The whole “refutation” by Jackson of the reweave theory is actually one single sentence taken out of the context from the short article that was written by Jackson on the request of Barrie Schwortz. On the contrary, they welcome it, as it provides the “proof of the pudding” which, if they can explain it, strengthens their case, and if they can’t explain it, suggests opportunities for further research. Good authenticists, like good non-authenticists, do not “just ignore” evidence which goes against their current thinking. One other argument against medieval contamination has also been put forward by various people, which is that the coincidence of having exactly the right amount of contamination to provide a date exactly matching the first undisputed mention of the Shroud’s existence is too great to accept. Jackson is currently wedded to some kind of nuclear enrichment process, and has no need of any interweave or contamination hypothesis, which he rejects on two connected grounds, firstly that photos of the area show uninterrupted threads and groups of threads (bands) extending right through the radiocarbon area, and secondly, that therefore there is no evidence of the 60% or so medieval material necessary to provide the skewed date. In view of the unrealistic intricacy of this work, and the fact that it would be a unique mend in the history of textile repair, and the generally shoddy nature of all the other repair and maintenance of the Shroud, this is also rejected by many, although Rogers, Heimburger and Fanti’s Vanillin and Cotton findings continue to keep the possibility alive.
Benford and Marino’s “patch” hypothesis, in its literal meaning, in which one side of a herringbone spine was 1st century and the other side was 14th century, has been modified to the “interweave” or “reweave” hypothesis, although opinion is still divided as to whether this involves the interweaving of new threads alongside old threads for at least a part of the mending and strengthening process (for which there should be, but is not, visible evidence), or whether the old threads have been unravelled for a small length and new threads spliced into them and glued with terpene, and then the whole section rewoven to be truly invisible.
The “bioplastic film” hypothesis of Garza-Valdez and Mattingly was a good idea for its time, but is generally rejected now, and John Jackson’s CO enrichment hypothesis failed in the face of actual experiment. Some ideas have been quietly dropped in the face of clearer evidence to the contrary. Authenticists are very much divided as to exactly why the radiocarbon date is “wrong.” A number of hypotheses have been suggested, some of them mutually contradictory, and different factions support different ideas.