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Walter C. McCrone
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Judgment Day for the Shroud of Turin Hardcover – February 1, 1999

by Walter C. Mccrone (Author)
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
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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 microanaylist 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.
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  1. Print length
    346 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Prometheus
  4. Publication date
    February 1, 1999
  5. Dimensions
    8 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1573926795
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1573926799
  8. See all details
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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

About the Author

Walter McCrone, the leading expert in shroud research, holds a doctorate in chemical microscopy from Cornell University and is the author of twelve books.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Prometheus (February 1, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 346 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1573926795
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1573926799
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.65 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 11 ratings

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Walter C. McCrone

Walter C. McCrone

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Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
11 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Michael Costigan
4.0 out of 5 stars A man of character
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2002
If you want to know the objective truth about the shroud read this book. This man has spent his life analyzing authentic and forged documents. Even before the carbon tests he gave the same date. Those that slam his integrity as a scientist are the ones not being objective.
17 people found this helpful
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Joseph Wallack
5.0 out of 5 stars John Heller's Catechism-22
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2007
Verified Purchase
"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
20 people found this helpful
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Donald A, Sawyer
5.0 out of 5 stars Reported results of tests on the Shroud of Turin need valid peer review to resolve differences.
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2014
Verified Purchase
McCrone's science far exceeded that of the STURP group. Much has been said about publication in peer-reviewed journals, but STURP publications have only received pre-publication peer review that only checks for reasonableness and not validity. All work on the Shroud of Turin needs post-publication peer review wherein other independent scientists test whether or not the results reported can be replicated. However, in the case of the Shroud, valid peer review would be very difficult as access to the Shroud is near impossible and all tests must be non-destructive
8 people found this helpful
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SteamaZon
1.0 out of 5 stars Tunnel vision ignores other facts
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2006
UPDATE
McCrone is debunked, this book is now a scientific curiosity
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[...]

It is often reported that microscopist Walter McCrone proved that the images were painted. This is incorrect. McCrone, who examined 32 slides containing fibers from the cloth, found traces of iron oxide which he determined was "jewelers rouge." He concluded that the images were painted with this. McCrone also claimed to have found a concentration of mercury that he says was used to make vermilion paint used to paint the bloodstains.

But chemical investigation shows that small quantities of iron oxide particles are evenly distributed in both image and non-image areas and that the quantities are too small to form a visible image. The bloodstains are from real blood. Different scientists, working independently, conducted immunological, fluorescence and spectrographic tests, as well as Rh and ABO typing of blood antigens that clearly show this. And several experts in forensic medicine and blood chemistry conclude that the stains were formed by real human bleeding from real wounds to a real human body that came into direct contact with the cloth. See the peer reviewed Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal, Volume 14 (1981), pp.81-103.

In 1389, Pierre d'Arcis, the Bishop of Troyes, France, drafted a memorandum to Pope Clement VII of Avignon stating that the shroud was a painted forgery. However, there is no historical evidence that draft memorandum was ever finalized or sent. The account of a confession by a painter is second hand. Pierre claimed that his predecessor, Bishop Henri de Poitiers, conducted an inquest in which a painter had confessed to painting the shroud. The inquest is not in the historical records. The painter is not identified. Several other documents of the period challenge the veracity of the d'Arcis Memorandum. The historical conspectus suggests that the memorandum was part of a squabble about revenues from pilgrims visiting the nearby town of Lirey, where the shroud was kept, rather than Troyes.

It is all moot. Visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, laser­-microprobe Raman analyses, and microchemical testing show no evidence of such material in sufficient quantity to form any visible image. Moreover, it is well understood now, that the images are formed by a caramel-like substance within the otherwise clear coating of starch and polysaccharides on outer fibers.

McCrone continued to defend his position that the shroud was painted until his death in 2002. The McCrone Institute continues to carry material written by him on the organization's website, but it out of date. The McCrone Institute in Chicago can be contacted at 312-842-7100

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The old review (prior to the debunk)

He stands alone. Without being properly scrutinized by his scientific peers together involved in the Shroud of Turin Research Project(STURP).Walter C. McCrone published his own findings independently. He continues to stand against the crowd and declare himself entirely correct. And he has proved nothing. The Shroud of Turin remains as un-provable as a fake as well as elusively un-provable as the burial shroud of Christ. The fanatics of atheism and others declare it a forgery as fervently as true believers contend it an article of supernatural manifestation.

The book is a scientific snow job of facts, which seem plausible enough, an interesting read(I'll not take that away), but the Shroud deserves more than just microscopes. There is its extreme age, no other piece found similar to it, current inability to reproduce it, 3d negative form largely unknown in art until photography and so forth.

And even that microscope concluded nothing since STURP kicked Walter out for his gall (OPPS) and replaced him with another scientist, concluding no pigment related to paint, as Walter published, has been found on the image. As of this writing to my knowledge, no other scientist has confirmed Walter's results with independent experiments.

What the book does show is the danger of concentrating on one thing over the context of the larger environment all around it. No one can really say that Walter did not see what he actually saw. We do not actually know what was in his mind or actually what was being seen thru his lens. Walter is a specialist who studied only the dung of the elephant. It takes a whole team to help put the elephant together.

Want to know more about the Shroud? Got Google?
20 people found this helpful
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T. M. Jones
1.0 out of 5 stars and very bad science. Anyone who is the least familiar with ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2018
This text has repeatedly been debunked and now, in the historical annuals of Shroud study, is a mere vague footnote and example of intellectual arrogance, pride, and very bad science. Anyone who is the least familiar with STURP’s methodologies and the credentials of its scholars (far more impressive and extensive than McCrone) knows the work of McCrone on the Shroud was fraught with procedural errors. Do not waste your time on this - unless you want to use it as an example of how not to do science ‘
4 people found this helpful
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