Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin [Hardcover]

Walter C. McCrone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999

One of the most precious relics of the Catholic Church, the Shroud of Turin, is still believed by many to be the cloth that covered Jesus Christ in the tomb. When displayed to the public, the shroud becomes an international tourist attraction with interest heightening it to an eighth Wonder of the World. Yet scientists, led by famed microanalyst Dr. Walter McCrone, have proved the shroud to be a fake, a medieval painting that can be easily duplicated today using the simplest of materials. The painstaking investigation that led McCrone to this historic discovery is recounted here in "Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin", one of only two books to scientifically, and fully, discount the shroud story. Upon close examination, even leading members of the Catholic Church had to agree with McCrone's findings, which gained international attention when featured on the A&E Television Network. Told in fascinating detail, with all the intrigue of a good mystery novel, McCrone's memoir is a lasting contribution to shroud study, one that occupied more than twenty years of the author's life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"..the definitive analysis of the evidence by the man who actually did the research..recommended for specialists and dabblers alike." -- Internet Bookwatch, July, 2001

"This is an excellent, convincing book for any objective reader." -- The Geis Letter #63

Product Details

• Hardcover: 341 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573926795
• ISBN-13: 978-1573926799
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 8.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,486,690 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read book..., November 1, 2006

By 

Titanium Raven (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book on the research that McCrone did on the Turin Shroud and the story surrounding the research. It's part biography, part historical narrative, and part scientific report on the evidence examined. It will be better appreciated by those with a scientific background, especially those with an appreciation of chemistry and microscopy; however, the non-scientist can appreciate this book for the storytelling, and for the many photos that help explain the evidence.

True believers in the shroud will always find ways to discredit any evidence that it is fake, and those who want to believe or to convince others will perpetually argue that neither side has sufficient evidence. This is a first-hand account from someone who actually examined evidence from the shroud, and in this account, the evidence examined is laid out for the reader. An important point that I think has gone overlooked is that in this book, McCrone states that he expected to confirm that the shroud dated from the time of Christ -- he expected to find evidence pointing to the shroud's authenticity. Instead, after much examination and testing, McCrone had to conclude that the shroud was a fake because of the evidence. (Another note: The time period which McCrone concluded that the shroud actually originated in coincides with the carbon dating results, which were done much later after his research.)

When faced with new evidence, some people change their views. And other people, when given proof contrary to their beliefs, dismiss it and the person providing it. That was what was done to Walter McCrone by STURP and the Church; his career was severely damaged long before he published this book. In fact, I had never heard of McCrone's research on the shroud until just a few years ago, which is a testament to how well the religious establishement and its followers have marginalized McCrone and his participation in examining the shroud. Even so, McCrone's ideas on how the shroud originated are far more plausible than the theories put out in a sensationalized TV show I saw a few years ago -- a show which mentioned the carbon dating, but not a word about McCrone. As for another sceintist repeating McCrone's work for verification -- this book also explains the barriers (lack of access to shroud or the original slides -- access controlled by the Church, of course) to making that happen.

Although this book centers around the Turin Shroud, it is really about a scientist who sought to do a thorough job and honestly report his findings, and who found himself persecuted for doing precisely that. The ultimate lesson I took away from this book is to stay out of the business of trying to prove or verfiy the correctness of strongly-held beliefs, expecially religious beliefs. The believers, even the ones who sought you out and hired you to do the job, will vilify you if you don't give them the answers they want.

10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John Heller's Catechism-22, January 21, 2007

By 

Joseph Wallack (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin (Hardcover)

"In order to get a supernatural explanation out of the "Shroud", one must be Scientist. But if someone gets a supernatural explanation out of the "Shroud", then one is not Scientist. But in order to..."

