emerges on the photographer's film. The image on the negative, on the film, is a positive picture. That can only be so if the images on the Shroud are, themselves, negative images. What can that mean?

Are we to imagine, in an age before photography was invented, before anyone saw a photographic negative, that someone would or could create images like those on the Shroud? Why? How so, without an example of a continuous-tone, grayscale negative? Without a camera and film, how would an artisan know that he got it right? Perhaps, we might think, it was an accident. But surely, that is as improbably as Jackson Pollock dribbling paint onto a canvas from atop his twelve foot ladder and accidentally producing a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa.

There are plentiful odd qualities in the images.

Why does a computer plot of the image's color density produce a 3D terrain map? No pictorial work of art does so; nor does a photograph. Why can't you see the image if you stand very close to it? It really isn't a mystery; but it is very telling about the image. Why does the man look so gaunt? In reality, the image isn't of a narrow face but an optical illusion caused by the way the cloth was bleached makes us see the man as having a very thin face.

And why is the blood of the bloodstains red. It really is blood. That has been proven over and over by many scientists working independently of one another. Old blood normally turns black. The reasons it is red are simple. Ancient cloth, as it was manufactured in the the Middle East during the first century, was starched on the loom and then washed in suds of the Soapwort plant. Ingredients of this natural soap are hemolytic, which would keep the blood red. We know, as well, that the blood on the Shroud is rich in bilirubin, a bile pigment produced when a human body is under severe traumatic stress. Bilirubin is bright red and stays red.

The biggest mystery of all is, if the Shroud of Turin is a grave cloth which is something that we might infer, then how is it that it survived the grave? How is it that it it did not rot away? Why are there no signs of decomposition fluids that would occur within about three days? Why, indeed, was it separated from the body it covered?

This photo-rich website addresses many of these issues. It is organized like a museum website. Select a general topic, click on thumbnail picture, and browse through the dozens of pictures and the captions. Bookmark the site and visit often.

The true skeptical inquirer should not be confused with the magazine, Skeptical Inquirer. The Skeptical Inquirer is the journal of CSICOP, the "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal," an organization that has included such scientific luminaries as Carl Sagan and Steven Jay Gould.

Skeptical Inquirer is an interesting and entertaining magazine. It usually does an excellent job of debunking outlandish myths, urban legends and all manner of unscientific claims. But when it comes to the Shroud of Turin it has failed. For the editors of Skeptical Inquirer, everything they find distasteful in antievolutionary creationism (and Christianity in general) is mimicked in pitiable fashion as they struggle to attack the Shroud's authenticity. They recast history to their own fancy. They ignore scientific facts unless they suits their purpose. Hilariously, without any sense of exegetical perception, they cite the "Christian Bible," as though they thought the text literally true, to argue that the Shroud is not authentic.

Were they honest to the principles of skeptical inquiry, the magazine would question the carbon 14 dating. As it is, in their failing, they will leave that to ethical, peer-reviewed, scientific journals. They would be skeptical of Walter McCrone. They would wonder why, of all the scientists who directly examined Shroud fibers, only Walter McCrone claimed to find paint. How is that possible if the documented, accessible, peer-reviewed spectral analysis proves otherwise? Why is it that McCrone's work cannot be reproduced by anyone? Why is it that he did not submit his work to peer review in the normal way that scientists announce their findings?

The Skeptical Inquirer magazine has fooled itself by not being an inquirer and not being truly skeptical; for skepticism fueled by selective use of information is not skepticism at all.

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Excellent rebuttal argument from Freeper Shroudie's website to the Skeptical Inquirer's FAQ on the Shroud of Turin.

Shoud of Turin PING!

As always if you want to participate on threads relating to the Shroud of Turin, Freepmail me to get on the PING list.

Thanks for the ping!

There are a lot of people around the world whose *agenda* doesn't want the shroud proved to that of Christ's burial wrappings.

Fascinating stuff, S.

