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'Dead Sea Scrolls' at museum turn out to be forgeries
- trav4225 7y agoRan into the "paywall", but yeah, sadly, forgery has grown into a very large problem in the archaeological world. Lots of debate and controversy over how best to address it. We can't simply disregard all unprovenanced finds, as some seem to propose. Many of the most significant archaeological discoveries ever made are unprovenanced.
- empath75 7y agoThis museum in particular seems especially prone to buying stolen or faked items, though.
- James_Henry 7y agoWhich is very unfortunate. Thankfully they are upfront about the research they do and its results. Hopefully they can continue to exist as we need more institutions with that integrity.
- trav4225 7y agoMakes sense. Private/smaller collectors are probably much more likely to end up with fake items. Having said that, large, institutional museums do end up with fake items occasionally as well, sometimes displaying them for years before determining that they are fakes and removing them.
- dredmorbius 7y agoNobody's easier to fool than true believers.
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- ace_33 7y agoJust enter a bogus email and you will be able to read the rest of the article.
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- jonstaab 7y agoInteresting, but over-sensationalized. To quote the article, "Even before the new report, some scholars believed that most to all of the post-2002 fragments were modern fakes." The headline uses the word "all", but is talking about 0.0002 of the dead sea scrolls. "at the Museum of the Bible" is a bigger qualification that it initially appears.
- James_Henry 7y agoAs several people quoted in the article mention, it is wonderful to see a museum being so upfront and truthful about their artifacts. It seems to be a much better situation because of it, especially when compared with something like the "Jesus' Wife" fragment. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/485573/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/07/the-unb...
- roywiggins 7y agoThese are the same people who imported looted Iraqi tablets. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/05/535698988/hobby-lobby-to-forfeit-smuggled-iraqi-antiquities https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/05/535698988...
- James_Henry 7y agoYep, and this makes me feel more like they actually may have just been really naive when it came to that case. Naivete is no excuse, of course, for what happened there.
- lostlogin 7y agoThey have had this sort of thing happen since before they opened. They claim to be victims etc each time and it’s many times now.
- James_Henry 7y agoYes, all of this is explained in the article. They've been really open about it each time. They haven't really been making the same mistakes each time and they have been working more and more with experts who seem to be running things very well. From the article: 'The museum is also reevaluating the provenance of all the material in its collection, and it is prepared to return any stolen artifacts to their rightful owners. In 2018, the Museum of the Bible determined that a manuscript in its collection sold several times beforehand had in fact been stolen from the University of Athens in 1991. The museum promptly returned the artifact to Greece. 'Christopher Rollston, a specialist on Semitic texts at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., welcomes the effort to set things right. “The Museum of the Bible did some really bad things eight to 10 years ago, and they were rightly criticized severely,” he says. “I believe that they’ve made a number of attempts in recent years to right the ship.'
- baldfat 7y agoThe Dead Sea Scrolls in Israel are real. The ones in one museum in America were forges.
- vackosar 7y agoWhy do you think that?
- waynecochran 7y agoNo one doubts the authenticity of the scrolls in the Shrine of the Book in Israel. They have undergone detailed radiocarbon and paleographic dating.
- elwell 7y agoBecause the ones in Israel is real...
- Dahoon 7y ago>The Dead Sea Scrolls in Israel are real Has it been confirmed by (non-israli/non-american/non-jewish) scientists?
- azernik 7y agoYes. Some of the original work was done in (pre-occupation) East Jerusalem, and a good chunk of the fragments are in Jordan today. A lot of the early work was done by Americans, but that's more because it was the immediate post-war period and that's who had money and access at the time; if they were found any earlier it would have likely been Brits taking the initial look.
