5 ms·

That is a generous interpretation. The museum didn't acquire them, they were founding artifacts of the museum. Serious scholars had already questioned their a

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
    - microtherion 7y ago
      I'm not quite sure what is "flamebait" about GP's assertion. The number of criminal investigations initiated by the IRS has dropped from 5,314 in 2013 to 2485 in 2019: https://www.goldburdmccone.com/blog/2017/06/what-are-the-trends-in-the-irs-criminal-investigation-report.shtml https://www.goldburdmccone.com/blog/2017/06/what-are-the-tre... https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/2019_irs_criminal_investigation_annual_report.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/2019_irs_criminal_investigat... It seems to me that white collar crime, and the increasing impunity with which its perpetrators operate in the US, should be a legitimate topic of debate here on HN. If GP had written "we need a functioning public school system", would you have considered this "flamebait" as well? That kind of assertion seems to be basically an article of faith among the YC crowd.
      - dang 7y ago
        Grandiose politicized provocations are flamebait. There's no actual information there. Your comment does contain some, and I wouldn't have replied to it that way. Sensationalized political fights are one of the worst poisons here, so when an account is showing signs of using HN for that, it's not good. Substantive discussion of divisive questions (which your comment is more touching into) is a quite different thing, and much more likely to be ok.

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
  - microtherion 7y ago
    I'm not quite sure what is "flamebait" about GP's assertion. The number of criminal investigations initiated by the IRS has dropped from 5,314 in 2013 to 2485 in 2019: https://www.goldburdmccone.com/blog/2017/06/what-are-the-trends-in-the-irs-criminal-investigation-report.shtml https://www.goldburdmccone.com/blog/2017/06/what-are-the-tre... https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/2019_irs_criminal_investigation_annual_report.pdf https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/2019_irs_criminal_investigat... It seems to me that white collar crime, and the increasing impunity with which its perpetrators operate in the US, should be a legitimate topic of debate here on HN. If GP had written "we need a functioning public school system", would you have considered this "flamebait" as well? That kind of assertion seems to be basically an article of faith among the YC crowd.
    - dang 7y ago
      Grandiose politicized provocations are flamebait. There's no actual information there. Your comment does contain some, and I wouldn't have replied to it that way. Sensationalized political fights are one of the worst poisons here, so when an account is showing signs of using HN for that, it's not good. Substantive discussion of divisive questions (which your comment is more touching into) is a quite different thing, and much more likely to be ok.