New research shows that the carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin is fake

For most of the 20th century, there was a growing conviction around the world that the Shroud of Turin was the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, carrying a mysterious “photographic” image of Jesus’ body between death and resurrection.

Then came the carbon dating of 1988, allegedly proving the Shroud was a mediaeval forgery. Overnight the Shroud went from Christendom’s most prized artefact to being considered a mere icon – albeit a powerfully moving one.

Now, after almost four decades of further research, the Shroud has undergone a form of resurrection. The latest findings indicate it was the carbon dating that was fake, not the Shroud.

This is the central conclusion of my second book on the Shroud: The Shroud Rises, as the Carbon Date is Buried. The first book, Riddles of the Shroud: Questions Science Can’t Answer, aimed to provide a journalist’s overview of the research that had made the Shroud the most researched artefact in history. The new book, as indicated by its title, explains why the carbon dating is now considered by many Shroud researchers as fatally flawed! 

The game changer that has reduced the carbon dating to a footnote in the Shroud’s history has been the long-overdue release of the original “raw” data from the carbon dating that was locked away for 28 years, despite repeated requests for the British Museum and the three carbon-dating labs to release it.

The hidden truth about the carbon dating was first brought to light by a series of articles in peer-reviewed academic journals. But the full meaning of these academic assessments has now been made accessible to a wider audience by a series of articles and books explaining the flaws of the carbon dating in terms most people can grasp.

One Shroud researcher who has done much to explain the failings of the carbon dating is nuclear engineer Robert Rucker. Rucker has written many articles explaining where the carbon dating went wrong. His most comprehensive report is a series of three articles titled “The Carbon Dating Problem for the Shroud of Turin”.

At the other end of the spectrum is the 800-page tome – The 1988 C-14 Dating Of The Shroud of Turin: A Stunning Exposé, by Shroud researcher Joseph G. Marino. The astonishing detail offered by this book may not be for everyone, but the book has been widely acclaimed as “indispensable” for serious Shroud researchers.

In the middle of the two extremes is Michael Kowalski’s recent book, The Shroud of Christ: Evidence of a 2,000 Year Antiquity. Kowalski, the current editor of the British Shroud of Turin newsletter, is a physics graduate who also studied statistical analysis. He is also a member of the international Shroud Science Group (SSG) – a body of senior scientists composed, at last count, of 147 scientists (including sceptics) from all over the world. Members of the SSG examine Shroud research and take part in vigorous debates on subjects that have now included the latest revelations about the raw carbon-dating data.

The main conclusion from all of this research is that the carbon daters got it wrong, and that there is really no reliable evidence at all that the Shroud is a mediaeval forgery. In fact, close examination of the carbon dating data indicates the carbon-14 measurements in 1988 reveals that the carbon date was not reliable at all and that the carbon daters should have admitted defeat. In other words, they should have told the world their efforts to come up with a reliable date for the Shroud had failed.

 

icon

Join Mercator today for free and get our latest news and analysis

Buck internet censorship and get the news you may not get anywhere else, delivered right to your inbox. It's free and your info is safe with us, we will never share or sell your personal data.

In The Shroud Rises, I have explained all of these things in terms that should be easily grasped by non-scientists. In addition to the basic evidence indicating the carbon dating was fatally flawed, the book details other new evidence that supports the authenticity of the Shroud.

First, there are the latest dating tests on the Shroud. One test that received extensive media coverage around the world in the second half of 2024 is based on a new technique for dating linen cloth using an X-ray dating method that has found the Shroud is 2000 years old. Known as Wide Angle X-Ray Scattering (WAXS), the method was developed by a researcher from Italy’s Institute of Crystallography, Dr Liberato de Caro, a member of Italy’s National Research Council.

I mentioned these test results in my first book in 2022, but for some reason it took more than two years for the mainstream media to recognize its importance. Nevertheless, the truth is now well and truly out.

Several other new dating techniques have been applied to the Shroud by prominent Shroud researcher Professor Giulio Fanti, an expert in mechanical engineering from the University of Padua. Professor Fanti has developed three separate dating tests based on chemical and mechanical dating that determined an average age for the Shroud of 33 BC ± 250 years, clearly indicating the cloth’s origin is far from the Middle Ages and more likely to be from the first century.

Interestingly, in his book Michael Kowalski has revealed that these dating tests have had a positive response from members of the Shroud Science Group. They have pointed out that the results are important given that they draw on three very different dating methods that have led to the same conclusions.

In addition to all these new dating tests, there has been a great deal of other research since 1988 that is seen as confirming the Shroud’s authenticity. Among the most important findings from this research has been the discovery that the image on the Shroud is likely to have been formed by burst of light in the form of ultraviolet radiation.

The main question about the image on the cloth has always been how the “photographic” quality of image on the cloth could have been created. It certainly could not have been done by any artistic technique because there are no traces of artists’ materials, like paint, pigment, ink or dye, on the cloth. In fact, the image on the Shroud is so superficial – confined to the topmost layer of microscopic fibres on the cloth – that it could not have involved any fluid or gas, both of which would have penetrated far more deeply into the linen cloth.

The key research here was carried out by senior researcher and chief of research at Italy’s National Council for New Technology, Energy and the Environment (ENEA), Dr Paolo Di Lazzaro. Working with a team of researchers using fine-tuned excimer laser equipment, he was able to achieve coloration of linen cloth matching the quality and coloration of the image on the Shroud.