- burlesona 7y agoAs others have pointed out, the headline is much spicier than the story, which barely qualifies as news: > On Friday, independent researchers funded by the Museum of the Bible announced that all 16 of the museum’s Dead Sea Scroll fragments are modern forgeries that duped outside collectors, the museum’s founder, and some of the world’s leading biblical scholars. Officials unveiled the findings at an academic conference hosted by the museum. > “The Museum of the Bible is trying to be as transparent as possible,” says CEO Harry Hargrave. “We’re victims—we’re victims of misrepresentation, we’re victims of fraud.” So a museum acquired some pieces it believed to be legitimate, but was concerned they may not be authentic, so it investigated, discovered the pieces were fake, and is now informing the world. Sounds like reasonable people who did the right thing.
- irascible 7y agoAnyone interested in this topic should check out the documentary "Don Verdean".
- danso 7y agoThe headline is: "'Dead Sea Scrolls' at the Museum of the Bible are all forgeries" Your quoted excerpt says: "independent researchers funded by the Museum of the Bible announced that all 16 of the museum’s Dead Sea Scroll fragments are modern forgeries that duped outside collectors, the museum’s founder, and some of the world’s leading biblical scholars" What is it that you think the headline should say?
- duxup 7y agoThere was a good NOVA (or maybe Secrets of the Dead) episode on PBS that noted how there were a bunch of supposed dead sea scroll fragments that came onto the market that in many cases ... found buyers who just happened to be interested in the the text that were on the fragments. The market of private dealers working with secret sellers and buyers is very opaque and the middle men seem to pride themselves on secrecy more than authenticity and seem a lot like scam artists of their own.
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- throwaway894345 7y agoYeah, I saw this. They were specifically talking to experts at the Museum of the Bible. Good episode indeed.
- coliveira 7y agoThere is a cottage industry in the world of archeology where people find things and then pretend they're related to biblical stories. Even otherwise honest archeologists play this game, since saying that "this is a building from the time of Solomon" has a very different perceived meaning than saying "this is a structure built by unknown people living 2600 years ago".
- claudeganon 7y agoI want to know the entire story of how they were forged. Artistic forgeries are among the most interesting and elegant crimes. Eric Hebborn is a brilliant example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hebborn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hebborn
- lostlogin 7y agoAnother example is Konrad Kajau, of Hitler’s Diaries fame. I may be mangling the quote but I recall is as being something like “Fake? Real? There are efficient documents and inefficient document.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Kujau https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Kujau https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries
- vilts 7y agoBook called Numismatic Forgery is absolutely brilliant. Talks about how different coins can be forged depending on era, how making technique should match the original coin (ancient coin dies were hand engraved, so should the modern forgery). Some coin forgeries are made from remelted coins of same era but of lesser value, so that metal would match etc.
- thedance 7y agoI can think of no group of people less concerned with the true provenance of these articles than the patrons of this museum.
- legitster 7y agoI am curious how they passed so many experts. Surely the scrolls themselves were carbon dated - does that mean the forgers got actually period correct parchment and ink?
- computerex 7y agoThe article states: > In a report spanning more than 200 pages, a team of researchers led by art fraud investigator Colette Loll found that while the pieces are probably made of ancient leather, they were inked in modern times and modified to resemble real Dead Sea Scrolls.
- 29athrowaway 7y agoFor some reason, god does not seem to like written history or reliable historic accounts. As soon as writing is introduced in a culture, all the fantastic miracles and revelations stop, or become much more moderate. Somehow you go from gigantic columns of fire descending from the sky, to simple healing miracles that can be faked and are faked routinely in modern times as well. A magician trick could qualify as a miracle in biblical times. No more prophets either. Before, prophets appeared every few generations. But now, it has been thousands of years since the last prophet appeared. Some of the more cryptic stuff can also be explained: hallucinations. There were no people in ancient times to diagnose disorders like schizophrenia and drug use was not punishable by law. And even if they decided to punish drug use they did not have the means to identify illicit substances. All that, plus contradictions with science, makes me think these scriptures are simply a collection of folkloric legends. This does not prove a god does not exist.
