'Dead Sea Scrolls' at the Museum of the Bible Are All Forgeries (2020)

Nova had a great show about how many fakes there are out there when it comes to the dead sea scrolls (including the Museum of the Bible):

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/dead-sea-scroll-detectiv...

The intermediaries they go through to acquire these scraps of paper seem like total scam artists.

“The new findings don’t cast doubt on the 100,000 real Dead Sea Scroll fragments, most of which lie in the Shrine of the Book, part of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. However, the report’s findings raise grave questions about the “post-2002” Dead Sea Scroll fragments, a group of some 70 snippets of biblical text that entered the antiquities market in the 2000s. Even before the new report, some scholars believed that most to all of the post-2002 fragments were modern fakes.”

Good opportunity for a slightly-related joke:

A Dublin tourist goes into an antique shop and sees a skull in a glass box. "Whose skull was that?" he asks. "To be sure it is the skull of Oscar Wilde." The man is amazed and buys it for a huge sum.

Years later he returns to Dublin and visits the old antique shop again. Again he sees a skull in a glass box. "Who was that?" he asks. "That there is the skull of Oscar Wilde" says the shopkeeper. "It can't be. I bought his in this very shop some years ago!" exclaims the man. "Ah, to be sure that was his skull as a younger man!" replies the shopkeeper.

Why would this surprise anyone?

Paul Blanshard documented many fake "holy" religious relics from articles of clothing, pieces of the crucifix, even several foreskins of the savior.

The religious con-artists have been plying their craft for a very long time.

Blanshard's 2nd edition can be downloaded as a pdf here:

https://ia600909.us.archive.org/2/items/AmericanFreedomAndCa...

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(2020)