An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
smithsonianmag.com
An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
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Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#2Suggestion to interested readers: Skip the first two paragraphs and read them at the end.
Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#3The book of Enoch (a non-canonical pseudopigraphal book) is a wild story that expounds on the strange events of Genesis 6:1-4 and is quoted by Jude and Peter. The fact that some of the DSS versions contain forgeries is interesting. I have always suspected there were a very ancient Enoch texts that are now lost and what we do have contains many forgeries.
Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#4Lots of question marks: How do we know what's a forgery and what's not? Did someone take authentic originals and write additional text over them? Where do these forgeries come from? How are all of these fragments not in one place under guard? How are forgeries of this even possible? I need more context to understand.
Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#5Lots of question marks: How do we know what's a forgery and what's not? Did someone take authentic originals and write additional text over them? Where do these forgeries come from? How are all of these fragments not in one place under guard? How are forgeries of this even possible? I need more context to understand.
The article mentions some of them, but obviously this is an article for popular consumption and doesn't convey many details. One mentioned was that the way script was written has changed over the centuries, and some documents contained some letters that are of an epoch different than the rest of them, or letters have been modified or new letters squeezed into gaps. Other techniques might include being able to use spectography to identify that the suspect letters were written using ink of a different composition.
If you need more context, this one article that is mostly a personality profile won't contain it. But there are hundreds of books and thousands of research papers written about the dead sea scrolls.
Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#6Lots of question marks: How do we know what's a forgery and what's not? Did someone take authentic originals and write additional text over them? Where do these forgeries come from? How are all of these fragments not in one place under guard? How are forgeries of this even possible? I need more context to understand.
I am not an archeologist, but to provide some relevant context to your later questions, there are at least thousands of Dead Sea Scroll fragments, located and taken by many different parties, from many different locations, over the course of a decade or more in the mid-20th Century.
Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#7Lots of question marks: How do we know what's a forgery and what's not? Did someone take authentic originals and write additional text over them? Where do these forgeries come from? How are all of these fragments not in one place under guard? How are forgeries of this even possible? I need more context to understand.
You can't find that information in the article? It's very long and detailed.
Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#8Lots of question marks: How do we know what's a forgery and what's not? Did someone take authentic originals and write additional text over them? Where do these forgeries come from? How are all of these fragments not in one place under guard? How are forgeries of this even possible? I need more context to understand.
There's a concept called "provenance" which is basically "how sure are we that it's authentic". What work like this is doing is comparing scrolls with uncertain provenance to items of very secure provenance like known fragments from the original excavations.
You can find forgeries everywhere in the antiquities trade. Some of them are modern productions, but many (see all pieces of the true cross in churches around the world) are old enough to be historical artifacts in their own right. One of the things that makes it difficult to know if objects of uncertain provenance are legitimate is that it's very common for locals to find materials missed / never seen by archaeologists or to simply loot from excavations in-progress. The dead sea scrolls were found over decades by many different groups, so they're particularly susceptible to this. Forgers take advantage of that. Good forgeries can fool even scrupulous buyers and are mainly given away by things like incorrect radiocarbon dates or the forger's unfamiliarity with the details of the source material like the article.
Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#9The book of Enoch (a non-canonical pseudopigraphal book) is a wild story that expounds on the strange events of Genesis 6:1-4 and is quoted by Jude and Peter. The fact that some of the DSS versions contain forgeries is interesting. I have always suspected there were a very ancient Enoch texts that are now lost and what we do have contains many forgeries.
"The Books of Enoch" by Paul C. Schnieders is an interesting read if you're curious about their contents. The general consensus from my understanding is that none of the ones we have today are the one referenced in The Bible
Re: An unorthodox scholar uses technology to expose Biblical forgeries
#10Lots of question marks: How do we know what's a forgery and what's not? Did someone take authentic originals and write additional text over them? Where do these forgeries come from? How are all of these fragments not in one place under guard? How are forgeries of this even possible? I need more context to understand.
on the matter of forgery of ancien pieces, I like this article: https://antigonejournal.com/2022/11/sponsian-fake-emperor/ on Roman-era coins. It goes into details on a few ways coin forgeries are made and how they might be identified