“So some guy in the 1300s went to the time, trouble and expense, to purchase a thousand year old piece of linen? Assuming he could even find something like that, why would he do it? To fool people 700 years in the future, using tests he could never even conceive of?”
It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theory.
We know the shroud wasn’t found util the 14th century.
Some guy found a piece of blank cloth (of unknown age at that time) in the 14th century and decided to paint something on it—for reasons completely unknown at to us now.
Is that any less believable than: The burial cloth used by Jesus, due to a miracle, contained his image, and Christians decided to remain silent and keep it hidden away until the 14th century?
Jesus’ burial cloth is mentioned in the Gospels. Had it miraculously contained his image, it would certainly been mentioned by Mark, Matthew, Luke, or John?
Surely Acts or one of the Epistles would have mentioned it. Yet, it’s not mentioned at all.
I know something can’t be proved from silence, but it would seem to be a glaring omission from the Bible that such a high profile and unusual miracle isn’t mentioned at all.
We don't know that. There are multiple artistic representations and references to objects, prior to the 14th century that could, in fact, be the shroud.
"Some guy found a piece of blank cloth (of unknown age at that time) in the 14th century and decided to paint something on it—for reasons completely unknown at to us now."
It wasn't painted. We have no idea how some simple 14th century artist created the image - despite batteries of hands-on tests, conducted by scientific professionals who worked at places like JPL, Sandia Labs, and Los Alamos during their day jobs. This unknown artistic titan, at least 100 years before Leonardo di Vinci, apparently invented an entirely new art form that was photorealistic, with the added twist of depicting his subject in the negative. And then included dozens of details that would be completely unobservable or understood for hundreds of years.
"I know something can’t be proved from silence, but it would seem to be a glaring omission from the Bible that such a high profile and unusual miracle isn’t mentioned at all."
Offhand, I can think of a couple of reasons: The disciples were still essentially Jews. They still went to the Temple. There were prohibitions against handling things that had contacted a dead body. I could see wanting to hang on to something that was all that remained from the greatest person to ever walk the earth, despite any prohibitions. But you wouldn't brag about it. I could also see not talking about it precisely because they wouldn't want it to become an object of worship; they had the example of Hezekiah and the bronze serpent. Frankly, if you are a believing Christian, the supernatural comes with the territory. It may very well be, the disciples were inspired to quietly put this thing away for a later, faithless time.
We have written records documenting a chain-of-custody back to the 14th Century. There are reports of a burial shroud being venerated before then -- specifically of one in Constantinople which may have been stolen and brought to the West in the 4th Crusade -- but they can't be definitively connected to the Shroud of Turin.