Season 1

Episode 25: Robert Rucker

For this weeks video I am joined by Robert A. Rucker (Bob) who earned an MS degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan. He has worked for 38 years in the nuclear industry doing nuclear reactor design, criticality safety for nuclear fuel production, and nondestructive testing (NDT) or assay (NDA) of fissile material in containers. He published 41 documents with US Government agencies. He has been researching the Shroud of Turin since 2013 including application of nuclear analysis computer calculations to solve the carbon dating problem for the Shroud. Extensive information on the Shroud can be found on his website https://www.shroudresearch.net/, including his 32 papers that are on the research page of his website.

Episode 24: Mario Latendresse

Mario Latendresse, Ph.D., designs and implements computational tools in bioinformatics and chemoinformatics at SRI International, the largest multi-disciplinary research center in Silicon Valley. Latendresse has published in several domains, including mathematics, functional languages, bioinformatics, chemoinformatics, and computer security. He holds a doctorate in computer science from the Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada.

He has also studied the Shroud of Turin on its image formation and its early history. On that subject, he publishes the web sites sindonology.org (English) and linceul.org (French). His papers can be found at researchgate.net and academia.edu.

Episode 23: Matt Collins

Matt Collins joins us for the first ever live episode of the Batckstory on the Shroud of Turin. He is speaking on his work with the Shroud of Turin and his lifesize sculpture used for education on the Shroud. This episode is full of great insight and experience all things the Shroud of Turin.

Episode 22: Russ Breault

This is Russ Breault’s third time on the podcast. He has researching and lecturing on the Shroud of Turin for over 30 years and is one of the leading experts in the field. Each episode with Russ Breault takes a new look at the Turin Shroud and events surrounding it. Listen today to find out more.

Episode 21: Teddi Pappas

Teddi Pappas earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, with a minor in History, from the University of Texas at Austin and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from the University of Memphis. She has been a criminal defense attorney since 1994 and a speaker at mainly notable universities. Since she was a teenager, Teddi has had an interest in the Shroud of Turin and has studied it ever since. Over the years she has appeared on several podcasts including Real Seeker Ministries and Proselytize or Apostatize podcasts.

Episode 20: Larry Stalley

Larry Stalley is a prolific author on the Shroud of Turin, mainly focusing on topics such as the hidden references to the Shroud during the era of the early Church. Many of his papers can be found on Shroud.com and Academia.edu, a few notable ones being “The Shroud of Turin Served as a Tabernacle During the High- Priestly Ministry of Jesus” and “Are There Veiled References to the Shroud of Turin in the New Testament? An Exegetical Summary of Select Texts”. Larry even has a paper translated into Arabic by the Coptic Church in Egypt. In addition to his articles, his research and findings can be found at incredibleshroud.com on the Authenticity page. 

Episode 19: Matt Collins

Matt has been a native of Georgian for 57 years and graduated from UGA in 1988 with a BBA in entrepreneurship. He has worked in several different industries, including Hospital Administration at Newnan Hospital and as a Financial Consultant for Synovus, The Robinson – Humphrey Co., and Smith Barney. He is a member of the Trinity Church in Georgia, a Christian apologist (He’s Jesus’ lawyer), and an evangelist. He’s studied apologetics under Gary Habermas (His Resurrection class). Matt has been a Shroud enthusiast since the 1980s and had recently begun restoration and replicating relics.

Episode 18: Justin Robinson

Justin Robinson BA (Hons), MA is a historian working in the coin industry.
He is a fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society and a member of the British Numismatic Society.
He is a regular contributor to Coin News the UKs biggest selling coin magazine
He also writes for the Coins and History Foundation, which shares the fascinating stories behind some of the world’s most important coins and medals. “A coin without a story is just a piece of metal. But a coin with a story becomes history in your hands” says Justin.

Episode 17: Dr. Kelly Kearse

For this weeks episode I am interviewing Dr. Kelly Kearse who has an MS in Biology: Virginia Commonwealth University, Ph.D. In Immunology: University of Kentucky. While also pursuing postdoctoral work in Biochemistry: Johns Hopkins and postdoctoral work in Immunology: National Cancer Institute, NIH.
He is also the principal Investigator in Immunology: Experimental Immunology Branch, NIH and the investigator/Instructor of Immunology & Cell Biology: ECU School of Medicine. As well as the science Instructor: Knoxville Catholic High School (for past 20 years). Dr. Kearse has published over 50 peer reviewed articles in immunology & biochemistry/cell biology. Thus, making a fantastic conversation.

