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Report on the Shroud of Turin

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I first read this book over twelve years ago and my admiration for it has never waned. Unlike many Shroud of Turin theorists whose conclusions rely largely on speculation and/or anecdotal evidence, Dr. Heller is one of the very few people who have scientifically tested actual samples taken from the cloth. He conducted his experiments over a period of several years in an attempt to determine the chemical nature of the "blood" and "image", and how they got on the Shroud in the first place. How the image formed he never determined, but through chemical testing he found it to be the result of acid oxidation of the linen. The "blood" he concluded to be actual blood by over ten different tests including spectral analysis, and chemical identification of bile pigments and serum albumin. The book, however, is not all dry Science. It tells the funny and interesting story of Heller's involvement in the Shroud of Turin Research Project from beginning to end. He doesn't hold the you, the reader, at arm's length--he takes you right into lab itself revealing in detail not just the experiments that he and his collegues performed, but also something of their personalities and motivations. Many scientists and skeptics today either ignore or write off Heller's work in a few curt sentences, but Heller's use of control experiments to test and retest his conclusions give his work credibility. Whether the Shroud is real or fake makes no difference to me, but ANY source skeptical of the Shroud's authenticity who cannot or will not give a convincing, detailed, point-by-point refutation of Heller's conclusions I would consider suspect. Only when such a source comes forward (and I have not yet seen one to date) will the matter be settled in my mind.

Although this book is old, I mean pre-1988 (when the carbon-dating of the Shroud took place), I think this book should still be required reading for those interested in the Shroud of Turin. Heller does a vivid job of telling how the STURP (Shroud of Turin Project, Inc.) team came into existence, and a detailed account of their examination of the Shroud in 1978. I came to this book with a negative view of the STURP team, gleaned from other books on the Shroud. But Heller shows what a tremendous job they did under unusual and often trying circumstances. Heller is a blood expert and after reading about his hundreds of tests, it makes one wonder why anyone would doubt that there is blood on the Shroud (as opposed to some sort of paint).

I have had the honour and priviledge of working in Dr. Heller's institute, working under his tutelage and with his team.
Heller, while a man of science, was nevertheless a devout man (Southern Baptist). He viewed his task concerning The Shroud with great scepticism; there have been far too many hoaxes in the world of religion.
The book describes in great detail the events leading up to the team's conviction that the Shroud was genuine; last - not least - being Heller and Adler's verification of "heme" (blood) and the inexplicable "burned image" of the crucified man.
Although carbon dating indicates that the image is not 2000 years old and that the cloth is from the Middle Ages, there is not enough evidence to diosprove Heller's assertion that the Shroud is indeed genuine.

Report on the Shroud of Turin is the best book I have read so far on the famous cloth that allegedly contains an imprint of the crucified Christ. John Heller was a renown physicist who, along with other expert scientists, tested many samples of the original shroud gathered by a U.S. team of scientists who were invited to study the shroud in Turin in 1978. Heller was a self-professed skeptic of relics who had never even seen a picture of the shroud until 1978 and who was surprised to see an article about the subject in Science magazine. Intrigued by the challenge the Shroud offered, Heller read one of Ian Wilson's books on the subject and was alarmed by Wilson's "awful science" and the poor techniques used to check the shroud for blood. When given the opportunity, he jumped at the chance to do more appropriate tests on the shroud samples.

For a scientist, Heller writes in a surprisingly engaging style. He reveals the excitement he and his colleagues experienced when encountering a great new finding to the reader. It sometimes reads like a scientific detective story which, in a sense, it is. He also adds a lot of humor to the work. There are a lot of scientific terms and details in this book, but it is not bogged down by them and is still very enjoyable reading for non-scientific minds like myself. Heller's history of the shroud is very sparse but that is understandable in that he looks at hypotheses that can be tested and is frustrated by historical evidence that cannot be subjected to experiments. He did find historical evidence (however fuzzy) that the shroud was brought from east to west during the 4th crusade which I had not read before (pp. 68-72).

