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Local Scientist Dates Cloth to Christ's Time

Posted on: Saturday, 5 February 2005, 21:00 CST

Thermochemist admits he can't debunk hypothesis that Shroud of Turin covered Christ's body after crucifixion

If God hand-picked someone to prove to the world that Christ's burial cloth was not a hoax after all, Raymond Rogers probably wouldn't be the first name to come to mind.

Rogers belonged to the Episcopal Church for a few years and studied about Christ on his own. But he could never quite find the proof he needed to support a "deep, abiding faith" in religion.

His disbelief caused a rift with his wife. They divorced. He stayed devoted to what he knew: science.

"I am a scientist," he said. "This is the way I live."

Over the years, the Los Alamos thermochemist gained a reputation for his work with archaeologists. That's why a priest called him in 1977. He wanted Rogers to take a look at the Shroud of Turin. Rogers had never heard of it.

The priest sent booklets that told about a 1412-foot-long linen cloth wrapped around Christ after the Roman crucifixion. It bore his imprint. "They were so pious, I just about threw them out," Rogers said of the booklets.

Rogers noticed a photograph that made him curious. It showed scorched spots on the cloth caused by a church fire in 1532. If the shroud was a fake -- made with paint of some kind -- the material wouldn't look like that. An expert on how heat affects materials, Rogers knew this.

He agreed to join the Shroud of Turin Research Project. He brought 32 samples from the shroud, which is stored at a museum in Torino, Italy, back to his home in Los Alamos and published articles. But he quit after the leader of the project screamed at him, "Ray, you are not a soldier for Christ!"

In 2000, new information prompted him to reopen the case. Some "true believers" sent him a paper that suggested the samples tested were from a section rewoven in medieval times.

"I can prove they're full of blank, blank, blank," Rogers recalled thinking. "I still had archive samples from the right area."

In a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Thermochimica Acta, he published startling findings on Jan. 20.

In the 1980s, scientists from three universities concluded the cloth wasn't very old. The linen sheet was determined to be a medieval fake.

But this month, Rogers said he determined the cloth was between 1,300 and 3,000 years old -- which could have easily put it at the time of Christ.

"I was really embarrassed that I had to admit that these people were right," Rogers said. "This (patched) area was not chemically or physically similar to the rest of the cloth. I could prove it in spades."

The samples used in the 1988 tests came from a section of the cloth that was rewoven in the Middle Ages, according to Rogers.

Rogers said he hasn't become an instant believer, however. At 78 and battling terminal cancer, he's sticking to science.

"Here you've got blood spots. You've got a real shroud. You draw your own conclusions," he said. "I am not a theologian. I don't want to be a theologian. I want to keep my objectivity toward this thing, and so I don't go past this point."

Rogers admits he can neither prove nor disprove many things. He has determined the drops of blood are authentic -- but until he gets results from the DNA tests he ordered from a international expert, he cannot be sure a human shed that blood.

Another problem: Jesus wasn't the only man crucified. And Rogers has struggled with the authenticity of the Bible. "I cannot accept any of the written stuff (the biblical accounts of Christ's death) as gospel," Rogers said. "But I can say the scientific evidence does not rule it out."

He knows he is walking a fine line. And he's nervous about it. "I say I know a lot about the chemistry and the physics of this object. It's not like a UFO or a ghost. I could pick this thing up and look at it under a microscope, and I could take samples of it. It's not one of these spooky things. It's a real piece of material," he said.

"If I could reject the hypothesis that this was the shroud of Jesus, I would have done it. But being an honest guy -- and it's embarrassing sometimes to be honest when what you're finding out agrees with the lunatic fringe or the true believers -- but to be perfectly honest, I'd have to say at this moment that I cannot prove that this is not the cloth that was used to wrap the body of Jesus that was crucified."

Journey to Turin

Long ago, Rogers wanted to be an archaeologist.

When he was a chemistry student at the University of Arizona, he wondered why the archaeology field wasn't making more use of chemistry. He considered becoming an archaeologist, but his archaeology professors said he'd make a better living as a chemist.

But he took classes with top archaeologists. When he could, he ran tests on the residues inside ancient pottery.

His career took him to Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he was a chemist from 1952 to 1988. And word got around that he was willing to look at odd samples. When he could, he tested artifacts.

One day, Norris Bradbury, then the lab director, stopped by to talk. Rogers said Bradbury gave him permission to analyze materials for archaeologists and museums, even though such research wasn't part of the lab's mission.

The thermochemist got drawn into major discoveries. He became an expert on early-man sites in the Southwest. "I did so much of it, they elected me to be a fellow for it," he said, referring to an esteemed status given to some lab scientists.

At work, explosive components of nuclear weapons were Rogers' main focus. What he learned about the radiation effects on organic materials and the chemical properties of polymers served him well with the shroud research, he said.

But in other ways, he was not prepared for this high-profile artifact.

"It is the most frustrating, and in some cases degrading thing, I've been involved in," Rogers said.

At the lab, his colleagues were what he described as "ethical, rigorous, hard-nosed scientists," such as Enrico Fermi.

When he got involved with the shroud investigation, he saw some of the "shallowest, most idiotic" science he had ever seen. "There were people who have been working on the shroud who would have sold tickets to the crucifixion," he said. "There are an awful lot of dishonest people involved in this."

He says he's "an old grump," and his body doesn't feel as good as he'd like. But at least his mind is active. His fascination is swelling again. He is full of ideas for more research papers to write on the shroud.

"You always have some ammunition you haven't fired yet," Rogers said.

Source: The Santa Fe New Mexican

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