Report on the Shroud of Turin

by John Herbert Heller

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 & fairly engaging, this volume is less of a report on the scientific tests made on the Shroud than a narrative of the adventure of testing it.
RST is a thriller & detective story. The 1st half is taken up with the creation of the team, the trials of setting up a Turin visit, working thru the politics of dealing with the Italians etc. The rest of the book deals with the 120 hours of Shroud testing & the 3 years of data analysis that followed.
RST strives to show STURP positively. The team is shown as cautious & 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 noninvasive 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, one takes this story with a grain of salt.
The book takes off after the testing was complete. Heller narrates his personal, almost obsessive, search for blood, describing his painstaking 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. He's depicted as hogging & adulterating samples. Damningly, he refuses to publish his findings in peer-reviewed journals & 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. Tho Heller repeatedly expresses respect for McCrone's past accomplishments, McCrone's claims (to be fair, related 2nd-hand thru Heller) sound more & more like the ravings of a frustrated debunker.
I took away a favorable impression of the STURP. They seem like a honest & 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 Christian. During the testing, Heller relates how more than one either kissed the Shroud or reverently touched personal objects to it. 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 depicts 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've enough questions about the Shroud's artistic, historical & forensic mysteries to make me want to pursue it further.
STURP didn't rule out that the Shroud could be what many believe it is: Jesus' burial cloth. But in spite of the attempts to discredit the image, it remains an enigma, as supple & subtle as the image it bears.--Jean E. Pouliot (edited)

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Religion

239 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Crystian Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

ndndjj

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an account of the scientific investigation of the Shroud of Turin by an American-led team of scientists as told by one of them for a popular audience. It is inconclusive and precedes later work. The book would have been better were it coauthored by an historian of the period as Heller is weak on this.

Historically, the first references to what may be the Shroud are from Constantinople in the Middle Ages. The artifact itself was captured by the Latin Church during the crusades, coming into the possession of the Knights Templar.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although not normally a ready believer in relics, I confess that I was already a believer in the Shroud before reading this book. With that said, John Heller, as a member of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) that subjected it to a full 5-day battery of advanced physical, chemical, and photographic tests in 1978, gives a compelling and exhaustively documented account of the team's scientifically quantified findings. Almost as miraculous as the image on the shroud is the prevalence of serendipity, coincidence, and preternatural harmony that was manifested in the compilation of a team of scientists diverse in both academic discipline and in creed. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone interested in the honest intersection of science and faith.

[Elizabeth Martina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was looking for a book that explained the physical and chemical tests done on the famous shroud. I found it with Dr. Heller's book. He was part of the 40 person team who actually worked on the 14 foot long linen for five days in the late 70s and early 80s. Their different scientific specialties allowed for approaching tests from various viewpoints. They tested and retested, used various controls and wrote articles for peer-reviewed journals. The team, in the end, could not definitively say whose shroud it was, but they could say what happened to the man wrapped in the shroud. Comparing that to historical data, there is only one man who fit the bill.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

FABULOUS book! LOVED IT!

[Frostik Dar · Rating 3 out of 5]

at the time, this was one of the more level-headed summaries available of contemporary discussion of the Shroud. much dated, by now, sadly.