An Expert Examined This Mysterious Ancient Scroll And Reached A Startling Conclusion About The Bible

So what is so special about these manuscripts – and why has it taken so long for the truth to be revealed? When Moses Shapira appeared in London, he had an incredible story to tell. Apparently, the documents that he was carrying had been found by a group of Bedouins, hidden in a desert cavern not far from the Dead Sea.

But that wasn’t all. According to Shapira, these scrolls had a spectacular provenance: they were the oldest known biblical texts in the world. Had this souvenir shop owner from Jerusalem really stumbled upon artifacts of such staggering importance? Or was he little more than a conman, using his knowledge of antiquities to make a quick buck?

Just months after his arrival in London, Shapira was dead. And his scrolls, once the source of much fanfare and excitement, had been deemed fake. But the story did not end there. Now lost to time, the enigmatic documents have inspired modern scholars to reassess their authenticity – with surprising results.  

If Shapira is to be believed, the scrolls came into his possession in July 1878. At the time, he had been running a souvenir and antiquities business in Jerusalem’s Old City and had earned a reputation as a purveyor of historic artifacts. According to The Jerusalem Post newspaper, though, he also had a knack for acquiring forgeries as well.

Certainly, it seems that not all of Shapira’s artifacts were fake. Even today, for example, the British Museum displays a number of texts originally acquired by the Jerusalem merchant. But the story behind these biblical scrolls, allegedly recovered from a cave near Jordan’s Wadi Mujib gorge, was almost too fantastical to be believed. 

According to Shapira, the manuscripts bore text from the Book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book in the Bible’s Old Testament. But this version, it seemed, was different to the one that was in general use towards the end of the 19th century. And those discrepancies, though small, had far-reaching religious implications.

At the time, you see, many believed – as some still do to this day – that this section of the Old Testament contained the literal word of God, passed down to Moses from the heavens. But if Shapira’s scrolls were genuine, they showed that the Book of Deuteronomy had been altered over the years. 

This find, then, was significant to say the least. And Shapira certainly believed so, which is probably why he was asking for more than $1 million in return – an even more colossal sum back then. Despite the high price tag, the British Museum was interested – provided the documents could be authenticated, of course. But while the scrolls were being examined, one scholar cast a shadow of doubt over the historic discovery.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Charles Clermont-Ganneau was something of a nemesis to Shapira, having previously accused him of fraud. This time, it seems, the French scholar and archaeologist was equally unconvinced. Whether through spite or as the result of a genuine investigation, he dubbed the scrolls a forgery – and he wasn’t the only one.

Later, biblical scholar Christian Ginsburg would concur with Clermont-Ganneau: Shapira’s documents were not authentic. Departing London in disgrace, the merchant died in Amsterdam the following March. But what of his controversial scrolls? According to reports, they were auctioned off as curios, eventually acquired by the English naturalist Philip Brookes Mason.

And then the trail goes cold. Today, nobody knows the whereabouts of these documents – or if they survived at all. In fact, they might have been completely forgotten were it not for the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. With so many similarities between these artifacts and the ones brought to London 60 years earlier, some experts began to raise questions. Might Shapira’s manuscripts have been genuine after all?

According to a 2017 BBC article by journalist Chanan Tigay, academic interest in the scrolls began to grow in the 1950s. Scholars, he claims, wished to apply research methods that had not been available during Ginsburg’s initial investigation. But, of course, the documents had vanished, leaving many questions unanswered.  

Keen to locate the scrolls once and for all, Tigay embarked on a journey that took him from Wadi Mujib in Jordan all the way to London – then back to his home city of San Francisco. Ironically, it was at this final port of call that he discovered a break in the case. In the local university, a collection of documents originally sourced by Shapira was being held.

Unfortunately for Tigay, the missing scrolls were not among the manuscripts at San Francisco State University. But he did find something else: a series of texts from which the margins had been removed. Decades earlier, Ginsburg had suggested that Shapira may have used a similar method to forge the documents that he claimed were biblical relics. Was this evidence, then, that the merchant had been a fraud all along – albeit a creative one?