*Walter, I'm glad to see that my work was not in vain and that the Pursuit of Truth has finally overtaken perceived truth. The title alone, "Judgment Day For The Shroud Of Turin", is worth the price of the book (30 pieces of silver). The fact that Heller's book, arguing for the authenticity of the Shroud has long since fossilized in the Apologist's Hall Of Fame and gone out of print while your book remains popular kind of says it all.*

The beauty of the book is that while McCrone puts the "Shroud" under the microscope, in a typology which ironically is so crucial to many Church doctrines, McCrone at the same time puts the faith of a Church which believes its leader is infallible but couldn't even tell you if it was going to rain tomorrow under the microscope as well. So, in addition to presenting overwhelming and then some evidence that the "Shroud" is really a shroud the book becomes a wonderful illustration of the nature of Apologetics. Ignore/deny superior tests for supporting conclusions and create/cling to inferior tests supporting assumptions thus placing the usual scientific process backwards (isn't this evidence of Satan?).

If McCrone is guilty of anything it was baiting the Church into thinking that he was exactly the type of scientist wanted by the Church, top credentials but sympathetic to the cause of the Church and determined to prove the Shroud authentic. In his initial letters to Father Rinaldi, offering his services to research the Shroud, McCrone titled his letters, "Authentication Of The Turin Shroud" and wrote, "The provenance for the Shroud is known dependably for more than 600 years with considerable evidence extending this date back to the time of Christ...The protection of this information through proper channels must remain uppermost in our minds...I sincerely hope we may be able to work on this most interesting project and hope that we will be able to obtain data supporting the conclusion that this linen was indeed the one used as Christ's Shroud after the cruxifixion."

As a scientist McCrone should have known before he started his testing that the Shroud was 14th century as he was familiar with the extant letters from the Bishops of Lyons (yes, "Lyons") to the then Pope stating that the creator of the Shroud had confessed that it was a painting (this fact more than any other illustrates the absurdness of the necessity to even test the Shroud for authenticity as the situation is that we have second and third hand evidence that the "Shroud" is a fraud while we have no hand or even foot evidence that there even was a burial shroud of Jesus). Even the supporters of the "Shroud" generally agree that these letters are authentic but they claim that they refer to some other burial Shroud of Jesus near Lyons at the same time (ignore/deny). McCrone had also studied the results of testing by the 1973 Italian Commission, the first group of Scientists, hand picked by the Church, to test the Shroud whose results strongly implied that the Shroud was a 14th century painting. Aside from the conclusive evidence that McCrone found indicating the Shroud was a fraud the Church and Christian scientists involved in the study of the Shroud also came to hate McCrone because they felt that his initial portrayal of being sympathetic to the Church was a false appearance to induce the Church to use him and hid his true belief that the Shroud was a fraud and he wanted to prove that it was to feed his ego and build his reputation as a great scientist.

The bulk of the book consists of McCrone explaining the necessity, procedures, analysis and conclusions of scientific testing of the Shroud in terms easily understandable to the non-scientist and this is where McCrone excels as in addition to superior scientific skills he displays supreme communication skills as a teacher as well. McCrone proves through the use of state of the art microscopic technology that the Shroud image consists almost entirely of paint pigments popular in the 14th century. While generally conceding that there is some paint pigment on the Shroud, supporters of the Shroud deny that the image is a painting because there is no evidence of brushstrokes when examined microscopically. To answer this objection McCrone demonstrated that if the paint was sufficiently diluted in a water base there would be no detectable brushstrokes. McCrone recreated shrouds using the same paint materials used on the Shroud and reported that there were no visible brushstrokes on the recreations and that under the microscope the particles were identical between the recreations and the Shroud and challenged any Shroud supporter to try and tell the difference (a challenge which is still untaken). McCrone next demonstrated that there is no actual blood in the "blood" image areas of the Shroud. Dried blood under the microscope is always black but the blood areas of the Shroud were red. Chemical analysis of the blood image areas also indicated that they lacked major chemical components of blood such as potassium. Shroud supporters, such as Heller, conclude that the blood image areas are blood because they contain some chemical components of blood such as calcium and iron but they ignore that paint pigments also contain calcium and iron. When asked to explain why the usual tests for the presence of blood fail here, such as black color and existence of potassium, they explain that the explanation is some unknown process (ignore/deny).