Here is the article from the Skeptical Inquirer by Joe Nickell

Claims of Invalid “Shroud” Radiocarbon Date Cut from Whole Cloth
Joe Nickell

Longtime Shroud of Turin devotee Ray Rogers, a retired research chemist, now admits there is the equivalent of a watercolor paint on the alleged burial cloth of Jesus. By tortuous logic and selective evidence, however, he uses the coloration to claim the “shroud” image was not the work of a medieval artist (Rogers 2004, 2005). Rogers follows many other shroud defenders in attempting to discredit the medieval date given by radiocarbon testing (Nickell 1998, 150–151).

In a paper published in Thermochimica Acta, Rogers (2005) claims that earlier carbon-14 dating tests—which proved the linen was produced between 1260 and 1390 (Damon et al. 1989)—were invalid because they were conducted on a sample taken from a medieval patch. “The radiocarbon sample has completely different chemical properties than the main part of the shroud relic,” Rogers told BBC News (“Turin” 2005).

In fact, the radiocarbon sample (a small piece cut from the “main body of the shroud” [Damon 1988, 612]) was destroyed by the testing. Rogers (2005) relied on two little threads allegedly left over from the sampling, [1] together with segments taken from an adjacent area in 1973. He cites pro-authenticity researchers who guessed that the carbon-14 sample came from a “rewoven area” of repair—“As unlikely as it seems,” Rogers admitted to one news source (Lorenzi 2005). Indeed, textile experts specifically made efforts to select a site for taking the radiocarbon sample that was away from patches and seams (Damon et al. 1989, 611–612).

Rogers compared the threads with some small samples from elsewhere on the Shroud, claiming to find differences between the two sets of threads that “prove” the radiocarbon sample “was not part of the original cloth” of the Turin shroud (as stated in his abstract [Rogers 2005, 189]).

The reported differences include the presence—allegedly only on the “radiocarbon sample”—of cotton fibers and a coating of madder root dye in a binding medium that his tests “suggest” is gum Arabic. He insists the sampled area was that of an interwoven medieval repair that was intentionally colored to match the “older, sepia-colored cloth” (Rogers 2005, 192, 193).

However, Rogers’ assertions to the contrary, both the cotton and the madder have been found elsewhere on the shroud. Both were specifically reported by famed microanalyst Walter McCrone (1996, 85) who was commissioned to examine samples taken by the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). After McCrone discovered the image was rendered in tempera paint, STURP held him to a secrecy agreement, while statements were made to the press that no evidence of artistry was found. McCrone was then, he says, “drummed out” of the organization [Nickell 1998, 124–125; 2004, 193–194]. As evidence of its pro-authenticity bias, STURP’s leaders served on the executive committee of the Holy Shroud Guild.

Not only did McCrone find “occasional” cotton fibers on the Shroud, but the source of Rogers’ sample, Gilbert Raes, has since been challenged as to his claim, cited by Rogers (2005, 189), that “the cotton was an ancient Near Eastern variety.” In fact, others—including French textile expert Gabriel Vial and major pro-shroud author Ian Wilson (1998, 71, 97)—believe the cotton may be entirely incidental. They point out it could have come from the cotton gloves or clothing of the Turin’s cloth’s handlers or a similarly mundane source.

On the tape-lifted STURP samples (affixed to microscope slides), McCrone found a variety of substances (including mold spores and wax spatters). Major pigments were red ocher (in “body” areas) and vermilion (together with red ocher in the “blood” areas), contained in a collagen tempera binder. He also found the madder, [2] orpiment, azurite, and yellow ocher pigments, as well as paint fragments, including ultramarine and titanium white—together suggestive of the shroud’s origin in “an artist’s studio” (McCrone 1996, 85, 135)..

Astonishingly—and with serious implications to the spirit of peer review—Rogers omits any mention of McCrone’s findings from his report while insisting elsewhere, “let’s be honest about our science” (Rogers 2004).

Although Rogers is a research chemist, unlike McCrone he is not an internationally celebrated microanalyst with special expertise in examining questioned paintings. Working in his “home laboratory,” he did not, as far as his report informs, use a “blind” approach as McCrone did to mitigate against the subjectivity that has continually plagued the work of shroud advocates. Moreover, McCrone once referred to Rogers’ and his fellow STURP co-author’s “incompetence in light microscopy” and pointed out errors in the test procedures they relied on (McCrone 1996, 157, 158–171).