As with many historical mysteries, the answer is far from simple. And now, the waters have been muddied once more, thanks to the work of Idan Dershowitz, an Israeli-American scholar based in Germany. According to his paper The Valediction of Moses: New Evidence on the Shapira Deuteronomy Fragments, published in March 2021, the scrolls may well have been exactly what the merchant claimed.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post Dr. Dershowitz, who has a Ph.D in biblical studies, explained in March 2021 how he became drawn to the story of the scrolls. He said, “I heard stories about the Shapira affairs, and I found them interesting. After a couple of years, I became curious to see the text of the manuscripts.” 

Apparently, Dr. Dershowitz found it perplexing that the actual content of the scrolls had received so little attention over the years. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, he set about learning everything that he could about the mysterious documents. Of course, that was made more difficult by the fact that they had not been seen in generations – but there were still clues that had been left behind.

Fortunately for Dr. Dershowitz, Ginsburg and another unidentified scholar had made transcripts when they examined the scrolls back in the 19th century. Using these, he was able to begin building a picture of what the documents had contained. And eventually, he located the original notes taken by Shapira as he studied his controversial find. 

“I immediately felt it could not be forgery,” Dr. Dershowitz explained. But how could he be so sure, almost 140 years after the scrolls had been dismissed as fake? According to the scholar, Shapira’s transcripts revealed just how much he had puzzled over the documents, suggesting that they were not made by his own hand.

“The transcription by Shapira, which I found in an archive in Berlin, also offers important proof that he did not forge the manuscripts,” Dr. Derschowitz continued. “You can see that he was studying them hard, trying to figure out all sorts of things, writing questions in the margin. If he had created them, he would have not needed to do something like this.”

Could the documents have been a genuine copy of the Book of Deuteronomy, making them the oldest biblical texts ever found? Initially, one of the reasons that the scrolls were dismissed was Shapira’s claim that Bedouins had found them in the cave. At the time, that had seemed incredibly unlikely – until the Dead Sea Scrolls came along.

Like Shapira’s scrolls, these artifacts were retrieved from their desert hiding place by wandering Bedouins. But unlike the earlier manuscripts, they are considered genuine by the scientific establishment. As it turns out, then, this method of discovery is not so unusual after all – so what does that say about the authenticity of the documents studied by Dr. Dershowitz?

The answer, it seems, might be found within the actual words themselves. Although the missing manuscript bore many similarities to the fifth book of the Old Testament, Dr. Dershowitz believes there were some key differences, too. He said, “The book is considerably shorter. This text, which I call the Valediction of Moses lacks the law code, as well as the poems that appear at the end of Deuteronomy.”

Crucially, Dr. Dershowitz noted, the apparent version of Deuteronomy contained within Shapira’s scrolls omitted one particular tale that is present in the Bible as we know it today. And according to the scholar, there is modern research to support the idea that this was a later addition. Again, this seems to back up the theory that the manuscripts really did come from an early edition of the Old Testament.

In fact, according to Dr. Dershowitz, this version, if genuine, could date back as far as 2,700 years. But he added, “Obviously I’m talking about the text and not the artifact itself. It might be that an ancient text was recorded on a more recent manuscript, from around the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls. But my opinion is that also the manuscript itself was likely older.”

Given that most of the scientific establishment still considers the Shapira Scrolls to be forgeries, Dr. Dershowitz’s work has proved controversial to say the least. Certainly, it appears to directly contradict the findings of Tigay, who eventually came to suspect that the documents were created as part of an imaginative scam. 

“If Shapira had manufactured the manuscript as the evidence now suggested,” Tigay wrote, “he had done so with such skill and expertise that, magically it now seemed, he had unknowingly foretold the existence of the Dead Sea Scrolls many decades before their discovery. Shapira might have been a forger, but it now seemed he was something else, too: a genius.”

In fact, Dr. Dershowitz’s findings have stirred up so much uncertainty that a Harvard seminar on the topic soon descended into a ferocious debate. To some, such as Tigay, the scrolls are simply evidence of a master forger at work. But to others, they represent a biblical discovery at least on a par with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“What Idan is offering is something that’s at least equivalent, if not more,” the University of Texas’ Na’ama Pat-El told The New York Times in March 2021. “It’s pretty incredible if he’s right.” And Dr. Dershowitz agrees. He added, “It’s mind-boggling that for almost the entire existence of the discipline of Bible studies, this text that tells us more than any other manuscript discovered before or since hasn’t been part of the conversation.”

