Biblical Forgery and Academic Authentication: Persisting Patterns of Guile and Gullibility

"This book describes and decries the roles academics have played in the authentication of biblical forgeries. The most notorious recent incident is surely the 2016 publication of sixteen minuscule Dead Sea Scroll fragments displayed in the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, quickly determined to be clever forgeries. Additional episodes range from Cyrus Gordon's 1970s authentications of supposedly ancient Hebrew inscriptions discovered in America to more recent trusting re-evaluations of the suspicious Deuteronomy manuscripts offered for sale by Moses Wilhelm Shapira in 1883. While various articles and books have focused on one incident or another, no recent monograph has tried to grasp the larger, repeating dynamic of academic naiveté among biblical scholars. Nor has any work on forgery to date isolated and illustrated the distinct role played by the academic authenticator-a figure who stands between forgers and skeptics, neither forging nor criticizing the artifacts they encounter and endorse. Authenticators operate in a seductive atmosphere involving semi-licit antiquities markets, deep-pocketed collectors, and publicity-providing media"--