Rogers (2005) now also reports the presence of vanillin in the lignin of the radiocarbon-sample area, in contrast to its reported absence in other areas of the cloth. This is a dubious finding given his extremely limited samples. He attempts to date the shroud by the amount of the lignin decomposition but admits that that method can offer only an accuracy range of a whopping 1,700 years (contrasted with about 150 years by radiocarbon dating). He concedes that the decomposition could have been accelerated by the baking of the cloth in its reliquary that occurred during the fire of 1532, but thinks it unlikely the cloth is medieval.

However, apart from the fire damage, the cloth is remarkably well preserved for a reputed age of nearly 2000 years. Also, no examples of its complex herringbone weave are known from the time of Jesus when, in any case, burial cloths tended to be of plain weave (Nickell 1998, 35; Wilson 1998, 98–99, 188; Sox 1981). In addition, Jewish burial practice utilized—and the Gospel of John specifically describes for Jesus—multiple burial wrappings with a separate cloth over the face.

Other evidence of medieval fakery includes the shroud’s lack of historical record prior to the mid-fourteenth century—when a bishop reported the artist’s confession—as well as serious anatomical problems, the lack of wraparound distortions, the resemblance of the figure to medieval depictions of Jesus, and suspiciously bright red and picturelike “blood” stains which failed a battery of sophisticated tests by forensic serologists, among many other indicators. These facts argue against Rogers’ assertions that the shroud is neither a forgery nor a miracle—that “the blood is real blood” [3] and the image was produced by “a rotting body” (Rogers 2004).

Science has proved the Shroud of Turin a medieval fake, but defenders of authenticity turn the scientific method on its head by starting with the desired conclusion and working backward to the evidence—picking and choosing and reinterpreting as necessary. It is an approach I call “shroud science.”

Notes

Ian Wilson (1998, 187) reported that the trimmings “are no longer extant.”
Red lake colors like madder were specifically used by medieval artists to overpaint vermilion in depicting “blood” (Nickell 1998, 130).
Rogers (2004) does acknowledge that claims the blood is type AB “are nonsense.”

References

Damon, P.E., et al. 1989. Radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin. Nature 337 (February): 611–615.

Lorenzi, Rossella. 2005. Turin shroud older than thought. News in Science, January 26.

McCrone, Walter. 1996. Judgment Day for the Turin Shroud. Chicago: Microscope Publications.

Nickell, Joe. 1998. Inquest on the Shroud of Turin: Latest Scientific Findings. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.

———. 2004. The Mystery Chronicles. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky.

Rogers, Raymond N. 2004. Shroud not hoax, not miracle. Letter to the editor, Skeptical Inquirer 28:4 (July/August), 69; with response by Joe Nickell.

———. 2005. Studies on the radiocarbon sample from the Shroud of Turin. Thermochimica Acta 425: 189–194.

Sox, H. David. 1981. Quoted in David F. Brown, Interview with H. David Sox, New Realities 4:1 (1981), 31.

Turin shroud “older than thought.” 2005. BBC News, January 27.

Wilson, Ian. 1998. The Blood and the Shroud. New York: The Free Press.

bump

thanks for the ping

As evidence, the chain of custody down through the centuries, makes the "shroud" inadmissible. "Experts", are wrong just as many times as they are right. The fact that the shroud was found in the Middle Ages during the period of the Hundred Years War, tends to suggest that it is a manufactured artifact. A common occurrence since the death of Christ. Many "Christian Relics" were fabricated and many monasteries and aristocrats charged the faithful money to gaze or touch these fakes.

It amazes me that people want or need to believe in the authenticity of such an item. Will it make all Christians, more Christian if it is, indeed, the shroud that Christ's body was wrapped after his crucifixion? It doesn't matter to me. Faith is the belief in that which is unseen, unproven. The Shroud of Turin reminds me of Dumbo the Elephant's magic feather. The feather wasn't really magic, Dumbo had a real talent. Anybody wanna buy a "Magic Feather"?

