9 ms·

Is a long-dismissed forgery the oldest known Biblical manuscript?

122 points by diodorus 6y ago

gumby 6y ago
First of all: the design meme of “scroll a page full to get one page of text” must die. I’m trying to read an article not play a fucking video game. I used reader mode and noe of that text was included but I assume it was worthless.
- dang 6y ago
  I agree but: "Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - gumby 6y ago
    C’est pour encourager les autres.. The NYT is somewhat influential, and I hope some HN readers might be able to stop someone else from aping it. Nonetheless yes, I did violate the guidelines. abashed
- neonate 6y ago
  https://archive.is/ojHPk https://archive.is/ojHPk
gandalfian 6y ago
Assuming the biblical source to be fraudulent because it is Jewish. You could really tie your brain in knots with that one
- rossdavidh 6y ago
  I don't doubt that anti-Semitism had a role, but Shapiro had been caught selling forgeries before, so it was not suspicion based entirely on him being Jewish.
  - fortran77 6y ago
    He was a "convert" to Christianity, so neither Jews nor Christians were likely to trust him.
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  Like instances of historical Christian anti-semitism. Got some news for you about Jesus...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- throwawaygal7 6y ago
  I dont think the shapira finds can really be said to have been dismissed out of anti semitism, after all his cheif critic was also a jewish person. Sure, the cartoons in the times use jewish stereotypes - but only for one of the two jews in them - and they both are well after the actual event , and so cannot be showing the motivations of those alleging forgery
gumby 6y ago
What is the motivation for this: > Dershowitz’s research, closely guarded until now... Scholars who previewed his findings at a closed-door seminar at Harvard in 2019... Why the secrecy?
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  It is mentioned in the article. Dershowitz feared he might be considered a crackpot until he had all the evidence together, organized, and presentable at once. Revealing partial research before he completed everything would make a less persuasive case.
  - dang 6y ago
    There's also a cloak-and-dagger aspect to scholarship about ancient manuscripts, especially scriptures, which pops up in various stories here from time to time. Lots of intrigue, theft, forgery, factions, and weirdness. Partly this has to do with the overlap with the antiquities markets which are more...colorful. The transparency and openness we tend to expect from academic research is lacking. Sources are closely guarded, scholars don't get to properly check each other's work, and drama regularly ensues. Edit: I was trying to dig up an old thread about some such weird controversy involving National Geographic, but my memory has disintegrated into little parchment fragments. Speaking of cloak-and-dagger, though, I did run across this: https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2018/12/inside-cloak-and-dagger-search-sacred-texts https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisatio...
    - whakim 6y ago
      When I was a graduate student, one of my advisors tried to steer me away from focusing on periods of history where textual sources are/were more, shall we say, fluid. (In my particular case, this was Warring States China - I ended up pursuing early medieval Chinese literature so it was moot anyways). The point here is that academic careers are made or broken and some research is totally discredited while other research gains more prominence on the back of the vagaries of archaeological finds and determinations of authenticity. Within that the world, the stakes are extremely high.
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/ojHPk https://archive.is/ojHPk
bishop_mandible 6y ago
Does Betteridge's law apply here?
- tgv 6y ago
  Does it apply to your question? Anyway, such discussions continue until they are forgotten, not because it arrived at a factual conclusion.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Does it apply to your question? Since it's it's a law of headlines, and the question in question is not a headline, no.
mahnouel 6y ago
So where can I read the manuscripts? Is there an english translation available? Searched for half an hour and didn’t find anything..
- sb057 6y ago
  Page 37 (PDF numbering) of this 1958 research paper reproduces a version published in an 1883 issue of 'The Athenaeum': http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/transactions/WT1958/reference/wi.wt1958.mmansoor.pdf http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/transactions/WT1958/...
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    For anyone clicking through and scrolling to page 37: this is in Hebrew, not English. I don’t see an English translation there.
    - dogma1138 6y ago
      That’s not Hebrew technically either it uses the Phoenician alphabet or a variation of it. I can read the Dead Sea scrolls I can’t read what ever this is :(
      - marshmallow_12 6y ago
        it is Hebrew, just in a now defunct script. I didn't see anything majorly informative in the transcription, in case you were wondering.
        dogma1138 6y ago
        Well it’s not Hebrew, the Hebrew alphabet is based on Aramaic in fact it’s essentially identical to “square” aka western Aramaic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Neo-Aramaic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Neo-Aramaic Before that proto/paleo-Hebrew used the same Canaanite scripts that were common in the region, the closest thing we have to that today is Samaritan.
prox 6y ago
Is there a translation of the text anywhere? Search just brings up alternatives for this news article.
benjohnson 6y ago
"And in a 2018 scholarly article, he used similar approach to advance a startling claim: that an earlier version of Leviticus, rather than forbidding sex between men, had actually permitted it." I'm a poor scholar of the ancient Jewish faith, but explicit permission of male on male sexual intercourse in the five books seems a bit of a stretch. While I'd like to judge the merits of this man's claims, this has echos of the whole "Jesus wife" fiasco of seeking attention by being edgy.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  Guilt by association does not mean Dershowitz is necessarily being duped.
- svat 6y ago
  (Disclaimer: I have no interest in this matter; my interest here is only in the structure of the argument.) If you follow the link to the 2018 "startling claim" (https://archive.is/QAa5x https://archive.is/QAa5x), what's presented there is not a claim of "explicit permission" as you say, but a reasoning from the principle that "For example, a sign declaring an office to be closed on Sundays suggests that the office is open on all other days of the week". (That is, in that article Idan Dershowitz suggests that an earlier version of Leviticus 18 forbade homosexual incest, which if true would in turn lead to the conclusion that homosexuality wasn't forbidden in general.)
