The Daily Mirror in the UK is telling us that attendance at the Shroud of Turin exposition in Turin, April 10-May 23, 2010, may reach four million – that is the latest estimate. Wow!

But, the article goes on to stay that this is not the big story. The big story is the History Channel presentation in the U.S. of “The Real Face of Jesus” in which Ray Downing attempted to produce a 3D rendering of Jesus from data on the Shroud.

The Mirror goes on to say:

Attempts to date the relic have been inconclusive. A 1978 study found no evidence that the shroud was a fake and concluded it was "a mystery". But it was condemned as a forgery in 1988 after carbon-dating tests by researchers in Oxford, Zurich and Arizona, estimated it was made between 1260 and 1390.

In 1999, another group put a 7th century date on it. And in the same year a Jerusalem botanist reported that pollen grains on the shroud were from plants found only in the Holy Land.

In 2005, American chemist Dr Raymond Rogers, considered a shroud authority, claimed it was between 1,300 and 3,000 years old and argued earlier tests were inaccurate because they were carried out on patches of material added to the sheet by nuns in the Middle Ages.

Actually there is a mistake in the last sentence above. The writer is confusing the theoretical repair proposed by Rogers and others with the crude patches sewn on by nuns following fire damage.

Other than that one mistake, this a good story in the Mirror.