These then were the two significant conclusions of McCrone, the image is a painting and there is no evidence of blood. McCrone wrote up the results of his testing in articles for peer reviewed and accredited scientific journals and his results are largely accepted by the scientific community at large. McCrone also deals with claims of Shroud supporters who are then forced to rely on inferior issues to support their beliefs. Regarding the common supporter claim that the "Shroud" is a perfect negative image McCrone points out that the hair and blood images of the Shroud are positive, not negative images. The other popular supporter claim is that the Shroud contains a collection of pollens which support a journey from the Middle East, to Turkey and then to Europe. McCrone notes that his examination of the Shroud indicated that the majority of these pollens were concentrated in one extremely limited area of the Shroud and recognizing that he is not a pollen expert provides a special section in his book detailing the report of a pollen expert who has serious doubts as to the credibility of the Scientist (Frei) who reported the pollen findings. McCrone builds such a strong case for the Shroud being a 14th century painting that when McCrone reports towards the end of his book the results of carbon dating showing a 14th century date (surprise) it's actually anti-climactic.

McCrone also describes his impressive credentials, tools and talent for such a project and is quite merciful in describing the lack of corresponding qualifications of his Christian "scientist" opponents instead limiting himself to objectively describing their limited qualifications and use of inferior equipment. John Jackson for instance, perhaps McCrone's biggest critic, had the main qualification for studying the Shroud of being a captain in the U.S. Air Force. Generally, the Christian scientists supporting the Shroud have not had peer reviewed articles published in accredited scientific journals.

McCrone's reward for his work was to be ostracized and shunned by the Church and fellow Christian scientists who in addition to obviously not liking his results were incensed that unlike some predecessors who had similar findings McCrone had the courage to make POSITIVE conclusions ("The Shroud is a 14th century painting") rather than play the Church's game and avoid positive conclusions indicating the Shroud was not authentic ("I did not find evidence that the Shroud is from the 1st century").

In the face of this persecution McCrone displays a timely and welcome sense of humor during his book giving appropriate placed applicable quotes such as Ambrose Bierce's "Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."

*Walter: Did you ever know you are my hero? You are the cleaning solution beneath my microscope slide. By golly, you and your microscope were right all along. You've convinced me and I hope your book will convince others. With best wishes and keep up the good work.*

Sincerely and free at last, Galileo

46 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars McCrone not quite candid., February 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin (Hardcover)

Since the publication of McCrone's book, a number of later books on the Shroud have thrown serious doubt on the Carbon-14 datings of the Shroud; so, his boasting of a victory over his fellow Shroud scientists is more than a bit ironic. The main problem with McCrone's thesis is that he seems to be the only scientist who has examined the Shroud microscopically and found detailed samples of paint on the Shroud fabric; all of the other scientists who fail to see thru their microscopes the evidence for sufficient paint fragments are, according to McCrone, either incompetent or dishonest; he even claims that only he himself had the right type of microscope to detect what no other scientist could see. This is amazing since there were several other scientists using microscopic devices. Further, McCrone utterly fails to answer 2 major problems pointed out to him : 1) He claims the image of Christ was painted on with a thin watercolor paint; yet, we know that, except for the blood areas on the Shroud, there is NO penetration of any liquid below the surface of any threads; he never answers this. 2) He claims a medieval artist painted the image with a "brush." Incredible, since there is no microscopic evidence of any DIRECTIONALITY of painting on the cloth--and that would be clearly evident. He doesn't answer this problem, either. Also, since the cloth is loaded with many details unseen to the naked eye (but only evident with special ultra-violet and enlarged photography)--the image is only fully clear when a negative photo of it is studied microscopically--McCrone cannot account for these hidden details in a cloth that existed centuries befor the invention of photography. Finally, the book is alarmingly dishonest: for example, in his brief bibliography, he entirely omits mention of Joseph Heller's book that demolishes McCrone's scandalous role in the Shroud investigation. This is a glaringly dishonest omission. McCrone cannot accept the Shroud as relating to Christ historically; in my opinion, it is from this basis that he achieves his unique analysis of the Shroud.