Shroud studies can sometimes come up with disappointing results. Tests that have often been promoted as definitive by many presenters can be re-examined and found to be wanting. The blood type on the Shroud is one of these. In the recent SEEC conference, Dr Kelly Kearse looked at the blood type AB, coming from a male body and of course being human blood. He has found from all of his studies that all of these traits are really indeterminate when studying the blood itself. However other evidence points to a male body and human blood, coming from an unexpected quarter. Blood transfer.
One thing we can be sure about is that it is real blood. If his experiments are correct though, then this evidence may take us back to the tomb itself and the body wrapped in the Shroud.
One of the main arrows in the mediaevalist’s quiver is that the image was the product of an artist. I believe that Dr.Kearse’s findings are another nail in the coffin of this hypothesis. Before looking at this however, I recently came across an observation given by a leading Shroud researcher in 1989 that was new to me. Rex Morgan was a well known author, Shroud scholar and editor of Shroud news for many years. Also a regular contributor to the BSTS newsletter. The news of the Carbon dating results in 1988 even led to one Australian Shroud group disbanding, however even then, Rex, like many others, continued in his firm belief that the Shroud is authentic and could not have been created by an artist.
He wrote “Why did the forger do his work on a piece of cloth contemporary with his own time? Surely the first thing to be noticed by the good observers of the newly created image in the 1300s would have been that the cloth was brand new, if the C 14 date is to be believed. Indeed, it seems to me that there would have been greater evidence for forgery (and, of course for authenticity) if the cloth had been dated as considerably older. The very claim that it dates to 1350 is sufficient argument that the forger must have been a complete idiot to have taken a piece of cloth from his local weaver’s shop and yet the claim of forgery also has to support the view that he was a genius to have been able to produce the image at all.”
A good point!
Historical claims that the Shroud is a fake
Recently we have been looking at the most recent evidence for the cloth and image being medieval. The work of Prof Nicolas Sarzeaud and his 2024 paper in which he defended his thesis on the cult of the Shrouds of Christ between the 14th and 16th centuries under the title ‘Les Suaires du Christ en Occident’. In particular he cites the medieval work of the academic Nicolas Oresme who proclaimed that the Shroud (most likely at Lirey) was a fake having been produced like all the others by an artist. This, in conjunction with the D’Arcis memorandum, seems on the face of it to give a powerful argument for the medieval hypothesis.
D’Arcis no doubt had his reasons for writing the letters which he never sent, referring to an accusation made 34 years prior. Oresme’s work was part of a much larger and generalised criticism of the clergy using relics to fool their congregations who were looking for miracles. The context of the period being the Black Death when populations throughout Europe were being decimated.
The main point however is that the Shroud was a fake, produced by an artist, which of course is the most commonly proposed alternative to the Shroud being first century and authentic.
Kelly Kearse research
So what has all this got to do with Dr Kearse’s research? After his rather disappointing evidence that the blood type and gender are indeterminate, he moves on to the blood transfer to the cloth itself and it is here that things get much more interesting. He says that in his opinion the blood did come from a human body and that it was not washed prior to blood transfer. The conclusion being drawn that if the body had been washed it would have destroyed the serum halos. His experiments shows also that the composition and nature of the serum halos changes over time and this means that they would not be destroyed by future water applied to the cloth at the time of the fire in 1532 or any other water applied.
Dr.Kearse states “serum halos indicate that clotted blood had been transferred to the cloth, which is a bit of a gamechanger because it indicates that a body was involved “! ….”if the body had been washed then the serum content would have been washed away”. He also pointed out that not all bloodstains had a serum ring as was quoted earlier by Dr Alan Adler.
“You can have clotting but not have a serum ring”.
What conclusions can we draw from this?
So what does this mean? It means, as Dr.Kearse’s evidence shows, that a human body was involved when the blood was transferred to the cloth. It means that the Shroud and image being created by a medieval artist could not have been the case. It destroys the key argument in the medieval hypothesis.
However it does still leave the door slightly ajar for these proponents. Dr. Michael Tite was the invigilator from the British Museum who, in 1988, oversaw the Carbon Dating by the 3 radiocarbon aboratories. He later took over from Professor Hall as the head of the Oxford laboratory. Tite believed the carbon dating to be correct, but he also believed the cloth to have held a body which formed the image. He said that it was probably a crusader who had been crucified in the exact likeness of Jesus by Moslems and that this would account for Shroud as it is.
However, we must ask ourselves if this is at all likely bearing in mind all the other attributes and evidence regarding the Shroud. Dr.Kearse spoke of the blood transfer evidence as a gamechanger. This would indeed seem to be the case.