What strikes me is how well Heller responds to Joe Nickell's anti-authenticity work Inquest on the Shroud of Turin. Heller does not claim the shroud is really the imprint of the body of Christ as he several times points out the obvious; that there is "no test for Jesus Christ." Heller does, however, shed light on the work of Dr. Walter McCrone whose findings make up a large portion of Nickell's book. McCrone claimed that he did not find any blood on the shroud samples and, instead, found evidence that the shroud was an artist's forgery in tons of iron oxide particles and vermilion (used in pigment). Nickell maintains that McCrone was the most renown expert to study the shroud (Heller does not dispute McCrone's expertise in his field) and that he was "drummed out" of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) because his findings disagreed with those of other scientists who wanted the shroud to be authentic. Heller's book takes a different look on Dr. McCrone. He reveals that McCrone did not conduct actual tests on the shroud samples but came to his conclusions solely on what he saw through a microscope. McCrone seemed very quick in coming to his findings and, when it was pointed out to him that his discoveries differed from those of the other scientists in the project he responded cavalierly with "They must be wrong" (pp. 140-1). Rather than being "drummed out" of STURP, he failed to attend a debate in Hamilton, Ontario and a meeting in New London, Connecticut; events to which he was certainly invited by scientists enthusiastic to compare findings with him.

In contrast, Heller, along with chemist Alan Adler and other scientists, worked on the shroud samples for three years and "abso-bloody-lutely" [Heller's word] found blood on the shroud. Their findings did not agree with McCrone's in almost every area. The iron found was pure and did not contain the contaminants found in pigment (p. 196). A tiny amount of vermilion was found but it was not sufficient enough to prove the shroud was painted. Heller also makes an interesting point about the vermilion. Several paintings were made of the shroud and, since it was customary to touch everyday objects to the shroud, these paintings could have easily been placed on the shroud resulting in the small amounts found (p. 212). Heller, who remained skeptical of the shroud's authenticity, entertained other ways the shroud could have been made by an artist, but discovered nothing concrete. In his conclusion, the shroud remains a mystery. Unfortunately, Heller only covered the ways in which a body could have left the imprint in the last chapter. More on this matter would have enhanced the book as would an index. Otherwise, Report is an extremely well-written and convincing rebuttal to Nickell's one-sided account.

It is a hand-spun, hand woven linen cloth with two faint images of the front and back of a man who was apparently scourged and crucified. Its history is obscure before the 14th century. Forty American scientists spent four years running thousands of scientific tests on the Shroud. These scientists had backgrounds in branches of physics, biology, and chemical sciences. Dr. Heller has a doctorate in medicine and has been a professor of internal medicine and medical physics at Yale. He is a Southern Baptist, and a skeptical scientist. He first heard of the Shroud of Turin in 1978. The image is anatomically correct, the pathology and physiology represent medical knowledge unknown before the 19th century (p.2). The report by forensic pathologists paralleled the Gospel accounts. Investigating a controversial subject could affect your "scientific research" (p.11). What a comment on "objective science"! But Dr. Heller regarded the subject as a rare challenge, and became involved. The Catholic Church has never proclaimed it as the shroud of Jesus of Nazareth.

Most major discoveries in science have been made by young investigators (p.23). They are wiling to test new ideas, and experiment. The investigation of the Shroud required a diverse scientific background (pp.36-7). Preparing for the tests in Turin required a test session in Connecticut. Dr. Heller tells of the fortunate coincidences (p.89). Chapter 6 tells of the political machinations from their rivals in Turin; rivalry isn't just in business (p.91). It also describes the technical difficulties in setting up the tests. After the 120 hours of testing in secret was finished, the analysis of the results began.

