I was posting these in other threads, but with the developments of the past week, and a lot of media attention with the grand opening of the
Museum of the Bible this is becoming a big story. I had posted links to news articles in the
Times of Israel and
Science about the recent scourge of manuscript forgeries purported to belong to the Dead Sea Scrolls:
Dead Sea Scrolls scam: Dozens of recently sold fragments are fakes, experts warn
Can the Museum of the Bible Overcome Sins of the Past?
In the past three or four days articles have appeared featuring my work at
CNN.com,
The Guardian, and
LiveScience.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/17/us/bib...kes/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...P=share_btn_fb
https://amp.livescience.com/60985-de...forgeries.html
Without rehearsing the whole story, I was involved in the publication of two private collections of Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts, and in the course of my work became convinced that many—perhaps most of these—are forgeries for which vendors have received literally millions of dollars. Because I was bound by a non-disclosure agreement with Museum of the Bible, I was not allowed to speak publicly about this (nor with any of my colleagues) until after the official publication of their holdings. In last September, I presented a paper in which I finally exposed the problems, and this was then written up in an academic journal a few months ago. I have managed to gain the scholarly consensus in all of this, but at the same time am making powerful enemies, and the future of my own career is a legitimate concern as this story unfolds. A lot of my work is threatening not only exceedingly wealthy collectors' holdings, they are running sharply against the grain of a fiercely hierarchical academic establishment, and a poisonous and deeply engrained authoritarian culture.
It is a complicated and multi-faceted situation that features blatant and illegal breach of international and national laws designed to protect cultural heritage, along with the
http://UNESCO Convention on the Mean...tural Property. It features a murky and shadowy ring of antiquities dealers and forgers who run in circles with traffickers, the mafia, Russian oligarchs and Arabian royalty. The victims in much of this are not just embarrassed Evangelicals who have paid obscene amounts of money to stake an controversial claim in their own religious heritage, but primarily marginalized, starving people in war-torn Iraq, occupied Gaza and elsewhere who suffer under slave-like conditions in the archaeological rape of these sensitive regions.
I was an invited speaker to a few sessions and panels at this year's
Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, and I believe we are making some small progress to effect genuine change in the irreparably corrupt antiquities exchange. But the struggle is ongoing. If you are interested in this, then you should follow "The Lying Pen of Scribes" FB blog that is owned by one of my former colleagues in Norway.