Customer Reviews

Acheiropoeta: Not Made By Hands: The Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Holy Shroud of Turin

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I have not read this book but believe that another review appearing on this page needs to be corrected. This is an up-to-date investigation, both spiritual and temporal, of the miraculous images of Guadalupe and Turin. The section on Guadalupe includes chapters on The Mythology of the Aztec Indians, The Theology of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Genesis 3:15 and Apocalypse 12, The Anti-Apparitionists, and Science and the Image on the Tilma. The section on the Shroud includes chapters on Holy Scripture and the Holy Shroud and Science and the Holy Shroud. The text is heavily referenced and contains photographs and illustrations throughout.

This book deals with the theology of Our Lady of Guadalupe - of the apparition and of the tilma and of the sacred image of the crucified Christ on the holy Shroud of Turin. This book also provides scriptural and scientific information concerning the Turin Shroud and the tilma. In this book the author has taken it upon himself to share his exhaustive review on the attempts to discredit the Tilma of Blessed Juan Diego and the Shroud of Turin. He divides the book into two separate sections. We are then shown why such claims are not scientific and that these relics are an effective demonstration of the credibility of our Savior and the mystery of the cross. The author is mainly concerned with the questions of credibility and apologetics in this study; we are invited to accept the miracle of these icons as divinely appointed. And he shows how the scientific community could not disprove their authenticity. In fact this book shares the fraudulent carbon-fourteen test of 1998, which has been rejected by the prestigious scientific journal, Science Today, is answered by hard factual evidence to the contrary. There are many accompanying photos and illustrations in the book, and the books supplies many references, which are available for further reading.

This book contains some useful information on the scientific analysis of the Tilma, which has the imprint of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the Shroud of Turin, but it is mainly a series of quotes from various believers and non-believers on the origin of these relics. This makes it hard to read and frankly rather uninteresting. If you are looking for an objective analysis of the scientific evidence for the validity of these relics, look elsewhere. As a practicing Catholic and scientist, I was disappointed at the lack of the author's objectivity toward the scientific analysis.

Thirty pages into this book, I wondered who was Mr. Sennott's target audience. For believers in the miracles associated with the Virgin of Guadalupe, he provides scant details and those are poorly organized. For Skeptics he fills far too many pages with silly and dull quotations from other skeptics without ever giving a unified or focused defense of the image's authenticity. The section on the Shroud is only slightly less frustrating.

The problems may be with the editing. The chapters are too long and wander over many unrelated topics without a clear point. The reader cannot find what he does nor skip what he doesn't want to read.