Chapter 9 explains how they tested the 700 picograms of red substance. The Soret band test showed that this was old acid methemoglobin from old blood. Chapter 10 tells of the meeting of scientists in Colorado Springs. To create the older form of gelatin, they cooked rat tails! A lot of time and effort was spent investigating the anomalous claim of one expert. Mankind is no smarter today than 50,000 years ago. Someone could have figured out something that was thought recently discovered (p.169). Was the Shroud a painting? Six different tests, each acceptable in a court of law, prove the presence of blood on the Shroud (p.186). It was human (p.188). The iron oxide on the Shroud did not contain contaminants; it came from retting or from blood (p.196). Contrary claims were never tested chemically (p.196)! Page 202 tells of the difficulties in creating a picture. The Emperor Constantine outlawed crucifixion in the fourth century (p.204). Artistic depictions are medically incorrect, but not the Shroud. The thousand experiments they performed were published by the Canadian Society of Forensic Sciences. An experiment with a glass table simulated the image (p.208). Scourge marks were only visible in UV light (p.210). The STURP team did not find anything to question the authenticity of the Shroud, or the Gospel accounts. How did the images get on the cloth? They just did not know (p.218). Was it the authentic burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth? There is no scientific test for that (p.219). Page 220 sums up the results. Of the thousands of other shrouds known, none have any image of any kind. The preponderance of scientific test overrules any contrary claims, such as the claim it was painted on. This book lacks an index.

The ultimate book written by an actual STURP researcher.

A very humble man, John Heller was. No arrogance, no "better than thou" about him. He simply presents the SCIENCE behind STURP's findings in a very direct, very technical way.

He then addresses the SCIENCE behind Walter McCrone's research in a very direct, very technical way.

It becomes very obvious to the reader that some Scientists have an EGO... and they are so impressed with THEMSELVES, they do the minimum research they deem necessary and then publish their "definitive" conclusion. This was McCrone to a tee.

OOPS... McCrone was shocked to learn that 40 plus researchers on the project disagreed with his "paint pigment in a gelatin binder" concluson. They published their SCIENTIFIC reasons for opposing McCrone's findings in peer reviewed journals. All of McCrone's findings were published in his OWN journal, "The Microscope."

What's McCrone's reaction to this opposition? "They all must be WRONG." He also labled a certain researcher "an a$$... and you can quote me."

The final point that can't be overstated is that McCrone failed to attend various Shroud conferences and forums in the years proceeding. Heller and others were anxious to PUBLICLY challenge the man, but he just sent "assistants" who then read of McCrone's notes.

The Skeptics and CSICOP would have you believe that McCrone was persecuted by 40 zealous Christians (STURP) anxious to "prove" the Shroud as an authentic relic of Jesus. "LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!" (Joe Nickell, are you reading this?) The team were not all Christian, only a handful were "practicing" Christians.

Read The Shroud of Turin's Research Project's conclusions for yourselves! They DID NOT "authenticize" the Shroud as an authentic relic from Jesus' burial. Team leader Ray Roger's avoided ALL theological conclusions, as he told the press, "... there is no test for Jesus."

I disagree with Ray, but he is more of a "Scientist" than I. He simply proved... the Shroud image is not a man made relic (by any means we are aware of), it is instead the acid oxidation (dehydration) of the topmost linen fibrils. He did not want to even flirt with the historical and theological implications this image contains.

My attitude is... If one finds a relic with dozens of qualities that identically match a historic figure and what he experienced... and the relic has a feature just as mysterious and unexplainable as the man's reputation... what more would a historian need?

Jeff Messenger, author of the novel "the Shroud of Torrington."

I highly recommend this book. It was key to my research in writing The Christ Clone Trilogy (Warner Books).

"Report of the Shroud of Turin" (RST) is the saga of the 1979 testing of the Shroud by STURP -- the American-led "Shroud of Turin Research Project." While well-written and fairly engaging, this volume is less of a "report" on the scientific tests made on the Shroud of Turin than a narrative of the adventure of testing the Shroud.

RST is something of a thriller and detective story. The first half of the book is taken up with the creation of the team, the trials of setting up a visit to Turin, working through the politics of dealing with the Italians, and so on. The rest of the book deals with the 120 hours of Shroud testing and the 3 years of data analysis that followed.

