:Shapira Scroll

Shapira gave several different accounts of the scroll's provenance, and the inconsistencies between them have been used as evidence of forgery. Paul Schröder, the first person Shapira showed the scroll to in person, recalled:

Mr. Shapira did not wish to tell me the provenance of the manuscript. He only told me that it came from a tomb beyond the Jordan.{{Cite news|last=Schroeder|first=Paul|date=September 20, 1883|title=The Shapira Manuscript.|work=Times of London}}

While in Germany, Shapira told Hermann Guthe that:{{cite journal |last=Rabinowicz |first=Oskar K. |title=The Shapira Forgery Mystery |pages=170–183 |journal=Jewish Quarterly Review |series=New Series |number=47 [1956–7]}}

At the end of July or the beginning of August a certain Selim of the tribe of Adschaje ... offered in the Shapira shop a blackish stripe of leather for sale. Shapira himself was not present and found the cheaply acquired leather in the store on his return. As Selim was unable to visit Jerusalem, he had asked his friend, the Sheik, Mahmud of Abu Dis near Jerusalem, to arrange a meeting with Selim which, finally, brought all the strips into Shapira's possession.{{Efn|Meyer wrote to Ebers on 8 July, recalling that Shapira had told him and Guthe that "Er hat dieselben 1878 von einem Beduinen erhalten, der sie in Moab in einer Felshöhle gefunden haben will."}}

In July 1878 I met several Bedouins in the house of the well-known Sheque Mahmud el Arakat, we came of course to speak of old inscriptions. One Bedouin . . . begins to tell a history to about [sic] the following effect. Several years ago some Arabs had occasion to flee from their enemies & hid themselves in caves high up in a rock facing the Moujib (the neues Arnon [sic]) they discovered there several bundles of very old rugs. Thinking they may [sic] contain gold they peeled away a good deal of Cotton or Linen & found only some black charms & threw them away; but one of them took them up & and [sic] since having the charms in his tent, he became a wealthy man having sheeps [sic] etc.

In July 1878, the Sheik Machmud Arakat, the well-known chief of the guides from Jerusalem to the Jordan, paid me the customary visit ... [as] the Sheik hat Bedouins of the East in his house, he brought them all with him. ... I heard the next day ... some men of his acquaintance had hidden themselves, in the time when Wali of Damascus was fighting the Arabs, in caves hewn high up in a rock ... near the Modjib. They found there several bundles of old black linen. They peeled away the linen and ... there were only some black inscribed strips of leather, which they threw away (or I believe he said threw into the fire, but I am not certain); but one of them picked them up. ... I asked the Sheik to employ him as a messenger to bring me some of the pieces that I might examine them, but the Sheik thought that that man would not do it, but he knew a man who was not superstitious at all. ... In about twelve days I got four or five columns ... in eight days more he brought me about sixteen; in eleven or twelve days more four or five ... I have not seen the man again. The Sheik died soon, and I lost every trace that would enable me to follow the object further.

[H]e first heard of the fragments in the middle of July 1878. A Sheikh, with several Arabs of different tribes came to him at his place of business in Jerusalem on other matters. The Sheikh had nothing to do with antiquities. They spoke of some little black fragments of writing in the possession of an Arab. They had been found in the neighborhood of Arnon. One of the Arabs spoke of them as talismans, smelling of asphalte. The day following Shapira was invited to dinner by the Sheikh, and heard more about the fragments. About the year 1865, at a time of persecution, certain Arabs had hid themselves among the rocks. There, on the side of a rocky cavern, they found several bundles wrapped in linen. Peeling off the covering they found only black fragments, which they threw away. They were picked up by one of the Arabs, believing them to be talismans ... Shapira promised the Sheikh a reward if he would bring to him an Arab he spoke of who would be able to get hold of the fragments. This happened on the day of the dinner. The Sheikh fell ill, and afterwards died. About ten or twelve days after the dinner, a man of the Ajayah tribe brought to him a small piece ... a week later, he brought fourteen or fifteen columns ... the next Sunday, fourteen or fifteen more ... ten days after, on Wednesday, he brought three or four columns, very black. Shapira saw nothing more of him.

