Read Report on the Shroud of Turin

Report on the Shroud of Turin

John Herbert Heller

4.9/5 (24765 ratings)

Description: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)We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Report on the Shroud of Turin. To get started finding Report on the Shroud of Turin, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

Pages: 239

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston)

Release: 1983

ISBN: 0395339677

Description: 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)We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Report on the Shroud of Turin. To get started finding Report on the Shroud of Turin, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Report on the Shroud of Turin

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