I have decided to read Ian Wilson's books on the Shroud of Turin in order, to see how his views have changed over time and how he has influenced the study of sindonolgy. This is the third book, 1998's Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real, after 1978's The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?, which set out his theory that the Shroud was the Mandylion or Image of Edessa, and 1986's The Evidence of the Shroud, which added some evidence, but was mainly a pictorial redo of his first book.

This is his first book after the Shroud's carbon dating in 1988, which dated it to AD 1260–1390. So, Wilson must address that. But, first, after an introduction, Wilson splits his book into four parts. Part 1 reassesses the image, showing that medically and historically it seems to conform to facts and appears genuine. Part 2 assesses the object as an object, looking at the weave, the image as artifact, and debris (mainly pollen) on the Shroud. Part 3 traces the Shroud backward past it's appearance in the 1300s: back to 1204 and a description of it in Constantinople, back to the sixth century as the Image of Edessa in Constantinople, and finally back to Edessa as Christ's possible burial shroud. Part 4 addresses the carbon dating. Wilson counters this in two ways: (1) if the dating is correct, how did a medieval forger do it? No modern person, using old materials, has found a way to make an image anything like or with the properties of the Shroud. If we can't do it, how did they do it? And, (2) how could the carbon dating be wrong? The main theories being that (a) new parts were cut off for testing; (b) the samples were contaminated by fire, water, or tons of hands, smoke, and detritus; and (c) "bio-plastic coating," a phenomenon of bacteria and such that has been known to muck with carbon dating before.

Add all this up and, in his conclusion, Wilson believes that the Shroud is still the genuine gravecloth of Christ, and proof of the resurrection too.

Wilson laughs off Pickett and Prince's idea that Leonardo da Vinci constructed the Shroud as a joke, even putting his own face on it. Wilson is still ecumenical to McCrone, though McCrone (and Joe Nickell) come off as jerks. Wilson adds some small facts and quotes that appears to buttress his argument that something Shroud-like was in Edessa and Constantinople. The argument Wilson made in 1978's The Shroud of Turin is reinforced.

Wilson writes well, and this is a great book. You needn't have read his previous works, either. This work has new images, with better-drawn maps, illustrations, etc. Several informative black-and-white plates. Notes and bibliography. An index this time. Again, like his first book, one of the best things about the book is the "Chronology of the Turin Shroud" put between the notes and the bibliography. Like his 1978 book, which had a "Reconstructed Chronology of the Turin Shroud," it is one of the best parts of the book. The "Chronology of the Turin Shroud" lays out all the evidence, all the manuscript references, all the quotes, and all the information, and all the suppositions in chronological format. It is well worth reading as a conclusion or even reading first as an appetizer to entice you to read the book. ( )