Claude Reigner Conder received yet another version from Shapira, which attributed the scroll and the Moabite forgeries to the same location and claimed a mummy{{Efn|Guthe recalls that Shapira claimed to have previously explored the same cave with {{ill|Hermann Almkvist|sv}} and found a mummy there. Meyer wrote to Ebers: "Die Streifen sind nur auf einer Seite beschrieben, und haben deutlich zur Einwickelung einer Leiche gedient. Auf der Rückseite findet sich Mumienbalsam (so heißt es ja wohl) und ähnliche Schmierstoffe, in einigen Fällen sind Abdrücke von Leinengeweben deutlich zu erkennen . . . Wie gern würde ich die Lappen gesehen haben!"}} had been found with the scroll.

On 24 September 1878, Shapira sent copies to Konstantin Schlottmann, who had wrongly authenticated Shapira's Moabite forgeries in 1870. Schlottmann consulted with Franz Delitzsch and then denounced the scroll as a fabrication.{{sfn|Mansoor|1958|p=225}} Delitzsch published separately in his journal Saat auf Hoffnung in 1880, calling it a fake.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gFsWAAAAYAAJ&pg=153|title=Saat auf Hoffnung: organ der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Missionsvereine für Israel in Sachsen und Bayern|date=1880|publisher=In Commission von Justus Naumann's Buchhandlung|language=de}}{{Cite book |last=Delitzch |first=Franz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YcopAAAAYAAJ |title="Schapira's Pseudo-Deuteronomium" in Allgemeine Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirchenzeitung vol. XVI |date=1883 |publisher=Dörffling u. Franke |location=Leipzig |pages=844–6, 869–71, 893–4, 914–6 |language=de |author-link=Franz Delitzsch}}

On 9 May 1883, Shapira wrote a ten-page letter to Hermann Strack, saying he'd trust Strack's judgement over his own with regard to the scroll's authenticity. Strack replied on 27 May, declaring "that it was not worth [Shapira]'s while to bring such an evident forgery to Europe."{{Cite book|last=Reiner|first=Fred N.|title=Standing at Sinai: Sermons and Writings|page=302|date=2011-06-28|publisher=AuthorHouse|isbn=978-1-4567-6507-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-PFDzCve9FwC&pg=PA302|access-date=13 March 2021|archive-date=19 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121022/https://books.google.com/books?id=-PFDzCve9FwC&pg=PA302|url-status=live}} Also in May 1883, Shapira showed one piece of the manuscript to Paul Schröder, then the German consul in Beirut, for a short time in poor light; he refused to authenticate it without longer study of all the fragments.{{Efn|In England, Shapira claimed Schröder had pronounced the manuscript genuine and asked to purchase it. Guthe says that Carlo von Landberg authenticated this claim, but Schroder later denied it in a letter to the London Times.}}

File:Ginsburg’s facsimile of the Shapira Strips, 1883.jpg by William St. Chad Boscawen and Miss Tennant, under the strict superintendence of Christian David Ginsburg. Published in The Athenaeum, 8 September 1883]]

{{multiple image

| image1 = Clermont-Ganneau, Shapira Strips, 1883.jpg

| caption1 = The form of Shapira's strips compared to a synagogue scroll margin.Clermont-Ganneau, Revue politique et littéraire, 29 September 1883

| width1 = 150

| image2 = Shapira Strips, 1883, Scientific American. 01.jpg

| caption2 = One fold of the manuscript/One of the leather strips/Wadi Mujib/Specimens of ancient writing/Dolmen near Jabbok.William St. Chad Boscawen, Scientific American Supplement, October 27, 1883.

