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As others have pointed out, the headline is much spicier than the story, which barely qualifies as news: > On Friday, independent researchers funded by the Mus

As 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 ago
Anyone interested in this topic should check out the documentary "Don Verdean".
danso 7y ago
The 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?
- gwd 7y ago
  "Museum of the Bible determine that all of their Dead Sea Scrolls are forgeries"
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    A third party made the finding, so if we are being making pedantic alteration to the headline, shouldn’t we avoid this inaccuracy?
- colechristensen 7y ago
  Museum of the Bible discovers it's Dead Sea Scrolls fragments are all forgeries The important difference is the implication in the headline needs to be that the Museum is discovering this instead of the Museum defrauding people
  - kadoban 7y ago
    Didn't a third party make the discovery? Doesn't sound very accurate that way. The headline does not imply anyone being defrauded by the Museum to me.
    - xeromal 7y ago
      But they hired the 3rd party so they get the credit.
- sgift 7y ago
  The headline is fine. Reading it in the spirit of "the museum is defrauding people and we found out about it" is extremely uncharitable and nitpicky.
  - danso 7y ago
    Sure, I guess I automatically interpret the connotation of "forgeries" and a museum as referring to a museum being the defrauded, since they typically are either given or acquiring exhibits, and less often are selling/trading them.
- burlesona 7y ago
  The original headline read something more like “museum discovers all Dead Sea scroll fragments are forgeries,” which I read and initially thought “really? The Dead Sea scrolls are fake?” Then I read the article and realized it was only about a few fragments in some museum in DC, which I had never even heard of. So to me, the headline was much spicier than the article. It had grammatical ambiguity that I thought was a little misleading.
justinator 7y ago
I think it's worth noting that MOST Christian relics are obviously fakes, made to attract tourists and take their money. It's practically the same thing with fake Dead Sea Scrolls. The, "Museum" of the Bible is meant to evangelize, not to educate. Give me a break about victimization.
- creddit 7y ago
  If you're referring to relics in the Catholic sense of the remains or possessions of canonized saints being "fake" then there's probably an element of truth to many (most? not sure...) in that they likely were at a time fabricated. However, this core belief in them being real and the history surrounding them still makes them historically significant so it's hard to understand what value there is in claiming them as fake in this context. Is the Shroud of Turin the real shroud used to wrap Jesus at his burial? Pretty much certainly not. That said, it is still clearly historically significant. Now, if more broadly you are referring to relics in the generic sense of objects of historical importance surviving from times long ago, then it seems obvious that most Christian relics are NOT fakes. Christianity has a long, deep history that has influenced the creation of massive amounts of art, literature, architecture, pottery, etc.
  - Dahoon 7y ago
    >Is the Shroud of Turin the real shroud used to wrap Jesus at his burial? Pretty much certainly not. That said, it is still clearly historically significant. Clearly it is not something worthy of a museum then. A fake thing being old doesn't make it historically significant for a museum. A church, maybe.
    - Ericson2314 7y ago
      Relics are important for understanding the medieval period's interwoven trade and pilgrimage. No relics? less travel? Slower "flatten the curve" back plague? Smaller renaissance? Weaker atheism today? :O
    - creddit 7y ago
jfengel 7y ago
I'm not so sure that "reasonable people who did the right thing" is an accurate characterization. The Museum of the Bible has a lot of controversy regarding their acquisition of artifacts. The company paid a large fine for trying to acquire materials looted from Iraq. Their cover-up obfuscated the origins of the material, reducing its value to archaeology by destroying context. They put these artifacts in their catalog; it was outside researchers who declared them forgeries. How many other pieces in their catalog are also forgeries, but don't have sufficiently high profile to be forced to check their acquisition? So I'm dubious when they claim victimhood. Scholars only want the material because of its context. The lack of context was the first clue to outsiders that they were in fact forgeries. Why didn't they know? They seem to want to acquire these objects more as trophies than as scholarship, and are willing to cut corners on provenance to achieve that. They present themselves as scholars but act more like a cross between treasure hunters and religious fanatics.
- creddit 7y ago
  They were trying to cover up attempts at acquiring legitimate artifacts? Seems like OP is right; they are trying to acquire legitimate materials and that it is most likely they got duped.
  - jfengel 7y ago
    Wikipedia has an entry for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scandal If this were a one-off thing, this might indeed be a non-story. But it fits a pattern of them putting collecting over scholarship. It casts doubt on their entire catalog, and makes it look as if they fund conferences as a fig leaf to grant them unearned scholarly authority. It may not mean anything to techies at Hacker News, but within the circles of archeology and biblical study, it's a warning that people should reconsider their relationship to the museum.
    - creddit 7y ago
      I'm familiar with the scandal. I'm just saying that it points more toward the museum having been actually duped. They are clearly interested in getting genuine artifacts given the lengths they are willing to go to obscure shady provenance.
thedance 7y ago
That is a generous interpretation. The museum didn't acquire them, they were founding artifacts of the museum. Serious scholars had already questioned their authenticity before the museum even opened, but it doesn't matter because the whole operation is just a huge grift by the Hobby Lobby billionaires to offload some worthless junk in exchange for a large income tax deduction.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  It has been dirty all the way down. The saga of the Oxford professor Dirk Obbink seemingly selling off university documents to them (Via Hobby Libby) is still as murky as ever. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/europe/oxford-professor-bible-hobby-lobby.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/europe/oxford-profe... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/16/mystery-deepens-oxford-academic-accused-illegally-selling-bible/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/16/mystery-deepens-...
  - atombender 7y ago
    The Guardian has a great article about it: 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...
- munk-a 7y ago
  I wonder what fraudulent items being used for a charitable tax deduction can cause to future tax balances - will their income offset be counted as a debt for next years' taxes?
  - thedance 7y ago
    You'd need a functioning tax enforcement regime to find out. America doesn't have one any more.
    - dang 7y ago
      Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait to HN? We've already had to ask you more than once, and we ban accounts that do this repeatedly. It goes against the purpose of the site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
lostlogin 7y ago
> Sounds like reasonable people who did the right thing. In isolation, maybe? But this isn’t the only scam that’s slowly playing out. Oxford and Professor Obbink is slowly playing out. The illegal importing of Iraqi items and the fakes they had on display when they opened are other examples. At the time (2017) they claimed to be victims, had learned, were moving on etc. How long is the grace period? It’s sleazy at best. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/museum-bible-faces-revelations-controversy-opens/story?id=51194500 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/museum-bible-faces-revelatio...
- burlesona 7y ago
  That’s interesting. I’d never heard of this place before and wasn’t aware of their history. Thanks for sharing.