Episode 16: David Rolfe

David Windsor Rolfe is a British Academy Award-winning producer and director with a long career in British television and film. After graduating from the London Film School in 1971 he cut his teeth making specialized sequences within major films like The Great Gatsby (Redford and Farrow) for Paramount and other major distributors and then documentaries around the world charting subjects as diverse as the rise of the desert kingdoms of the Middle East, the collapse of communism and the crisis posed by CFC’s to the ozone layer.

This film won a major award and paved the way for the banning of the chemical. His academy award was for The Silent Witness – An Investigation into the Shroud of Turin. This film and a subsequent series on the Historical Jesus would come to have life-changing benefits to him, personally, and, in semi-retirement, he is devoting himself to share the insights his work across all fields have provided.  He is a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Episode 15: Joseph Marino

Joseph Marino is one of the preeminent researchers and a long-term Sindonologist on the Shroud of Turin since the 1970s. He has a BA in theological studies from St. Louis University and worked at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Joseph Marino is also an author, and his newest novel is titled, The 1988 RC-14 Dating of the Shroud of Turin, A stunning expose.

Mike Creavy- The Gracious Guest

Bio Coming Soon

Episode 14: Interview With Russ Breault

For this weeks episode Russ Breault is back on the podcast to talk about his most recent paper on “Historical References on the Turin Shroud from the Third through Thirteenth Centuries”. Russ Breault has been researching and lecturing on The Shroud of Turin for over 30 years. His highly acclaimed presentation known as Shroud Encounter makes use of over 200 superb images and unfolds like a CSI investigation. He has presented to hundreds of audiences from New York to Hawaii. College and university presentations include Duke, Johns Hopkins, Penn State, Cal State, West Point, and many others. He has appeared in several nationally televised documentaries including Mysteries of the Ancient World on CBS.

Episode 13: Interview With Pam Moon

For this weeks episode we are joined by Pam Moon, who is a researcher on the Shroud of Turin and the Holy Mandylion. Her work can be found in numerous papers and her latest appearance on the documentary by David Rolfe titled Who Can He Be. 

Episode 12: Interview With Brenda Benton

In this episode of the Backstory of the Shroud of Turin, I am interviewing Brenda Benton a public speaker on the Turin Shroud. She has been involved with the Turin Shroud since 1978, just weeks before her only child died. When her husband Stuart saw David Rolfe’s film, “The Silent Witness.” (1978) This film about the Turin Shroud has had a powerful impact on the rest of our lives. Thirty-three years later they met Pam Moon through an amazing set of circumstances. Pam invited them to be part of her British Shroud Exhibition team, and this led to us meeting many respected figures in the Shroud World.

Episode 11: Interview With Andrew Casper

Andrew R. Casper is Associate Professor of Renaissance and Baroque Art History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where he specializes in late sixteenth and seventeenth-century religious imagery in Italy. His research on the Shroud of Turin has resulted in numerous works of scholarship, most notably his book An Artful Relic: The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy published with Penn State University Press in 2021. He is a former Fulbright fellow and holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. 

Episode 10: Interview With Dr. Cheryl White

On this weeks episode I am honored to have a conversation with Dr. Cheryl White a professor of history at Louisiana State University at Shreveport. In university her major fields of interests were medieval and early modern Europe, the history of Christianity, local and regional history, historical folklore and the Shroud of Turin and religious relics. She is now the author of eight historical nonfiction books, including “The Shroud in the Third Millennium: Confronting the Limits of Knowledge” and “A Survey History of Britain,” released in 2020.

Episode 9: Interview With Jack Markwardt

Jack Markwardt majored in history and languages at Rutgers University and received his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from Albany Law School where he had served as an editor and author of the Law Review. He has studied the Shroud of Turin for more than thirty-five years, written many articles on the subject, and presented a number of scholarly papers to international symposia held in France, Italy, and the United States. His recently-published book, The Hidden History of the Shroud of Turin, details the first fourteen centuries of the relic’s history and explains the attempts which were made, throughout this period, to conceal its existence and provenance. 

Want to read more about Jack Markwardt? Click read more to see his books.

Episode 8: Interview With Myra Adams

Myra Kahn Adams is a political and religious writer with over a decade of numerous national credits, starting in 2010. Since Jan. 2021, she has been an op-ed contributor to The Hill and RealClearPolitics since 2018. She was a National Review contributor from 2014 to 2018. Myra is also co-founder and executive director of SignFromGod.org, a ministry dedicated to educating people about the Shroud of Turin. Starting in May 2018, she spearheaded the effort to open an exhibit about the Shroud of Turin at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. The exhibit opened Feb. 26 and runs through July 31.
Myra has written extensively about the Shroud of Turin. Today, ranking high on Google when one searches “Shroud of Turin” is a 2019 Shroud primer co-written by Myra and Shroud expert Russ Breault — a founding board member of SignFromGod.org. “Shroud of Turin – Facts & History Everyone Should Know” Since February 2020, Myra has written a weekly Bible study on Townhall.com This past Sunday, March 13, study Vol. #104 was posted. The first 56 studies were compiled into the book, “Bible Study For Those Who Don’t Read The Bible.” Available on Amazon. Her second book with Bible studies 57-100 will be published in late summer.