RST also works hard to show STURP in a positive light. The team is shown as cautious and disciplined, while Italians scientists are mostly portrayed as incompetent interlopers trying to horn in on the American team's prep work. Where the Americans design clever non-invasive tests, their Italian counterparts use ad hoc untested protocols that all but destroy parts of the Shroud. While it certainly seems like STURP did its homework, I took this story with a grain of salt.

The book really took off after the testing was complete. Heller narrates his personal, almost obsessive, search for blood on the Shroud, describing his painstaking and heroic attempts to test bits of red material that were almost infinitesimally small. These pages also include a veritable indictment of particle researcher Walter McCrone, who has become the "bete noire" of Shroud research. McCrone is depicted as hogging and adulterating samples. Damningly, he refuses to publish his findings in peer-reviewed journals and turns down several opportunities to debate STURP publicly. His claim of finding traces of iron oxide (used in painting) is countered by STURP's identification (via multiple tests) of the particles as blood. Though Heller repeatedly expresses respect for McCrone's past accomplishments, McCrone's claims (to be fair, related second-hand through Heller's book) sound more and more like the ravings of a frustrated debunker.

I took away a favorable impression of the STURP team from RST. They seem like a honest and dedicated bunch of scientists concerned not to stretch their conclusions beyond the facts. But it's clear that they had their own biases. Most STRUP members identified themselves as Christians of one denomination or another. During the testing, Heller relates how more than one either kissed the Shroud or reverently touched personal objects to it. And Heller's telling of the string of "coincidences" allowing the team to finance the testing moves perilously close to suggesting that heaven was facilitating their work. But Heller could have hidden these biases. That he is willing to depict his team's humanity argues for his overall veracity.

Heller's uncritical acceptance of commonly-held, but flimsily-supported "truths" about the wounds of crucifixion--especially of the "certainty" that nails had to be driven through wrists (rather than hands) in order to support the weight of a human body--somewhat diminish his aura of good judgment. That said, RST had me pulling STURP. In spite of the carbon-14 tests (made after this book's publication) that dated the Shroud to the 14th century, I have enough questions about the Shroud's artistic, historical and forensic mysteries to make me want to pursue it further.

STURP did not rule out that the Shroud could be what many believe it is: the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. But in spite of the attempts of many to discredit the image, it remains an enigma, as supple and subtle as the image it bears.

The whole subject of the Shroud of Turin is one peculiarly Christian. Of the world's great religions, Christianity alone strives to justify its claims by resorting to non-religious means. In this case, we are faced with an old cloth, the so-called Shroud of Turin which purportedly carries the image of Jesus (seen only through X-ray). The story of the scientific team, how it formed, its purpose and various members was well-written. The internal battles, disagreements and give and take were well documented.

But the meat of the book was the plethora of scientific tests run to determine both composition of the cloth and substances trapped in its strands, particularly those checking for the absence or presence of blood or items from that part of the world. (The blood expert, Walter McCrone, subsequently written an article, expanded to a book, claiming that the substance was not blood but vermillion.)

The team effort was both laudatory and admirable although some of its findings were later contradicted by a carbon-dating of circa 1300 A.D. (exactly the date claimed by many skeptics). The author, though religious, is at all times scrupously fair and neutral, open-minded and patient. It is not the final judgement that is questionable - someone was crucified and it cannot be determined how the marks were made. It is applying such claims to Gospels that were written as fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and not as historical events. It is becoming increasingly clear that Jesus thought of himself first and foremost as a Jew.

The fact that the central claim in the New Testament (Jesus would return soon) never materialized forced revisions of Mark to account for this failure. This casts a shadow over the stories contained, in particular the Passion stories in which the events were so contradictory. Maybe the real answer to the Shroud of Turin is that we will never know and belief in Jesus as the savior of the world will always be a matter of faith.