New Book: Wrapped Up in the Shroud of Turin, Chronicle of a Passion by Joseph G Marino

Joe’s new book is out. You can order it at Amazon ($21.95) or Barnes and Noble ($14.70). I do not find any publisher description at this time. That often follows release by several days. However, until then . . .

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 on 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 of 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. Raymond Rogers, one of the scientists from the Shroud of Turin Research Project who studied the Shroud in 1978, 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 examine the samples, he concluded that Benford and Marino were probably correct. 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 significant support in the Shroud community and beyond. Previously unpublished notes from a key scientist, as well as correspondence with other key scientists involved with the Shroud, provide important new historical data.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 nearly thirty-five years to studying this enigmatic cloth. Breezy and entertaining, yet powerful in its scope, the book recounts strange, humorous and at times mystical events surrounding Marino’s involvement, and even includes a tragic but touching love story. This book is unlike any other on the Shroud you have ever read.