The fragments have been on exhibit at the museum since its opening in 2017.

The scroll fragments were purchased after 2002, when counterfeits of artifacts believed to be part of the 1947 Dead Sea Discovery entered the antiquities market.

Experts began questioning the fragments' authenticity in 2016.

In February 2019, the museum hired the investigators from a firm called Art Fraud Insights to inspect the remaining 11 scrolls.

Comprehensive imaging, analysis, and physical examinations of the artifacts were undertaken.

"After an exhaustive review of all the imaging and scientific analysis results, it is evident that none of the textual fragments in the Museum of the Bible's Dead Sea Scroll collection are authentic," Colette Loll, founder and director of Art Fraud Insights, says.

"Moreover, each exhibits characteristics that suggest they are deliberate forgeries created in the twentieth century with the intent to mimic authentic Dead Sea Scroll fragments."

These findings have no bearing on the nearly 100,000 Dead Sea Scroll fragments that comprise the Shrine of the Book.

This is on display in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

Source

• USA Today
• Image: Daily Express

Until the forgeries were exposed, the scroll fragments were considered among the most valuable and historically significant items in the museum's collection.

The museum says a German testing company has concluded the fragments on display show "characteristics inconsistent with an ancient origin."

They will therefore no longer be on display at the museum.

"Though we had hoped the testing would render different results, this is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts, the elaborate testing process undertaken and our commitment to transparency," says Jeffrey Kloha, chief curatorial officer for Museum of the Bible.

The five scrolls represent a major proportion of the museum's 16-piece collection of Dead Sea scrolls.

Doubts about their authenticity were first raised two years ago by scholars in "Brill", which is an academic journal.

Since then, Kipp Davis of Trinity Western University has argued that at least seven of the scrolls were fake, based on the language used in the fragments and other textual evidence.

The announcement of the forgery comes after years of controversy and criticism over the museum's approach to scholarship.

In 2017 the museum's owner, craft store chain Hobby Lobby, was forced to return 3,800 ancient artifacts to Iraq. This was after the Department of Justice concluded that the company had acquired them illegally and had them shipped to corporate headquarters without sufficiently documenting their provenance.

To follow the correct process is important, partly to avoid acquiring forgeries, but also because illegal antiquities deals, particularly in the Middle East, can provide a major source of funds for international terrorism.

Source

• Smithsonion
• Vox
• Image: CNN

For 14 days over the next seven months, the Ten Commandments scroll called 4Q41 will be shown at the Israel Museum.

It is part of an exhibit called "A Brief History of Humankind".

This copy of the commandments was written in soot on a strip of goatskin and was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It is believed to be more than 2000 years old.

This scroll is normally stored in complete darkness in a secure vault, where temperature and humidity are controlled.

Continue reading

Orchestrated under the Israel Antiques Authority (IAA) with support from Google, the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library is a free, online archive comprised of thousands of high resolution fragments.

History, now, is literally brought to the homes of people everywhere, accessible by computer and smart phone.

As IAA General Director Shuka Dorfman says on the library's website:

"We have succeeded in recruiting the best minds and technological means to preserve this unrivalled cultural heritage treasure which belongs to all of us, so that the public with a touch of the screen will be able to freely access history in its fullest glamour."

The first of the scrolls was discovered in 1947 in the West Bank, in what is often called one of the most important archaeological finds in history, and certainly in the 20th century. Continue reading.

Source: HuffingtonPost

Image: Fragment from the Tobit scroll, an apocryphal text from Second Temple times. Shai Halevi, IAA

Five of the most important scrolls have been made available by the custodians of the manuscripts, who have been previously criticized for allowing only restricted access to a small number of researchers.

The scrolls include the biblical Book of Isaiah, the manuscript known as the Temple Scroll, and three others.

Web surfers can search high-resolution images of the scrolls for specific passages, zoom in and out, and translate verses into English.

The originals are kept in a secured vault in a Jerusalem building constructed specifically to house the scrolls. Access requires at least three different keys, a magnetic card and a secret code.

The five scrolls are among those purchased by Israeli researchers between 1947 and 1967 from antiquities dealers, having first been found by Bedouin shepherds at Khirbet Qumran.

The scrolls, considered by many to be the most significant archaeological find of the 20th century, are thought to have been written or collected by an ascetic Jewish sect that fled Jerusalem for the desert 2000 years ago and settled at Qumran, on the banks of the Dead Sea.

The hundreds of manuscripts that survived, partially or in full, in caves near the site, have shed light on the development of the Hebrew Bible and the origins of Christianity.

The most complete scrolls are held by the Israel Museum, with more pieces and smaller fragments found in other institutions and private collections.

Tens of thousands of fragments from 900 Dead Sea manuscripts are held by the Israel Antiquities Authority, which has begun its own project to put them online in conjunction with Google.

That project, aimed chiefly at scholars, is set to be complete by 2016, at which point nearly all of the scrolls will be available on the internet.

Source: NZ Herald

Image: Wikipedia

The group of 70 or so books, with between 5 and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings were located inside a northern Jordanian cave sometime between 2005 - 2007.

They were discovered after a flash flood exposed two niches.

David Elkington, a British scholar of ancient religious history and archeology, and one of the few to have examined the books, says they could be ‘the major discovery of Christian history'.

‘It is a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church,' he said.

The books are potentially more significant than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The director of the Jordan's Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion.

"Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but the initial information is very encouraging, and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery, maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology."

The books are currently the subject of a dispute between authorities, archeologists and an Israeli Bedouin who smuggled the books into Israel and hid them, claiming they were found by his great-grandfather.

The Israeli Bedouin who currently holds the books has denied smuggling them out of Jordan, and claims they have been in his family for 100 years.

Jordan says it will "exert all efforts at every level" to get the relics repatriated.

Sources

• BBC
• YahooNews
• Fox News
• Daily Mail