Episode 7: Interview With Brian Hyland

Brian Hyland is the museum’s associate curator of medieval manuscripts. He holds a master’s degree in ancient history from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Maryland, College Park. As well as completing additional studies at Cornell University and the Institut für Papyrologie, Ruprecht Karls Universität, in Heidelberg, Germany, he has also taught Greek and Roman history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, medieval history at the University of Maryland’s European extension division, and Latin at Binghamton University.

Episode 6: Interview With Robert Siefker

Welcome to my interview with Robert Siefker, an engineer and an expert on the Shroud of Turin; where we talk about Siefker’s work with the Shroud of Turin and The Holy Fire. Siefker was brought up in California and attended UCLA on a Navy scholarship with a major in engineering. After his nearly five years of Naval service he worked in the software industry eventually serving as a VP for two software companies, the second being in Colorado. It was in Colorado that he became an associate of the Turin Shroud Center of Colorado (TSC), headed by Dr. John Jackson, who was the leader of the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project. Siefker was the co-author and editor of the TSC book on the Shroud entitled The Shroud of Turin: A Critical Summary of the Observations , Data and Hypotheses. Most recently he has been involved in research on the so-called Miracle of the Holy Fire, a phenomena that occurs every year at the tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on Orthodox Holy Saturday.

Episode 5: Interview With Russ Breault

January 2022

Russ Breault has been researching and lecturing on The Shroud of Turin for over 30 years. His highly acclaimed presentation known as Shroud Encounter makes use of over 200 superb images and unfolds like a CSI investigation. He has presented to hundreds of audiences from New York to Hawaii. College and university presentations include Duke, Johns Hopkins, Penn State, Cal State, West Point, and many others. He has appeared in several nationally televised documentaries including Mysteries of the Ancient World on CBS.  Most recently, he appeared in the highly acclaimed, Uncovering the Face of Jesus —A two-hour documentary on The History Channel. Mr. Breault was both advisor and a primary expert for this groundbreaking program. He was a primary expert for EWTN’s documentary, The Holy Winding Sheet. He has also been interviewed for Good Morning America, World News Tonight and was a consultant for CNN’s Finding Jesus episode on the Shroud.  

Episode 4: Interview With Robert A. Rucker

January 2022

Robert A. Rucker (Bob) earned an MS degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Michigan and worked for 38 years in the nuclear industry doing nuclear reactor design, criticality safety for nuclear fuel production, and nondestructive testing (NDT) or assay (NDA) of fissile material in containers.  He published 41 documents with US Government agencies.  He has been researching the Shroud of Turin since 2013 including application of nuclear analysis computer calculations to solve the carbon dating problem for the Shroud.  Extensive information on the Shroud can be found on his website www.shroudresearch.net, including his 32 papers that are on the research page of his website. 

Episode 3: Interview With Jim Bertrand

December 2021

Our presenter began teaching high school science in 1981, obtained his Master’s Degree in Education in 1987, and taught high school science for 39 years. He is now retired, working full time giving Shroud presentations. He and his wife have been married for 37 years and have 6 children. They are members of
St. Peter Parish in Lincoln, Nebraska In the past seven years He has given this Shroud talk over 230 times across 12 states, 20 dioceses, and seen by over 23,000 people including the Eucharistic Convention of 2016 in Auckland New Zealand. He wants you to know that he does not make any money from this. All donations are forwarded to The American Confraternity of the Holy Shroud based in Colorado Springs. Those funds are used to promote this worthy endeavor of giving factual information about the Holy Shroud.

Episode 2: Interview With Joseph Marino

November 2021

Joseph Marino is one of the preeminent researchers and a long-term Sindonologist on the Shroud of Turin since the 1970s. He has a BA in theological studies from St. Louis University and worked at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Joseph Marino is also an author, and his newest novel is titled, The 1988 RC-14 Dating of the Shroud of Turin, A stunning expose.

The video is now available on YouTube, click watch more to see the video.

Want to read more about Joe Marino? Click read more to see his books.

Episode 1: Interview With Barrie Schwortz

October 14th, 2021