There are a lot of people around the world whose *agenda* doesn't want the shroud proved to that of Christ's burial wrappings.

Exactly what would be the consequences if the shroud were, somehow, actually proved "authentic"? It has not shown to poses any supernatural power. Surely, during its known existence, it has been prayed to in order to elicit divine intervention and yet, its authenticity has not been confirmed by a miracle. The shroud may actually be the burial cloth of Christ, but its existence, like the Holy Grail and pieces of the True Cross or Peter's Bones is only memorabilia, not faith.

Below is a draft of an article in the works that specifically addresses Nickell's article as seen in post #5. When finished it will be posted to my website, linked from Barrie's site (I talked with him last night), and released with a press release. I am awaiting some clarifications from Ray Rogers. He sent me one note last night and I have only a couple of remaining questions.

Dan

Draft follows:

In an article intended to be laudatory, “An Interview With Joe Nickel (sic),” Eric Krieg of the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking, describes Joe Nickell (from Nickell’s own words) as an "investigator" and formerly an “undercover detective, teacher, draft dodger, river boat manager, carnival promoter, magician, investigator and spokesperson.”*

“Joe impressed on me the difference between being a scientist and an investigator,” Kreig wrote. “Joe seems to have no significant credentials . . . Joe [Nickell] remarks that a scientist tends to approach an investigation from the narrow view of his own specialty - where as a ‘jack of all trades’ would come up with more avenues of investigation.”

Jack of all trades: yes! Joe Nickell, with his most recent article on Ray Rogers and the Shroud of Turin amply demonstrates that he is a facts dodger, a sideshow promoter and a spokesperson for a curiously single-minded point of view. Above all, he is a magician; skilled at diverting attention from what is really going on so that one sees only what he wants one to see. A couple of examples will serve:

Joe Nickell wrote: “Astonishingly—and with serious implications to the spirit of peer review—Rogers omits any mention of McCrone’s findings [of paint particles] from his report . . .” Rogers didn’t mention McCrone’s findings, or the Battle of Waterloo, or Mrs. O’Leary’s cow: for a single reason. McCrone’s findings have absolutely nothing to do with Rogers’ paper in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Thermochimica Acta. Nickell desperately wanted the reader to focus on McCrone. He brought up McCrone so let’s point out some things:

* McCrone’s findings were published in Microscope, a magazine published and edited by McCrone – hardly peer reviewed.

* Definitive tests including visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, lasermicroprobe Raman analyses, and microchemical testing show no evidence for pigments or media that McCrone reported finding. The scientific work, in contrast to McCrone’s observations, is published in peer reviewed journals.

* Furthermore, it is now well understood that the images are chemical changes within a thin film of starch fractions and saccharides that coat some of the outermost fibers of the cloth; a film thinner than 1/100th the diameter of a human hair. That ain’t paint!

Elsewhere, Joe Nickell speaks of “suspiciously bright red and picturelike 'blood' stains which failed a battery of sophisticated tests by forensic serologists, among many other indicators.” Again, this topic is totally unrelated. This is a diversion, a slight of hand trick to deflect from Rogers’ findings. Which forensic serologists is Joe Nickell referring to? What sophisticated tests? What other indicators? He conveniently neglects to mention that others disagree, something an honest investigator would mention:

* Using ultraviolet-visible reflectance and fluorescence spectra, S. F. Pellicori analyzed the spectral properties of the Shroud's image color, the blood, and the non-image areas. These are quantitative measurements. They are based on reflectance and not a person's visual interpretation of indefinite splotches of different optical density. The spectra carry much important information, and they can not be ignored. This is documented in Applied Optics (1980). pp. 1913-1920].

* Alan Adler, an expert on porphyrins (the types of colored compounds seen in blood), chlorophyll, and many other natural products concluded that the blood is real. In collaboration with John Heller, the conclusion that the blood is real was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Applied Optics (also 1980). The heme was converted into its parent porphyrin, and this was confirmed with spectral analysis.