  - R0b0t1 6y ago
    I have also seen it construed the original prohibition was against pedastery as practiced by the Greeks, not homosexuality in general.
    - andrewflnr 6y ago
      Pretty sure that pertains to the New Testament (e.g. Paul), not the Pentateuch. I don't know the exact timeline, but I don't think the ancient Greeks as we know them were a factor when the Old Testament law was written.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rrll22 6y ago
Google Translate:
- rrll22 6y ago
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And went out At that time you built a father and women of state towards you And call upon [them] to eat their altar and eat their altar And drink of their form, and worship them, and worship them The women of the state and you will cling to a person with a gap that day And let them also be angry with you and win over you at the same time That sieve of Nadla and peace from you I will breathe for bread The state and the stain you with the sword and sat From them the slaughter will be very much and the sieve will stop. And I commanded them at that time to teach you Hakam and their trial to do in the land which they passed through Her name is her. Take care you do not add to His commandment and you shall not be deprived of it. Save your money Forget it and make a statue for yourself and appoint a pattern Every symbol whose name resounds in the land Stretches and which basses underground. And hera Epic in you and I chased the) as soon as Metz This benefit land. 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camjohnson26 6y ago
The original fragments of this text are no longer available after it was denounced as a hoax over 150 years ago. This researcher’s claims are mainly based on the content of the text, which he says are echoed by later texts and have multiple coincidences. The article says that the researchers who focus on Biblical text origins are more convinced and the ones focused on physical details of the documents are less convinced as they “contain all the hallmarks of a modern forgery.” The response is that the transcriptions may not be accurate representations of the actual fragment. It all seems very difficult to prove and the implications, a version of the Torah with most of the laws removed, just a little too convenient. Seems like healthy skepticism is warranted here.
- trasz 6y ago
  Too convenient now, but back when it was discovered, it would have been way more convenient if its contents fit the mainstream consensus at that time instead.
  - throwawaygal7 6y ago
    So, the mainstream consensus at that time was that the traditional date for deuteronomy should be replaced by a later date , based on historical-critical methods. These same dates and theories enjoy considerable love today. If the shapira fragments are a 9th century BC copy of deuteronomy, modern historical critical thoughts about the composition and dating of the pentateuch are wrong. Edit: Not a consensus I guess but the documentary hypothesis was emerging in the 1860s and 1870s shortly before these fragments made their debut.
mtalantikite 6y ago
Here is a link to the open access book that the scholar, Dershowitz, published. His English translation begins on page 156: https://www.academia.edu/45450947/The_Valediction_of_Moses_A_Proto_Biblical_Book https://www.academia.edu/45450947/The_Valediction_of_Moses_A...
cybert00th 6y ago
>"But Dershowitz makes an even more dramatic claim. The text, which he has reconstructed from 19th-century transcriptions and drawings, is not a reworking of Deuteronomy, he argues, but a precursor to it, dating to the period of the First Temple, before the Babylonian Exile. That would make it the oldest known biblical manuscript by far, and an unprecedented window into the origins and evolution of the Bible and biblical religion." That's fine, if that's what it turns out to be - a precursor to the book of Deuteronomy. But let no one be so foolish as to claim it as holy writ - that was settled a long time ago by the apostle John.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  Yes, it would obviously be quite foolish to pretend that that specific bit of ancient manuscript is the unchallengable word of god when that would controvert some other bit of ancient manuscript.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  except Jews don't accept him. so you are the one that looks foolish.
  - dang 6y ago
    Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments? You've been doing a lot of it and it's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - EdwardDiego 6y ago
      It's a fair point though, the opinions of Christians bears zero relevance to Jewish belief.
snambi 6y ago
Its probably a hoax.
leth_dev 6y ago
Hypothesis: the physical medium was a forgery, but the text was not. In other words: it was a copy of a genuine manuscrit. That would explain why the physical scroll appears to be an obvious forgery containing, retrospectively, a perplexing text.
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  your qualifications for presenting an hypothesis are...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- usrusr 6y ago
  Why would anyone go through the pains of forgery to create a copy of an original in their possession? Just sell the original if you're in or for quick money, show off your original (and sell clean copies) if you're out for status.
  - riffraff 6y ago
    you could sell the thing twice: you sell the original to a collector, and the copy to another collector.
    - seniorivn 6y ago
      you can sell forgeries every once in a while, and keep original for yourself
quercusa 6y ago
If this sort of thing interests you, check out Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife by Ariel Sabar. Interesting story and a great read - just when you think you understand it, a new layer appears.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwawaygal7 6y ago
http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/?p=896 http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/?p=896 It could be real, could be fake. Theirs lots of evidence for it being fake which the new work doesnt adequately deal with. If they are real, it poses problems for modern critical scholarship because the words for god are not sympathetic with modern theories and establishes a date for deuteronomy far earlier than modern critical scholarship supports. On the other hand, they're very likely a forgery - the motivation for the forger would be to validate traditional dates for deuteronomy vs modern critical dates that are much earlier.
ARandomerDude 6y ago
How to become (in)famous in any field at any time: Everyone before me was wrong, and I alone know the truth.