All these developments – the duplication of the qualities of the image on the linen cloth, the new dating techniques that dated the Shroud to the first century, and the discovery of the flaws in the carbon dating of the Shroud in 1988 – now support the conclusion that the Shroud is indeed genuine: the actual burial cloth of Jesus.

In the process, they also support the conclusion that Jesus not only lived, but he died by crucifixion and rose from the dead in a process involving a massive burst of radiant energy that formed the mysterious image on the 2000-year-old burial cloth.

In short, it is fair to conclude that the carbon dating of the Shroud has finally been buried, and that the Shroud has justified its reputation as the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, and in the process that it is not only a genuine relic, but a true mystery that simply cannot be explained by natural means. 


Forward this to your friends!  


William West is an Australian journalist and editor who has worked on national and international news publications for half a century.

Image credit: full length negative of the Shroud of Turin / Wikipedia


 

 

Showing 7 reactions

Please check your e-mail for a link to activate your account.
  • David Emmith
    commented 2025-01-18 03:35:57 +1100
    I have read most of Joe Marino’s book. I am convinced that the desire to perform a radiocarbon dating test of the Shroud took on a life of it’s own. Once the recommended testing protocols from a conference held in 1986 were discounted and/or ignored, that’s when the testing enterprise should have dissolved. Nothing good was going to come of the testing without adhering to those protocols.
  • mrscracker
    Thank you so much for that additional info Mr. West.
  • William West
    commented 2025-01-16 13:58:29 +1100
    Regarding the question of the “the separate face cloth” that John 20:7 refers to, most researchers agree that this refers the cloth that was used to cover Jesus’ face while his body was transported from the cross to the tomb – a requirement of Jewish law when someone had died a violent, bloody death. This cloth was removed from Jesus’ face before the body was prepared for burial. As the Gospel states, the face cloth or napkin, “that was upon his head, was not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself”. This face cloth has become known as the Sudarium (face cloth) of Oviedo, named after the Spanish city where it has been kept since the 7th century. Significantly, the Sudarium has blood stains that match those on the Shroud, as well as Jerusalem flower pollens and soil deposits that also match those on the Shroud.
  • William West
    commented 2025-01-16 13:37:05 +1100
    These are the facts:

    All of the relevant passages from the Gospels (Mark 15:46 , Luke 23:53, Matthew 27:59 and John 19:40) are perfectly consistent with the Shroud of Turin. The vast majority of modern translations of all these passages, refer to Jesus’ burial cloth as “a clean linen cloth”, or a “sheet of linen cloth”.

    In addition to the sheet, it is possible that a narrow strip of cloth was wrapped around the sheet to hold it in place. Some Shroud researchers suggest this narrow strip of cloth is the one that appears to have been sewn back on to one side of the Shroud. (Interestingly, the stitching pattern that was used has only ever been found on first-century fabric – never on any fabric from the Middle Ages.)

    Linen sheets like the Shroud are still used for the burial of orthodox Jews to this day. This fact was confirmed by Shroud photographer and researcher Barrie Schwortz, an orthodox Jew. Up to the time of his death last year, Schwortz had given hundreds of talks promoting the authenticity of the Shroud – many to Christian Shroud skeptics.

    In an article answering questions that skeptics had raised, Schwortz addressed the claim that Jesus’ shroud would have been composed of many strips: “I guess most people do not realize that by the first century, even the Egyptians had stopped wrapping mummies with strips. So why are linen "strips” even mentioned in the Gospels? One has to remember that Jesus and his disciples were Jews and his burial would be conducted according to Jewish law and tradition. The Old Testament requires Jewish men of high stature to be buried in “pure linen raiment”… Jewish custom requires burial in a large single sheet. Once the body is wrapped in the cloth, it must be bound by linen strips to ensure the cloth does not fall off when the body is transported. That is not only consistent with a first century Jewish burial, but also with contemporary burials, and not just by Jews but by Muslims as well. When my father died in 2003, he was given an Orthodox Jewish burial and was wrapped in a white linen shroud very similar to the Shroud of Turin. When the disciples entered the tomb on Sunday morning, only the cloth and strips remained, so they are mentioned in the Gospels.”

    If you would like to view the complete article by Barrie Schwortz, you will find it at: https://www.reviewofreligions.org/12677/five-reasons-why-some-christians-are-shroud-sceptics/
  • Steven Meyer
    commented 2025-01-16 12:22:33 +1100
    Brett Christenson is right.
  • Brett Christensen
    commented 2025-01-15 07:23:34 +1100
    The dating of the shroud has not been the basis of Bible-believers’ doubts about the shroud of Turin. The crucial point is the eyewitness account of John, who described “linen cloths” [plural] and “and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself”. [John 20:6-7; cf. 11:44 re Lazarus’ burial cloths] Reconciling this description with one cloth (i.e. the shroud) which covered the entire corpse is what has to be addressed. Perhaps there is a way to do this, but advocates of the shroud’s authenticity haven’t focussed on this, but on other areas like dating. Is there somewhere that explains how the separate face cloth and the plurality of the other cloths can be reconciled with the Turin shroud?
  • William West
    published this page in The Latest 2025-01-14 22:15:30 +1100