* Baima Bollone also found both the heme porphyrin ring of blood and the globulin in flakes of blood from Shroud samples, independently confirming the work of Adler and Heller.

* In addition, the x-ray-fluorescence spectra showed excess iron in blood areas, as expected for blood. Microchemical tests for proteins were positive in blood areas but not in any other parts of the Shroud.

* Chemical tests by E. J. Jumper, A. D. Adler, J. P. Jackson, S. F. Pellicori, J. H. Heller, and J. R. Druzik are documented in "A comprehensive examination of the various stains and images on the Shroud of Turin," American Chemical Society’s Advances in Chemistry, Archaeological Chemistry (1984)

* Other confirming material provided by J. H. Heller and A. D. Adler includes: "A Chemical Investigation of the Shroud of Turin," Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal as well as an article by L. A. Schwalbe and R. N. Rogers, Analytica Chimica Acta (1982).

Nickell writes: "Rogers (2004) does acknowledge that claims the blood is type AB 'are nonsense'." There can be only one reason for stating this: to imply that Rogers is debunking the blood; else why mention it at all since it is totally unrelated to anything in Rogers' paper or Nickell's article. What Rogers actually wrote in a letter to the editors of Skeptical Inquirer was: "The blood is real blood, but the things you hear about typing are nonsense." [typing being AB typing]

Nickell sometimes calls himself a journalist. Such misappropriation of the quotes of others is not journalism. Nor is it good writing. A high school English student would get an F for such misrepresentation.

At one point, in his article, Joe Nickell wrote: "McCrone once referred to Rogers’ and his fellow STURP co-author’s 'incompetence in light microscopy” and pointed out errors in the test procedures they relied on . . . "

It is fair to say that many scientists have said similar things about McCrone. How should we judge who is right? Consider this:

In Biblical Archeology Review, McCrone wrote this statement: "The paint on the shroud was dilute (0.01 percent in a 0.01 percent gelatin solution)."

Is there a microscopist, chemist, scientist of any discipline or a jack-of-all-trades who can explain how anyone can look through an optical microscope at tiny particles stuck to sticky sampling tapes and determine how much water was used to dissolve the gelatin (assuming that there is gelatin)? A high school chemistry student would get an F for making such a bogus claim.

Joe Nickell makes this whopping statement: "He [=Rogers] attempts to date the shroud by the amount of the lignin decomposition but admits that that method can offer only an accuracy range of a whopping 1,700 years (contrasted with about 150 years by radiocarbon dating).

One wonders if Joe Nickell even read the paper in Thermochimica Acta. What Rogers stated is that it might take 1300 to 3000 years for vanillin content in lignin to fully decompose depending on storage temperatures over the centuries. At the very least, the cloth is about twice as old as the carbon 14 dating suggested. What Rogers made explicitly clear was that if the cloth was produced at even the earliest date that the carbon 14 dating suggested, the lignin in the fibers should have retained about 37% of their vanillin content. There is none, or the amount is too small to be detected.

By the way, the accuracy for the carbon 14 testing was not 150 years. The range of dates were determined as the result of differences in the measurements of several observations of sub-samples of the single cutting. It is not a reflection of radiocarbon 14 accuracy.

Joe Nickell, the poor writer that he is, makes repeated, fallacious use of words like admits or acknowledges to misrepresent Rogers. He did so with the inappropriate characterization of the blood and he did so with the mistaken explanation of lignin decomposition. He did so in the first paragraph of the article as well. Joe Nickell started his article by stating that, "Ray Rogers, a retired research chemist, now admits there is the equivalent of a watercolor paint on the alleged burial cloth of Jesus."

He did not. He found dyestuff on threads from the carbon 14 sample area only. No such stuff is found on the Shroud proper. This along with other chemical differences shows that the sample was not representative of the cloth and was not, therefore, valid for carbon 14 dating. This writing tactic, known as yellow journalism, is a method of stretching the facts to sway opinion.

