Ian Wilson (author)

Ian Wilson (born 1941) is the prolific author of historical and religious books. He has investigated such topics as the Shroud of Turin and life after death.

Life

He was born in Clapham, south London, during World War II and some of his earliest memories are of the Blitz. Neither of his parents was religious. His school was nominally Church of England, but during scripture classes he was always, as he put it, "the number one sceptic". He graduated in Modern History from Magdalen College, Oxford.[1][2]

He first came across the Shroud during the 1950s, when he was in his mid-teens, in an illustrated article by World War II hero Group Captain Leonard Cheshire. It was the famous image on the negative of the Shroud that dealt the first blow to his formerly complacent agnosticism. In 1972 he converted to Roman Catholicism.[1]

Wilson is most well known for his research on Shroud of Turin. The Historian Charles Freeman has heavily criticized Wilson's writings on the subject, commenting "He is not taken seriously by any respected historian... Wilson has failed to provide any significant evidence from this mass of material to back his narrative. It seems to fail at every point. He provides no evidence that the Shroud existed in Jerusalem, no evidence that a burial shroud arrived in Edessa."[3]

He participated in the three part 1984 Channel 4 TV series Jesus: The Evidence and wrote the accompanying book of the same name. [4]

He lived in Bristol, England, for twenty-six years and now resides in Brisbane, Australia, with his wife, Judith. They have two sons, Adrian and Noel.[1]

Publications

Book reviews

References

  1. 1 2 3 McCowen, Sharyn. "Sceptic gives 'resounding yes' to truth of Shroud". The Catholic Weekly, 23 May 2010.
  2. "Ian Wilson". The Random House Group.
  3. Freeman, Charles. (2012). "The Shroud of Turin and the Image of Edessa: A Misguided Journey". Free Inquiry.
  4. Ian Wilson, Jesus: The Evidence (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984). ISBN 0-297-78325-4. The TV series was directed and produced by David W. Rolfe and narrated by Jeremy Kemp.
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