He was born in
Clapham, south London, during
World War II. 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 in 1963.[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. Writing in Free Inquiry, historian
Charles Freeman 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
Channel 4's three part TV series Jesus: The Evidence (1984)[4] and wrote the accompanying book of the same name.[5] The series proved to be highly controversial and sparked a national furore, marking a significant moment in the changing fortunes of
religious broadcasting in the UK.[6]
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
The Turin Shroud: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?, 1979
ISBN0-385-15042-3
Mind Out of Time?: Reincarnation Claims Investigated, 1981
All in the Mind: Reincarnation, Hypnotic Regression, Stigmata, Multiple Personality, and Other Little-understood Powers of the Mind, 1982
Reincarnation?: The Claims Investigated, 1982
Jesus: The Evidence, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984
The Exodus Enigma, 1985
The Evidence of the Shroud, 1986
Undiscovered: The Fascinating World of Undiscovered Places, Graves, Wrecks and Treasure, 1987
The After Death Experience: The Physics of the Non-Physical, 1987
ISBN0-688-08000-6
The Bleeding Mind: An Investigation Into the Mysterious Phenomenon of Stigmata, 1988
Stigmata: An Investigation into the Mysterious Appearance of Christ's Wounds in Hundreds of People from Medieval Italy to Modern America, 1989
Superself: The Hidden Powers Within Us, 1989
ISBN0283996560
Holy Faces, Secret Places: An Amazing Quest for the Face of Jesus, 1991
ISBN0-385-26105-5
The Columbus Myth: Did Men of Bristol Reach America Before Columbus?, 1992
Shakespeare: The Evidence : Unlocking the Mysteries of the Man and His Work, 1994
In Search of Ghosts, 1995
Jesus: The Evidence, 2nd ed., London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.
ISBN9780297835295; San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997.
ISBN9780062514721
The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence That the World's Most Sacred Relic Is Real, 1998
ISBN0-684-85529-1
Lost World of the Kimberley: Extraordinary New Glimpses of Australia's Ice Age Ancestors, 2006
ISBN1-741-14391-8
Murder at Golgotha: A Scientific Investigation into the Last Days of Jesus's Life, His Death, and His Resurrection, 2007
ISBN0-312-36662-0
The Shroud: The 2000-Year-Old Mystery Solved, 2010
ISBN978-0-593-06359-0 (also known as The Shroud: Fresh Light on the 2000-Year-Old Mystery, 2010
ISBN978-0-553-82422-3)
The Book of Geoffroi De Charny with the Livre Charny edited and translated by Nigel Bryant, 2021
ISBN978-1-78327-585-4
^Ian Wilson, Jesus: The Evidence (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984).
ISBN0-297-78325-4. The TV series was directed and produced by David W. Rolfe and narrated by
Jeremy Kemp.
[2]