The facts that Rogers reported in a letter to the editors of Skeptical Inquirer read differently than Nickell's characterizations. Here is the full list from Rogers letter to Skeptical Inquirer magazine (as republished in Red Nova):

1) X-ray fluorescence, visible/UV spectra, and chemical analyses proved that the image is not a high-Z pigment.

2) The blood is real blood, but the things you hear about typing are nonsense.

3) The image was not produced by radiation. There are no defects in the cellulose crystals.

4) The image color is in a 200-500-nanometers-thick amorphous surface layer.

5) The image spectrum looks like a Maillard product; i.e., the products that form when you bring reducing saccharides (e.g., starch) into contact with the amine decomposition products of a rotting body. No miracles or painters are required.

6) The radiocarbon sample is dyed with a gum/dye/mordant system containing madder root dyes. The rest of the cloth is not. It was a medieval patch.

7) Lignin decomposition kinetics show that it would have taken between 1300 and 3000 years to reach the composition observed.

8) I [Rogers] found a medieval splice in the sampling area.

Joe Nickell may be a jack of some trades. Journalist and scientist are not part of the mix.

*Note:

Joe Nickell hold a Ph. D. in English Literature from the University of Kentucky.

According to their websites, Nickell is a Senior Research Fellow with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), a Senior Research Fellow with Center for Inquiry which includes the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, a staff member for the Council on Secular Humanism and a Fellow of the The Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health. All of these organizations are affiliated, have tax exempt status as educational institutions, and have websites owned by Barry Karr of the Center for Inquiry.

Nickell is a frequent writer for Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine published by Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).

The Sudarium of Oviedo has revealed sufficient information to suggest that it was in contact with the face of Jesus after the crucifixion. However, the really fascinating evidence comes to light when this cloth is compared to the Shroud of Turin.

The first and most obvious coincidence is that the blood on both cloths belongs to the same group, namely AB.

The length of the nose through which the pleural oedema fluid came onto the sudarium has been calculated at eight centimetres, just over three inches. This is exactly the same length as the nose on the image of the Shroud.

If the face of the image on the Shroud is placed over the stains on the sudarium, perhaps the most obvious coincidence is the exact fit of the stains with the beard on the face. As the sudarium was used to clean the man's face, it appears that it was simply placed on the face to absorb all the blood, but not used in any kind of wiping movement.

A small stain is also visible proceeding from the right hand side of the man's mouth. This stain is hardly visible on the Shroud, but Dr. John Jackson, using the VP-8 and photo enhancements has confirmed its presence.

The thorn wounds on the nape of the neck also coincide perfectly with the bloodstains on the Shroud.

Dr. Alan Whanger applied the Polarized Image Overlay Technique to the sudarium, comparing it to the image and bloodstains on the Shroud. The frontal stains on the sudarium show seventy points of coincidence with the Shroud, and the rear side shows fifty. The only possible conclusion is that the Oviedo sudarium covered the same face as the Turin Shroud.

The Sudarium of Oviedo : Its History and Relationship to the Shroud of Turin

Catholic Ping - Come home for Easter and experience God’s merciful love. Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

Excellent rebuttal argument

Agreed! Shroud Story is the most comprehensive resource on the Shroud of Turin.

There have always been skeptics. St. Thomas refused to believe until he actually touched the wounds of Christ. Times change ... people don't.

Thanks for the info.

Agreed! Shroud Story is the most comprehensive resource on the Shroud of Turin.

I already complimented Shroudie on his website as the most "more accessible . . . easier to navigate," and that it contains ". . . more succinct descriptions and explanations" than any other site... including Barrie Schworz's Shroud.com website, but I give the nod on most comprehensive to Barrie. I am pretty sure that Shroudie would agree. Barrie maintains his site not only as a repository of the photographic record of the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project photographs, but also as a sort of clearing house for scientific and scholarly articles that makes it the premier Shroud source on the web. Barrie provides us the opportunity to read the primary sources for ourselves.