122 points by diodorus 6y ago

First of all: the design meme of “scroll a page full to get one page of text” must die. I’m trying to read an article not play a fucking video game. I used reader mode and noe of that text was included but I assume it was worthless.

dang 6y ago
I agree but: "Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- gumby 6y ago
  C’est pour encourager les autres.. The NYT is somewhat influential, and I hope some HN readers might be able to stop someone else from aping it. Nonetheless yes, I did violate the guidelines. abashed
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/ojHPk https://archive.is/ojHPk

gandalfian 6y ago

Assuming the biblical source to be fraudulent because it is Jewish. You could really tie your brain in knots with that one

rossdavidh 6y ago
I don't doubt that anti-Semitism had a role, but Shapiro had been caught selling forgeries before, so it was not suspicion based entirely on him being Jewish.
- fortran77 6y ago
  He was a "convert" to Christianity, so neither Jews nor Christians were likely to trust him.
camjohnson26 6y ago
Like instances of historical Christian anti-semitism. Got some news for you about Jesus...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
throwawaygal7 6y ago
I dont think the shapira finds can really be said to have been dismissed out of anti semitism, after all his cheif critic was also a jewish person. Sure, the cartoons in the times use jewish stereotypes - but only for one of the two jews in them - and they both are well after the actual event , and so cannot be showing the motivations of those alleging forgery

gumby 6y ago

What is the motivation for this: > Dershowitz’s research, closely guarded until now... Scholars who previewed his findings at a closed-door seminar at Harvard in 2019... Why the secrecy?

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
It is mentioned in the article. Dershowitz feared he might be considered a crackpot until he had all the evidence together, organized, and presentable at once. Revealing partial research before he completed everything would make a less persuasive case.
- dang 6y ago
  There's also a cloak-and-dagger aspect to scholarship about ancient manuscripts, especially scriptures, which pops up in various stories here from time to time. Lots of intrigue, theft, forgery, factions, and weirdness. Partly this has to do with the overlap with the antiquities markets which are more...colorful. The transparency and openness we tend to expect from academic research is lacking. Sources are closely guarded, scholars don't get to properly check each other's work, and drama regularly ensues. Edit: I was trying to dig up an old thread about some such weird controversy involving National Geographic, but my memory has disintegrated into little parchment fragments. Speaking of cloak-and-dagger, though, I did run across this: https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2018/12/inside-cloak-and-dagger-search-sacred-texts https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisatio...
  - whakim 6y ago
    When I was a graduate student, one of my advisors tried to steer me away from focusing on periods of history where textual sources are/were more, shall we say, fluid. (In my particular case, this was Warring States China - I ended up pursuing early medieval Chinese literature so it was moot anyways). The point here is that academic careers are made or broken and some research is totally discredited while other research gains more prominence on the back of the vagaries of archaeological finds and determinations of authenticity. Within that the world, the stakes are extremely high.