irascible 7y ago

Anyone interested in this topic should check out the documentary "Don Verdean".

danso 7y ago

The 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?

gwd 7y ago
"Museum of the Bible determine that all of their Dead Sea Scrolls are forgeries"
- lostlogin 7y ago
  A third party made the finding, so if we are being making pedantic alteration to the headline, shouldn’t we avoid this inaccuracy?
colechristensen 7y ago
Museum of the Bible discovers it's Dead Sea Scrolls fragments are all forgeries The important difference is the implication in the headline needs to be that the Museum is discovering this instead of the Museum defrauding people
- kadoban 7y ago
  Didn't a third party make the discovery? Doesn't sound very accurate that way. The headline does not imply anyone being defrauded by the Museum to me.
  - xeromal 7y ago
    But they hired the 3rd party so they get the credit.
sgift 7y ago
The headline is fine. Reading it in the spirit of "the museum is defrauding people and we found out about it" is extremely uncharitable and nitpicky.
- danso 7y ago
  Sure, I guess I automatically interpret the connotation of "forgeries" and a museum as referring to a museum being the defrauded, since they typically are either given or acquiring exhibits, and less often are selling/trading them.
burlesona 7y ago
The original headline read something more like “museum discovers all Dead Sea scroll fragments are forgeries,” which I read and initially thought “really? The Dead Sea scrolls are fake?” Then I read the article and realized it was only about a few fragments in some museum in DC, which I had never even heard of. So to me, the headline was much spicier than the article. It had grammatical ambiguity that I thought was a little misleading.

justinator 7y ago

I think it's worth noting that MOST Christian relics are obviously fakes, made to attract tourists and take their money. It's practically the same thing with fake Dead Sea Scrolls. The, "Museum" of the Bible is meant to evangelize, not to educate. Give me a break about victimization.