I think that Shroudie's website's organization, it's consistent design, and his well written, popular style articles make it the most accessible for laymen to understand the sometimes turgid prose found in the scientific articles republished and archived on Barrie's site. Shroudie has a great talent for cutting through the mind numbing blur that tables, formulae, statistical analysis, and dry prose tend to induce in most readers of scientific papers and slice out the meat to tell us the most important conclusions and how those conclusions fit with the other research results reported.

Both are the best of the web based Shroud resources available and complement each other.

Thanks to both Barrie and Shroudie for taking on this task.

I really appreciate your pings to this thread. I had not seen the "Shroudie's" website. So this is great!

God Bless!

Here is the story from Zenit News Service, yesterday.

Dan

Date: 2002-08-20

Scientists Find Errors in Dating of Shroud of Turin

Believe That Medieval-Era Mending Skewed Results

ROME, AUG. 20, 2002 (Zenit.org).- New studies reveal that the 1988 carbon-14 dating analysis of the Shroud of Turin did not take into consideration the mending done to the cloth in the Middle Ages.

"The mending was medieval, not the shroud," wrote Orazio Petrosillo in the Roman newspaper Il Messaggero. Petrosillo is the author of several books on the cloth widely believed to be the burial linen of Jesus.

Petrosillo explained that during the Middle Ages it was very common to use a type of sewing -- invisible to the naked eye -- to reinforce fabrics of artistic or historical value.

According to Petrosillo, whose thesis is based on studies by U.S. scientists Sue Benford and Joseph Marino, researchers from laboratories at Oxford, England; Tucson, Arizona; and Zurich, Switzerland, examined the shroud in 1988 without realizing it was mended with linen in the 16th century. That study concluded the shroud was made sometime between 1260 and 1390.

The new thesis was articulated after scientists presented fabric experts with a series of photographs of one of the small pieces of cloth of the shroud taken in 1988 for carbon-14 dating, as well as a section which was not used. The three experts agreed that there are different weaves in the sections analyzed.

According to Beta Analytic, a radiocarbon-dating service, a mixture of 60% of 16th-century material with 40% of first-century material could lead to a dating of the 13th century. The calculation of percentages is based on the observations of the three fabric experts.

Petrosillo also quotes the study of chemist Ray Rogers, who was part of the Sturp group of U.S. scientists that examined the shroud in 1978.

Rogers had linen fibers of both the area of the cloth taken to carry out the carbon-14 analysis (cut out by the Belgian fabrics expert Gilbert Raes in 1973) as well as other parts of the shroud.

Both in the section extracted by Raes as well as that used in 1988, the fibers are impregnated by a dark yellow substance, whose color varies in density from one fiber to another.

However, the fibers of the rest of the shroud do not have this substance. According to the experts, it is a type of yellow vegetable glue, often used in the past.

Rogers has verified that there is an invisible mend in the piece taken out by Raes, like those made in the 16th century.

In fact, a thread of Raes' section was dated with the carbon-14 method at the California Institute of Technology.

Half the thread turned out to be covered by starch. The thread was divided into two equal parts: the part without starch turned out to be of the third century, while the part with starch was dated in the 13th century.

Petrosillo concluded that the shroud continues to raise scientific questions calling for new and more adequate study.

Half the thread turned out to be covered by starch. The thread was divided into two equal parts: the part without starch turned out to be of the third century, while the part with starch was dated in the 13th century.

I had heard rumors of an unauthorized C14 test of one of the Raes threads... this is the first I have seen it in print.

I suspect that the thread was interwoven / intertwined new and old material and BOTH halfs were still mixtures to a degree... one with more new fibers and one with more old fibers. Sure would be interesting to know how much of the starchy thread was included in the thread that reported 3rd Century dating.

I am re-pinging the Shroud of Turin ping list to this thread because two list members have contacted me to say that although the list got pinged, they didn't. In addition, many of our usual ping list members have not made comments. I have no way of checking who did or did not get alerted to this thread so I decided to re-ping.

Sorry for repinging those that got their ping the first time... if you did originally, come on back because there is another article added to the thread.

This thread contains 3 new articles on the Shroud and the latest scientific finding that invalidates the 1988 C14 tests.

PING!

Thanks

Thanks for the reping!