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/ojHPk https://archive.is/ojHPk

bishop_mandible 6y ago

Does Betteridge's law apply here?

tgv 6y ago
Does it apply to your question? Anyway, such discussions continue until they are forgotten, not because it arrived at a factual conclusion.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Does it apply to your question? Since it's it's a law of headlines, and the question in question is not a headline, no.

mahnouel 6y ago

So where can I read the manuscripts? Is there an english translation available? Searched for half an hour and didn’t find anything..

sb057 6y ago
Page 37 (PDF numbering) of this 1958 research paper reproduces a version published in an 1883 issue of 'The Athenaeum': http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/transactions/WT1958/reference/wi.wt1958.mmansoor.pdf http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/transactions/WT1958/...
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  For anyone clicking through and scrolling to page 37: this is in Hebrew, not English. I don’t see an English translation there.
  - dogma1138 6y ago
    That’s not Hebrew technically either it uses the Phoenician alphabet or a variation of it. I can read the Dead Sea scrolls I can’t read what ever this is :(
    - marshmallow_12 6y ago
      it is Hebrew, just in a now defunct script. I didn't see anything majorly informative in the transcription, in case you were wondering.
      - dogma1138 6y ago
        Well it’s not Hebrew, the Hebrew alphabet is based on Aramaic in fact it’s essentially identical to “square” aka western Aramaic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Neo-Aramaic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Neo-Aramaic Before that proto/paleo-Hebrew used the same Canaanite scripts that were common in the region, the closest thing we have to that today is Samaritan.

prox 6y ago

Is there a translation of the text anywhere? Search just brings up alternatives for this news article.

benjohnson 6y ago

"And in a 2018 scholarly article, he used similar approach to advance a startling claim: that an earlier version of Leviticus, rather than forbidding sex between men, had actually permitted it." I'm a poor scholar of the ancient Jewish faith, but explicit permission of male on male sexual intercourse in the five books seems a bit of a stretch. While I'd like to judge the merits of this man's claims, this has echos of the whole "Jesus wife" fiasco of seeking attention by being edgy.

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
Guilt by association does not mean Dershowitz is necessarily being duped.
svat 6y ago
(Disclaimer: I have no interest in this matter; my interest here is only in the structure of the argument.) If you follow the link to the 2018 "startling claim" (https://archive.is/QAa5x https://archive.is/QAa5x), what's presented there is not a claim of "explicit permission" as you say, but a reasoning from the principle that "For example, a sign declaring an office to be closed on Sundays suggests that the office is open on all other days of the week". (That is, in that article Idan Dershowitz suggests that an earlier version of Leviticus 18 forbade homosexual incest, which if true would in turn lead to the conclusion that homosexuality wasn't forbidden in general.)
- R0b0t1 6y ago
  I have also seen it construed the original prohibition was against pedastery as practiced by the Greeks, not homosexuality in general.
  - andrewflnr 6y ago
    Pretty sure that pertains to the New Testament (e.g. Paul), not the Pentateuch. I don't know the exact timeline, but I don't think the ancient Greeks as we know them were a factor when the Old Testament law was written.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rrll22 6y ago

Google Translate:

rrll22 6y ago
And he said unto them, Send me, I pray thee, into the river Will help and be captured naat] forest and sit in the atri cities. And the king of Bashan went out to meet him at Salah And they beat him until he had not left him Where the whole rabbit cable woke up in hot trouble Their door and bohemian Mad and all the cities of Mishar and all of Gilad and all of Bashaz Ad Selka and Edrei .... Eretz Rafam ... Nam Is that the cloud of the king of Bashan Titar Harpas remains. He turned and drove off and sat down in front of Bat Pe'a. And went out At that time you built a father and women of state towards you And call upon [them] to eat their altar and eat their altar And drink of their form, and worship them, and worship them The women of the state and you will cling to a person with a gap that day And let them also be angry with you and win over you at the same time That sieve of Nadla and peace from you I will breathe for bread The state and the stain you with the sword and sat From them the slaughter will be very much and the sieve will stop. And I commanded them at that time to teach you Hakam and their trial to do in the land which they passed through Her name is her. Take care you do not add to His commandment and you shall not be deprived of it. Save your money Forget it and make a statue for yourself and appoint a pattern Every symbol whose name resounds in the land Stretches and which basses underground. And hera Epic in you and I chased the) as soon as Metz This benefit land. 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camjohnson26 6y ago

