People who believe in Christianity want to believe the Turin Shroud, with its red marks, has real blood on it, which they hope is the blood of Jesus Christ.
Diane Soran tested the notion that the reason the blood stayed red was because the cloth was given a good wash in a hemolytic called saponaria—soapwort. She made linen samples, and the blood on them stayed red after more than two decades.
Sam Pellicori said that the blood on the top of the image is red because the substance on top of the fibres stayed red due to evaporation, but inside the fibre it went brown.
These tests are unscientific and dubious. And since when does 25 years of red blood on a cloth prove that a cloth could have red blood for two thousand years?
There is a relic of "blood" in Bruges, Belgium. It is a perfume bottle from long ago, supposedly containing the blood of Jesus. Unlike the shroud, it is associated with healings and alleged miracles. It used to go into liquid form but does not now, and under inspection looks like a red waxy substance. The redness counts against it being real blood. It is a fact that the red blood on the Turin Shroud lines up with endless fraudulent blood relics that gave themselves away by failing to look like dead blood. Like the cloth, the relic in Bruges cannot be traced back to Jesus. Nothing that shows it existed before 1270 AD can be found.
BLOOD TYPE HOAX
it is entirely possible to get a false or misleading blood type if DNA or cells are transferred to a cloth, rather than actual blood being present.
Key problems with the “AB blood type” claim
Serological methods on ancient artifacts are very unreliable
A 2023 (published mid‑2025) article titled “Inadequacies in
Serological ABO Typing of Ancient Artifacts: The Shroud of Turin as
a Case Example” states that serological blood typing (i.e., testing
for A/B antigens) works well for fresh blood but has “major
drawbacks” in analysing aged objects such as the Shroud.
Medwin Publishers
The author concludes: “the AB designation for the Shroud bloodstains
is inconclusive and should be considered type unknown pending
further testing.”
Medwin Publishers
In other words: the tests that claim “AB” are not robust enough to be taken as definitive.
Contamination and antigen degradation are huge issues
As discussed in “Blood on the Shroud of Turin: An Immunological
Review” by immunologist Kelly P. Kearse, the carbohydrate antigens
(A/B) that legitimate serological typing depends on may degrade over
time, or be mimicked by other biological residues (e.g., bacteria,
fungi).
Shroud
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Kearse warns that “while tempting to dismiss serological typing
methods of ancient materials in one broad stroke, the preservation
of red‑blood cell antigens and the extent of contamination in aged
material must be evaluated specifically for each case study.”
Shroud Story
Hence detection of “A and B antigens” on fibers might not actually reflect authentic human donor blood of type AB, but rather degraded biological residue, mis‐identification, or contamination.
Ambiguity in what is claimed by “AB”
Some sources say “blood on the Shroud types as AB” (i.e., forward
typing for A and B antigens), but do not establish Rh factor (+/–)
or fully validate other serological controls.
Shroud Story
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The statement “type AB” is sometimes mis‐interpreted; it may simply mean “both A and B antigens detected” rather than a full, controlled ABO + Rh classification.
Lack of replication or modern molecular confirmation
Many of the seminal tests were done in the 1970s–1980s with limited
published peer‐review detail, limited controls, and without modern
DNA / antigen validation. For example, Kearse’s review says the
evidence for “human origin” of the blood is still not fully
conclusive.
Shroud
There is no well‐documented independent modern (21st century) study that conclusively replicates the “AB” result under strict modern forensic / molecular standards (at least not publicly and universally accepted).
Interpretative over‐reach
Because the “AB” result is sometimes treated as if it strongly supports the authenticity of the Shroud (i.e., “type AB, rare, Middle East, therefore it must be Jesus”), this leaps beyond what the data support. The data do not strongly exclude other possibilities (non‑human origin, contamination, other donors, etc).
As Kearse states: “Although initial efforts point to the detection
of authentic blood … several fundamental characteristics … still
remain to be conclusively established.”
Shroud
Conclusion
In sum: the claim that the blood on the Shroud is definitively type “AB” is not supported by sufficiently rigorous, modern, reproducible forensic/serological evidence. It remains inconclusive. That means:
It cannot reliably be used as strong support for authenticity of the Shroud.
Any argument built on “the Shroud has AB blood, therefore it must be Jesus’s burial cloth” is weaker than it appears.
It is more intellectually honest to say the blood type is unknown, or at least not proven as AB under modern standards.
BOOKS CONSULTED
Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Roberts and Donaldson, T&T Clark,
Edinburgh, 1870
Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, Raymond E. Brown, Paulist
Press, New York, 1985
Loftus, John W., ed. Christianity in the Light of Science:
Critically Examining the World’s Largest Religion. Amherst, NY:
Prometheus Books, July 26, 2016. ISBN 978‑1‑63388‑173‑0.
Free Inquiry, Spring 1998, Vol. 18, No. 2, Article by Joe Nickell,
Council for Secular Humanism, Amherst, New York
From Fasting Saints to Anorexic Girls, Walter Vandereycken and Ron
van Deth, Athlone Press, London, 1996
Holy Faces, Secret Places, Ian Wilson, Corgi, London, 1992
Inquest on the Shroud of Turin, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books,
Buffalo, NY, 1987
Jesus Lived in India, Holger Kersten, Element, Dorset, 1994
Looking for a Miracle, Joe Nickell, Prometheus Books, New York, 1993
Miracles, Ronald A. Knox, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1937
Sceptical Inquirer, 9/10 2001, Vol. 25, No. 5, Article by Joe
Nickell, CSIOCP, Amherst, New York
Relics, The Society for Irish Church Missions, Bachelor’s Walk,
Dublin
The Blood and The Shroud, Ian Wilson, Orion, London, 1999
The Book of Miracles, Stuart Gordon, Headline, London, 1996
The Divine Deception, Keith Laidler, Headline, London, 2000
The DNA of God?, Leoncio A. Garza-Valdes, Doubleday, 1999
The Holy Shroud and Four Visions, Rev. Patrick O. Connell and Rev.
Charles Carty, TAN, Illinois, 1974
The Holy Shroud and the Visions of Maria Valtorta, Msgr. Vincenzo
Celli, Kolbe Publications Inc., Sheerbrooke, California, 1994
The Image on the Shroud, Nello Ballosino, St Paul’s, London, 1998
The Jesus Conspiracy, Holger Kersten and Elmar R. Gruber, Element,
Dorset, 1995
The Jesus Relics, From the Holy Grail to the Turin Shroud, Joe
Nickell, The History Press, Gloucestershire, 2008
The Second Messiah, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, Arrow,
London, 1998
The Skeptic’s Guide to the Paranormal, Lynne Kelly, Allen & Unwin,
Australia, 2004
The Turin Shroud is Genuine, Rodney Hoare, Souvenir Press, London,
1998
The Turin Shroud, Ian Wilson, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1979
The Unauthorized Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992
Turin Shroud, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, BCA, London, 1994
Verdict on the Shroud, Kenneth E. Stevenson and Gary R. Habermas,
Servant Publications, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1981