More on the "Mysterious" Shroud

More on the "Mysterious" Shroud

By Jeff Messenger, Barkhamsted

Mr. William Carlotti has brought up some very good points regarding the Shroud of Turin [The Faith Agenda, April 12], points I would like to address.

Is there any evidence that this linen was a real burial cloth, and one that wrapped a man crucified in the exact manner of Jesus of Nazareth? Yes there is. The man of the Shroud horribly suffered each injury inflicted on Jesus as reported in the New Testament (and was "spared" the common practice of leg breaking, due to the fact that he was already dead). The man of the Shroud also has Judaic features, and the outline of a Jewish "phylactery" resting on his forehead. Faint visual impressions and corresponding pollen grains of the plant "zygophyllum dunosum" are also found on the linen. This plant only grows in the Sinai, Jordan and around Jerusalem. A unique type of limestone dust, "travertine aragonite," was found on the back side of the Shroud. This particular limestone isn't common, but it is found in historic tombs around Jerusalem. Even if the limestone was common, it would still indicate that this linen was laid on a tomblike surface or shelf.

Walter McCrone, who never directly examined the Shroud, discovered red ochre and vermilion paint particles, along with various proteins and iron oxide on sticky tape samples collected by the Shroud of Turin Research Project. Is his "painting" theory accepted by the scientific community? Surprisingly, it's not even widely accepted among prominent Shroud debunkers! I think Mr. McCrone is an "art"ful dodger, considering that his Shroud as art theory flies in the face of all the facts STURP had published.

Here are 17 good reasons to dismiss the McCrone "painting" theory: (1) The Shroud's body image is invisible within arm's length distance. For a medieval artist to have painted such a subtle, distance-sensitive rendering is problematic. (2) The suspected "painted" body image does not penetrate the linen; it exists only on the uppermost linen fibrils. Any paint medium would have absorbed into the cloth, the way water absorbs into a sponge. (3) The intense heat of the 1532 chapel fire did not affect the Shroud's image. More than that, molten silver (from its case) actually burned through the Shroud, and next to those long scorch marks the image remains unaffected. (4) The water used to extinguish the burning Shroud in 1532, leaving large water stains visible to this day, did not affect the Shroud image. (We're talking about some durable medieval paint here!)

(5) The blood stains were on the cloth before the body image. This is seen where the blood has flaked off, exposing clean linen fibrils exhibiting no body image yellowing. Thus a medieval artist must had painted the blood stains before he painted the body image. This is the equivalent of a person putting on their shoes before their socks. (6) The linen fibrils are not matted or stuck together, as they would be if a paint media were introduced to them. These facts are in the photographic record.

(7) A medieval artist would be very reluctant to paint a portrait of Jesus nude. While his hands block the full frontal nudity, his buttocks are in full view. (8) The paint particles McCrone discovered are random, and are not confined to the image area. This supports the "artist studio contamination" theory, that the paint contamination occurred when iconographers copied the Shroud's features and pressed their work upon the original as a blessing.

(9) Connecticut's very own professors, Dr. John Heller and (the late) Dr. Alan Adler, discovered that McCrone's observed "iron oxide" was too "chemically pure" to be a paint ingredient. They found that pure iron oxide was the result of "retted" (soaked in water) flax, a process of linen manufacture. The "retted" linen draws into itself iron, calcium and strontium. (10) Adler had pointed out that if the blood "paint" was "one third cinnabar" (vermilion) as McCrone claimed, the mercury would show up on the X-ray studies. It didn't!

(11) At Yale, Heller and Dr. Joseph Gall discovered the presence of hemoglobin in the blood stain fibers, with the use of a microspectrophotometer. (12) The Bromcresol Green Test found serum albumin in the blood stains. (13) The "blood stains" were actually determined to be an "exudate" from clotted wounds. (14) A high level of bilirupin identifies the clotted blood as containing haomolyzed hemoglobin, which binds with bilirupin in the liver of people who are tortured. This chemical process explains the "unnatural red color" of the Shroud's blood stains.

(15) Professors Pierluigi Barma-Ballone and Dr. Jerome Lejeune identified that the blood on the Shroud is real, type "AB." (16) Professor Marcello Canale detected DNA within the blood. To confirm this finding, U.S. scientists Dr. Victor Tryon and Nancy Mitchell Tryon also found human DNA as well. So when it comes to the "authenticity" of the blood stains, we have McCrone's opinion versus seven other scientists.

Finally, (17) Walter McCrone is an expert in microscopy, and his theory is limited to his observations of sticky tape samples. The STURP team held a diversity of expertise, and these 40 scientists conducted their tests with direct access to the Shroud. Anyone who is objective would put their money on STURP over McCrone.

As a footnote, Walter McCrone is a problematic scientist to many. His claim to fame, the debunking of Yale's "Vinland Map," is now heavily questioned. Scientists currently claim that his particle analysis of this map was in error.

When asked for public quotations about Heller and Adler's research, McCrone labeled it "drivel" and "asinine." He went so far as to say "Adler is an ass and you can quote me." (Ian Wilson, The Blood and the Shroud, p. 82) Sounds as if Mr. McCrone has some ego invested with being right. That doesn't make him very objective.

Regarding Bishop Pierre d'Arcis' account of the Shroud's confessed forger, many consider this letter highly suspect. If the letter is legitimate, some medieval bishop's opinion (with possible ulterior motives) hardly weighs more than what the Shroud of Turin Research Project had discovered.

Finally, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Carlotti's perspective that the Shroud is a lasting testimony of brutalityâ014of man's inhumanity to man. Amen to that. Because I didn't explore this particular social avenue in my article, Mr. Carlotti attributes the word "myopia" to me for the fourth time. The particular focus of my Shroud article was to follow up on my commentary about (the bias of) the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. All the socially relevant messages the Shroud can deliver are not lost on me (whether the Shroud is legitimate or fraudulent). When I read of the thousands tortured by crucifixion, it is very horrifying.

As to my interest in the "mysterious" features of the Shroud, I am not alone. Most people, documentaries and researchers (even skeptical researchers such as McCrone) also focus on the "mystery" of the Shroud. If there is also a need for social commentary, writers far more talented than I (like Mr. Carlotti) can easily cover that base.