Could the Bible eventually be rewritten, then? Well, that remains to be seen. And if it is, perhaps the new holy book could contain what a team of archaeologists found on a dusty hillside. Tucked inside a dark tunnel, the experts uncovered a collection of pottery jars. That may not sound like much, but don’t be fooled. This discovery could transform history – maybe even the Bible – as we know it.

In February of 2017, researchers from Liberty University in Virginia and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem made a startling announcement. In partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority, they had been investigating some caves at Qumran in the West Bank.

Located around a mile from the Dead Sea in the Judean Desert, Qumran is near the site of an ancient Jewish settlement. Over the years, many interesting historical discoveries have come to light here.

However, recent years have seen something of an archaeological drought. Indeed, until recently, no new finds of note had turned up in the region for more than 60 years. But this latest discovery should more than make up for lost time.

Inside the mouth of the cave, the team discovered discarded arrowheads and tools made from flint. It was evidence that Neolithic people had once used the cave – but the best was yet to come.

Using a small pickaxe, the archaeologists then got to work excavating the cave. Amazingly, they soon discovered an unbroken jar. When they opened it, they were excited to discover a scroll tucked safely inside.

Thinking they may have uncovered a relic of great importance, the team then sent the scroll to a laboratory at Hebrew University. Sadly, however, the paper turned out to be blank.

Undeterred, the archaeologists continued to explore the cave. Initially, they believed that a cave-in had blocked a section. But after a closer inspection, they began to suspect that the obstruction was deliberate.

Sure enough, when they finally got through the wall of rock, the team could see a secret tunnel leading off some 20 feet from the main cave. And in the tunnel, they then made the discovery that has been stunning archaeologists around the world.

Hidden in the tunnel were three broken storage jars, their lids still intact. Although the jars were empty, the team found evidence to suggest that they had once contained a cache of ancient documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, thought to be among the most valuable documents on Earth.

The Dead Sea Scrolls first came to light back in the 1940s when a Bedouin shepherd accidentally fell into a cave at Qumran. When he finally emerged, he was clutching a fistful of mysterious scrolls. Astutely thinking that they could be valuable, he then took them back to his home.

Eventually, the scrolls were sold to an antiques dealer, although it wasn’t until the following year that academics became aware of their existence. In 1947, archaeologist Dr. John C. Trever from the American Schools of Oriental Studies began researching the strange documents.

Trever noticed similarities between the Qumran scrolls and the Nash Papyrus, an ancient fragment of biblical text. In fact, the Qumran scrolls, which became more commonly known by the public as the Dead Sea Scrolls, were even older. As archaeologists studied them, they began to realize the significance of the find.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, it turns out, contained the oldest known copies of the books that would go on to form the Hebrew Bible. Suddenly, archaeologists from around the world flocked to Qumran, keen to see what other treasures the area might reveal.

As documents of such incredible historical and religious significance, the scrolls were of course in high demand. Today, it’s said that even the tiniest fragment of one scroll, no bigger than a fingernail, could change hands for as much as $1 million.

Eventually, a staggering 972 documents were recovered from a total of 11 separate caves. After excavations ceased in 1956, archaeologists have generally believed that the stunning finds were limited to those 11 locations – until now.

With the discovery of this 12th cave, a lot of what experts thought they knew about the Dead Sea Scrolls has surely been turned on its head. From the leather wraps and cloth bindings found at the site, archaeologists are sure that the jars inside the cave once contained the precious scrolls.

However, the archaeologists arrived too late. During the excavation, they uncovered two pickaxes thought to date from the 1950s – evidence that looters had made it to the cave and taken the valuable documents for themselves.

Despite the disappointment of finding the jars empty, archaeologists are hopeful about future excavations at Qumran. “We are very optimistic,” Dr. Oren Gutfeld from the Hebrew University told CNN, “after 60 years we still find new caves with materials that shed new light on the scrolls.”

Now, experts are urging the Israeli government to provide funding for further excavations before looters and thieves can beat them to it. With so much incredible history at stake, the authorities must act fast to preserve whatever secrets may still be hidden in the Qumran hills.