| width2 = 150

}}

In June 1883, perhaps having revised the text, Shapira brought the scroll to Germany in an attempt to sell it to the Royal Library of Berlin. Karl Richard Lepsius, then the Library's keeper, convened a symposium of leading Bible scholars in Berlin (Lepsius himself, Eduard Sachau, Eberhard Schrader, August Dillmann, Adolf Erman, and Moritz Steinschneider) to evaluate the scroll on July 10; these unanimously declared it a fake after a 90-minute inspection.{{Efn|In England, Shapira claimed Lepsius had not reached a definitive conclusion and that Erman believed it authentic.}} In a separate German analysis in the first week of July, published August 14, Hermann Guthe and Eduard Meyer concluded the scroll was a forgery;{{Efn|Shapira stopped in Halle and Leipzig on the way to Berlin, but could not convince Guthe to form a larger symposium. In England, Shapira claimed Guthe had concluded the manuscript was genuine. }} Theodor Nöldeke and Emil Friedrich Kautzsch were said to agree.{{Cite book|last=Guthe|first=Hermann|title=Fragmente einer Lederhandschrift enthaltend Mose's letzte Rede an die Kinder Israel|date=1883 |publisher=Breitkopf & Härtel|language=de|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OsICAAAAQAAJ|access-date=13 March 2021|archive-date=19 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121023/https://books.google.com/books?id=OsICAAAAQAAJ|url-status=live}} Shapira also showed the scroll to Strack in person, whose view did not change. The Royal Library offered to buy it at a lower price, to enable German students to study the forger's technique;{{Efn|According to the Times of London; Hermann Strack wrote on August 31st that "Lepsius ... absolutely refused to purchase the manuscript."}}{{sfn|Mansoor|1958|p=225}} Shapira took it to London instead. The German scholars did not publicize their findings, and other experts' conclusions were reached independently.{{sfn|Mansoor|1958|p=225}}

On July 20, Shapira informed the secretary of the Palestine Exploration Fund that he had brought the manuscript to London, and on July 24 he showed the manuscript to the Fund's Walter Besant and Claude Reignier Conder. On July 26, he displayed the manuscript to a large number of British scholars at the Fund's offices, even tearing off a portion to demonstrate the parchment's interior; the manuscript was then taken to the British Museum for further inspection.Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement for 1883{{Cite book|last=Besant|first=Walter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MwzSAAAAMAAJ&q=shapira|title=Autobiography of Sir Walter Besant|publication-date=1902|date=2009-02-25|publisher=Dodd, Mead & Co.|location=New York|pages=161–163|isbn=9780598674418 |access-date=13 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121023/https://books.google.com/books?id=MwzSAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22shapira%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=shapira|archive-date=19 March 2021|url-status=live}}

Shapira sought to sell the scroll to the British Museum for a million pounds,{{Efn|Equivalent to $173 million in 2021.}} and allowed the Museum to exhibit two of the 15 strips.{{sfn|Reiner|1995|pp=109, 115, 116}} The Museum designated Christian David Ginsburg to evaluate the strips, and he published transcriptions, translations, and facsimiles over the following weeks. On August 4, 1883, Walter Flight of the British Museum reported that much of the leather looked ancient but the margin of one piece looked brand new; on August 17, Edward Augustus Bond, principal librarian of the British Museum, indicated that he too thought they were fake.{{cite journal|last=Guil|first=Shlomo|date=2017|title=The Shapira Scroll was an Authentic Dead Sea Scroll|journal=Palestine Exploration Quarterly|volume=149|issue=1|pages=6–27|doi=10.1080/00310328.2016.1185895|s2cid=165114970|ref=none}}

On August 13, Adolf Neubauer, who had earlier exposed Shapira's fake "coffin of Samson", identified the scroll as a forgery;{{Cite book |last=Neubauer |first=Adolf |title=The Shapira MSS. of Deuteronomy |publisher=J. Murray |location=London |volume=589 |date=18 August 1883 |page=116 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=420-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA116 |access-date=13 March 2021 |archive-date=19 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121023/https://books.google.com/books?id=420-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA116 |url-status=live}}{{Cite book |last=Neubauer |first=Adolf |title=The Shapira MSS. of Deuteronomy|publisher=J. Murray |location=London |volume=590 |date=25 August 1883 |pages=130–131 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=420-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA130 |access-date=13 March 2021 |archive-date=19 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121024/https://books.google.com/books?id=420-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA130 |url-status=live}} on August 19, he published further arguments against its authenticity, as did Archibald Sayce on the same day. Neubauer's identification was later called the scroll's death knell.

