Why an Atheist Thinks the Shroud of Turin is the Real Deal

The Decomposition of Vanillin

Vanillin is of interest to us because it is found in the lignin component of newly harvested flax fibers. Over time, a very long time, vanillin decomposes and disappears from the fibers. For instance, if you leave a piece of linen lying around—that hasn’t had all its lignin removed by modern bleaching—for about 650 years and you then examine it for vanillin, you will find that nearly two-thirds of the vanillin has disappeared. Leave it around for another 650 years and it is all gone, or nearly so. Temperature affects the process but not drastically within the range of normal ambient temperatures. In other words, under normal conditions, it takes at least 1300 years for all of the vanillin to disappear. Raymond Rogers noticed that . . .

A linen produced in A.D. 1260 [the earliest possible date that the cloth could have been produced according to the 1988 carbon dating] would have retained about 37% of its vanillin in 1978. . . . all other medieval linens gave the test for vanillin wherever lignin could be observed on growth nodes. The disappearance of all traces of vanillin from the lignin in the shroud indicates a much older age than the radiocarbon laboratories reported. (37)