creddit 7y ago
If you're referring to relics in the Catholic sense of the remains or possessions of canonized saints being "fake" then there's probably an element of truth to many (most? not sure...) in that they likely were at a time fabricated. However, this core belief in them being real and the history surrounding them still makes them historically significant so it's hard to understand what value there is in claiming them as fake in this context. Is the Shroud of Turin the real shroud used to wrap Jesus at his burial? Pretty much certainly not. That said, it is still clearly historically significant. Now, if more broadly you are referring to relics in the generic sense of objects of historical importance surviving from times long ago, then it seems obvious that most Christian relics are NOT fakes. Christianity has a long, deep history that has influenced the creation of massive amounts of art, literature, architecture, pottery, etc.
- Dahoon 7y ago
  >Is the Shroud of Turin the real shroud used to wrap Jesus at his burial? Pretty much certainly not. That said, it is still clearly historically significant. Clearly it is not something worthy of a museum then. A fake thing being old doesn't make it historically significant for a museum. A church, maybe.
  - Ericson2314 7y ago
    Relics are important for understanding the medieval period's interwoven trade and pilgrimage. No relics? less travel? Slower "flatten the curve" back plague? Smaller renaissance? Weaker atheism today? :O
  - creddit 7y ago

jfengel 7y ago

I'm not so sure that "reasonable people who did the right thing" is an accurate characterization. The Museum of the Bible has a lot of controversy regarding their acquisition of artifacts. The company paid a large fine for trying to acquire materials looted from Iraq. Their cover-up obfuscated the origins of the material, reducing its value to archaeology by destroying context. They put these artifacts in their catalog; it was outside researchers who declared them forgeries. How many other pieces in their catalog are also forgeries, but don't have sufficiently high profile to be forced to check their acquisition? So I'm dubious when they claim victimhood. Scholars only want the material because of its context. The lack of context was the first clue to outsiders that they were in fact forgeries. Why didn't they know? They seem to want to acquire these objects more as trophies than as scholarship, and are willing to cut corners on provenance to achieve that. They present themselves as scholars but act more like a cross between treasure hunters and religious fanatics.

creddit 7y ago
They were trying to cover up attempts at acquiring legitimate artifacts? Seems like OP is right; they are trying to acquire legitimate materials and that it is most likely they got duped.
- jfengel 7y ago
  Wikipedia has an entry for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scandal If this were a one-off thing, this might indeed be a non-story. But it fits a pattern of them putting collecting over scholarship. It casts doubt on their entire catalog, and makes it look as if they fund conferences as a fig leaf to grant them unearned scholarly authority. It may not mean anything to techies at Hacker News, but within the circles of archeology and biblical study, it's a warning that people should reconsider their relationship to the museum.
  - creddit 7y ago
    I'm familiar with the scandal. I'm just saying that it points more toward the museum having been actually duped. They are clearly interested in getting genuine artifacts given the lengths they are willing to go to obscure shady provenance.

thedance 7y ago

That is a generous interpretation. The museum didn't acquire them, they were founding artifacts of the museum. Serious scholars had already questioned their authenticity before the museum even opened, but it doesn't matter because the whole operation is just a huge grift by the Hobby Lobby billionaires to offload some worthless junk in exchange for a large income tax deduction.

lostlogin 7y ago
It has been dirty all the way down. The saga of the Oxford professor Dirk Obbink seemingly selling off university documents to them (Via Hobby Libby) is still as murky as ever. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/europe/oxford-professor-bible-hobby-lobby.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/europe/oxford-profe... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/16/mystery-deepens-oxford-academic-accused-illegally-selling-bible/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/16/mystery-deepens-...
- atombender 7y ago
  The Guardian has a great article about it: 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...
munk-a 7y ago
I wonder what fraudulent items being used for a charitable tax deduction can cause to future tax balances - will their income offset be counted as a debt for next years' taxes?
- thedance 7y ago
  You'd need a functioning tax enforcement regime to find out. America doesn't have one any more.
  - dang 7y ago
    Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait to HN? We've already had to ask you more than once, and we ban accounts that do this repeatedly. It goes against the purpose of the site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lostlogin 7y ago

> Sounds like reasonable people who did the right thing. In isolation, maybe? But this isn’t the only scam that’s slowly playing out. Oxford and Professor Obbink is slowly playing out. The illegal importing of Iraqi items and the fakes they had on display when they opened are other examples. At the time (2017) they claimed to be victims, had learned, were moving on etc. How long is the grace period? It’s sleazy at best. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/museum-bible-faces-revelations-controversy-opens/story?id=51194500 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/museum-bible-faces-revelatio...

burlesona 7y ago
That’s interesting. I’d never heard of this place before and wasn’t aware of their history. Thanks for sharing.