I guess this is as good a time as any to start “plugging” my book, tentatively titled “Wrapped Up in the Shroud: a Chronicle,” which relates my many interesting experiences with the Shroud over almost 35 years. I hope it will be out in a about a year or so.
Those of us who know Joe as a friend or by reputation did not want to wait that long. Well, we won’t need to. “Wrapped Up in the Shroud” (St. Louis: Cradle Press, 345 pp.) is due out on December 15. You should be able to pre-order it soon at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Joe sent me this back cover text to share with everyone:
Joseph Marino, a former Benedictine monk, has been studying the Shroud of Turin since 1977. As the Catholic Church’s most revered relic, the Shroud is believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus. While at the monastery, Marino lectured extensively on the subject in the St. Louis, Missouri area, produced a newsletter read in 23 countries, wrote articles, appeared in local, national and international radio and TV programs, and attended an exhibition of the Shroud in Turin in 1998. He was once referred to by a parishioner at the monastery church as the monk “who’s wrapped up in the Shroud.”
Currently Marino is a library associate at Ohio State University. He has amassed one of the largest personal collections on Shroud materials in the world. He and his late wife, M. Sue Benford (shown in accompanying photo), presented a paper at the Sindone 2000 World Congress in Orvieto, Italy, hypothesizing that the reason the 1988 C-14 dating of the Shroud resulted in a date range of AD 1260-1390 for the cloth was because of a sixteenth-century repair in the sample area. The combined sixteenth-century repair with first-century cloth definitely could have produced the medieval dates. One of the scientists from the Shroud of Turin Research Project who studied the Shroud in 1978, Raymond Rogers, thought the hypothesis was nonsense. Rogers had in his possession samples of the Shroud and said he would prove the hypothesis wrong in five minutes. However, less than an hour after he began to exam the samples, he concluded that Benford and Marino were probably right. Other scientists have independently verified Rogers’ findings, which were published in 2005 in the prestigious, peer-reviewed journal, Thermochimica Acta. Benford and Marino wrote several follow up articles about their theory, which now has much support in the Shroud community. Previously unpublished notes from, and correspondence with, key scientists involved with the Shroud provide important new historical data. Marino continues to stay active in Shroud research.
WRAPPED UP IN THE SHROUD is a real-life chronicle of one long-time researcher, who has devoted over thirty years to studying this enigmatic cloth. Breezy and entertaining, yet powerful in its scope, it recounts strange, humorous and at times mystical events surrounding Marino’s involvement and even includes an incredible but tragic love story. This book is unlike any other book on the Shroud you have ever read.
I’ll add more information as it becomes available. Keep tuned.