The original fragments of this text are no longer available after it was denounced as a hoax over 150 years ago. This researcher’s claims are mainly based on the content of the text, which he says are echoed by later texts and have multiple coincidences. The article says that the researchers who focus on Biblical text origins are more convinced and the ones focused on physical details of the documents are less convinced as they “contain all the hallmarks of a modern forgery.” The response is that the transcriptions may not be accurate representations of the actual fragment. It all seems very difficult to prove and the implications, a version of the Torah with most of the laws removed, just a little too convenient. Seems like healthy skepticism is warranted here.

trasz 6y ago
Too convenient now, but back when it was discovered, it would have been way more convenient if its contents fit the mainstream consensus at that time instead.
- throwawaygal7 6y ago
  So, the mainstream consensus at that time was that the traditional date for deuteronomy should be replaced by a later date , based on historical-critical methods. These same dates and theories enjoy considerable love today. If the shapira fragments are a 9th century BC copy of deuteronomy, modern historical critical thoughts about the composition and dating of the pentateuch are wrong. Edit: Not a consensus I guess but the documentary hypothesis was emerging in the 1860s and 1870s shortly before these fragments made their debut.

mtalantikite 6y ago

Here is a link to the open access book that the scholar, Dershowitz, published. His English translation begins on page 156: https://www.academia.edu/45450947/The_Valediction_of_Moses_A_Proto_Biblical_Book https://www.academia.edu/45450947/The_Valediction_of_Moses_A...

cybert00th 6y ago

>"But Dershowitz makes an even more dramatic claim. The text, which he has reconstructed from 19th-century transcriptions and drawings, is not a reworking of Deuteronomy, he argues, but a precursor to it, dating to the period of the First Temple, before the Babylonian Exile. That would make it the oldest known biblical manuscript by far, and an unprecedented window into the origins and evolution of the Bible and biblical religion." That's fine, if that's what it turns out to be - a precursor to the book of Deuteronomy. But let no one be so foolish as to claim it as holy writ - that was settled a long time ago by the apostle John.

InitialLastName 6y ago
Yes, it would obviously be quite foolish to pretend that that specific bit of ancient manuscript is the unchallengable word of god when that would controvert some other bit of ancient manuscript.
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marshmallow_12 6y ago
except Jews don't accept him. so you are the one that looks foolish.
- dang 6y ago
  Would you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments? You've been doing a lot of it and it's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    It's a fair point though, the opinions of Christians bears zero relevance to Jewish belief.

snambi 6y ago

Its probably a hoax.

leth_dev 6y ago

Hypothesis: the physical medium was a forgery, but the text was not. In other words: it was a copy of a genuine manuscrit. That would explain why the physical scroll appears to be an obvious forgery containing, retrospectively, a perplexing text.

marshmallow_12 6y ago
your qualifications for presenting an hypothesis are...
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usrusr 6y ago
Why would anyone go through the pains of forgery to create a copy of an original in their possession? Just sell the original if you're in or for quick money, show off your original (and sell clean copies) if you're out for status.
- riffraff 6y ago
  you could sell the thing twice: you sell the original to a collector, and the copy to another collector.
  - seniorivn 6y ago
    you can sell forgeries every once in a while, and keep original for yourself

quercusa 6y ago

If this sort of thing interests you, check out Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife by Ariel Sabar. Interesting story and a great read - just when you think you understand it, a new layer appears.

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throwawaygal7 6y ago

http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/?p=896 http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/?p=896 It could be real, could be fake. Theirs lots of evidence for it being fake which the new work doesnt adequately deal with. If they are real, it poses problems for modern critical scholarship because the words for god are not sympathetic with modern theories and establishes a date for deuteronomy far earlier than modern critical scholarship supports. On the other hand, they're very likely a forgery - the motivation for the forger would be to validate traditional dates for deuteronomy vs modern critical dates that are much earlier.

ARandomerDude 6y ago

How to become (in)famous in any field at any time: Everyone before me was wrong, and I alone know the truth.