- tsegratis 7y agoHaving seen incredible miracles, aswell as even surprizing prophecies come true multiple times... Which includes things falling from the sky -- at the exact time of praying for them For instance seeing a refugee camp catch fire, and so prayed for rain in the desert, etc, etc -- Which gives me at least, hope for a different conclusion :) Edit: no comment on the Hobby Lobby, I don't know anything particular about them
- 29athrowaway 7y agoYou are free to believe whatever you want, or participate of your culture as much as you want. But I strongly suggest you to document these miracles as you presence them to help others support your views.
- tsegratis 7y agoThanks. Sure! Just thinking of some modern writing inline with what the previous poster mentioned, such as: http://sirisofcalifornia.com/168833-books-jackie-pullinger.html http://sirisofcalifornia.com/168833-books-jackie-pullinger.h... (epub/pdf/txt) Note that I've met that person, and been to those places. They take heroin addicts and convicts -- about 20 to 30 in one building; they live 24-7 together, without previously knowing each other, for 3 months -- and come off heroin or other drugs in that time. What was cool was getting to see that, and see how peacefully they live together, even given their background Addendum: Loads more, sorry I haven't met these authors tho https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1022866.Run_Baby_Run https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1022866.Run_Baby_Run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDKLYFYc40Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDKLYFYc40Q (I like this guy)
- nardi 7y agoNote that this says nothing about the Dead Sea Scrolls in general, which are absolutely real, and mostly in the custody of the State of Israel: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls
- inglor 7y agoYeah, as an Israeli I saw this and was shocked since the Israel museum's collection is a pretty big deal here and a family member helped excavate the dead sea site and wrote a book above it (he has since passed) but forgery seemed very unlikely.
- joshspankit 7y agoI don’t keep up on what apparently seems to be issues with the museum, but this was what drew my eye: if all dead sea scrolls were forgeries that would shake the foundation of [Abrahamic] theology.
- analog31 7y agoI doubt it. The stories would persist even if one set of written copies were cast into doubt. They have been more or less in their present-day form since long before the dead sea scrolls were discovered. That span of time and space has attracted hucksters and forgers for centuries, and theology has carried on.
- joshspankit 7y agoNo, I think you’re right. After your comment I did some research and I had grossly overestimated the importance of the dead sea scrolls. I had no idea the silver scrolls existed until a couple hours ago.
- atombender 7y agoNo, that wouldn't be so. The Dead Sea Scrolls refer specifically to those found in the Qumran caves, believed to be the writings of one particular enclave of Jewish settlers near the Dead Sea. They're not foundational texts by any means, as I understand them. They add detail to existing texts — some of the fragments are clearly different versions of well-known texts — and add to our understanding of Jewish culture in Palestine at the time. It's true that they're some of the oldest texts we have from the Old Testament.
- andris9 7y agoObviously these must be fake as SEELE hoarded all the real dead sea scrolls for the human instrumentality project
- Vesuvium 7y agoAnd they wouldn't want to know what's really on them as well
- marklacey 7y agoI’m reminded of this: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/mexican-museums-artifacts-mostly-fake-1016198 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/mexican-museums-artifacts-... > The report found that only 83 of 2,000—or just over four percent—of the museum's pre-Columbian artifacts could be authenticated.
- SeanFerree 7y agoWow!!
- atombender 7y agoWhen the Museum of the Bible, which is funded by Hobby Lobby, was created, they went on a huge, decade-long spending spree, buying up Christian artifacts all over the world. This created so much increased demand that sellers worldwide jacked up their prices, and it also created an opportunity for forgeries and outright theft. The Guardian has a fascinating article about it that focuses on Dirk Obbink, an American papyrus scholar at Oxford University who seems to have been selling papyrus fragments from the collection he was supposed to be cataloguing. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/09/a-scandal-in-oxford-the-curious-case-of-the-stolen-gospel https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/09/a-scandal-in-ox...
- jessaustin 7y agoEditing "of the Bible" out of the original headline makes this HN post clickbait.
- jessaustin 7y agoAt the time, the family was embarking on an ambitious new project: the Museum of the Bible, which opened in Washington DC in 2017... Items for the Green collection were bought by Hobby Lobby, then donated to the museum, bringing a substantial tax write-off. These rich people, they really are all the same.