The French Ministry of Public Instruction's Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, who had earlier revealed Shapira's Moabite forgeries, arrived in England on the 15th, already harboring "most serious doubts." He obtained a quick look at some fragments from Ginsburg, but was quickly banned by Shapira from further studying the scroll.{{Cite book |last=Browne |first=Rev. G. F. |title=Archaeological Frauds in Palestine |publisher=W. H. Allen & Co. |location=London |volume=26 |date=April 1885 |pages=190–206 [204–5] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1NDUAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA204 |access-date=13 March 2021 |archive-date=19 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121024/https://books.google.com/books?id=1NDUAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA204 |url-status=live }} However, Clermont-Ganneau closely examined the two strips on display at the public exhibition on August 18 and, on August 21, he declared them to be forgeries.{{cite web|url=http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/7/the-lying-pen-of-the-scribes-a-nineteenth-century-dead-sea-scroll|title='The Lying Pen of the Scribes': A Nineteenth-Century Dead Sea Scroll|first=Michael|last=Press|date=11 September 2014|access-date=4 April 2018|work=The Appendix|archive-date=19 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121047/http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/7/the-lying-pen-of-the-scribes-a-nineteenth-century-dead-sea-scroll|url-status=live}} Claude Reignier Conder also declared them fake on the 18th,{{Efn|Conder felt pressure to refute Shapira's claims that Conder had also encountered the story of the scroll in Palestine. He wrote that he had never heard of it there and, upon seeing Shapira's scroll in England, he had not hesitated "in concluding that they were deliberate forgeries". Conder's account is confirmed by Walter Besant (Autobiography, p. 162-3, cf. his General Work of the Society, p. 37-39), who records that Conder "Observe[d] that all the points objected to by German critics have vanished in this new and epoch-making trouvaille. The geography is not confused, and Moses does not record his own death . . . and I know, I believe, all the caves of Moab and they are all damp and earthy", concluding that it was a fake, immediately after inspecting the scroll on July 24.}}{{Cite news|date=August 25, 1883|title=Miscellaneous|work=Leed's Times (Leeds, England)}} and Ernest Renan,{{Cite news|date=August 31, 1883|title=From Our Paris Correspondent|work=Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser}} Albert Löwy,{{Cite book |last=Löwy |first=Rev. A. |author-link=Albert Löwy |title=Proceedings, 6 November 1883 |publisher=Society of Biblical Archæology |location=London |date=1884 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kygGAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA5 |access-date=13 March 2021 |archive-date=19 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121025/https://books.google.com/books?id=kygGAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA5 |url-status=live}} and Charles Henry Waller soon followed.{{Cite news|date=August 28, 1883|title=Multiple News Items|work=Bury and Norwich Post}} By August 25, the Grantham Journal reported, "The official verdict on the authenticity of Mr. Shapira's manuscripts has not been given but the published evidence of experts who have examined them is unanimous against it."{{Cite news|date=August 25, 1883|title=The New Deuteronomy|work=Grantham Journal}}

On August 27, Christian David Ginsburg, who as the designated philological examiner of the British Museum had been given access to the entire scroll, published the same conclusion.{{Efn|Ginsburg wrote to his daughter on September 3rd that he "was sure the first week of [his] examination that it was a forgery".}} Earlier that week, the British Museum had ceased to display Shapira's strips.{{Cite news|date=August 27, 1883|title=Our London Correspondence.|work=Glasgow Herald}} Ginsburg also suggested that the shape of the strips, their ruling, and the leather used matched Yemenite scrolls Shapira had sold in 1877, the year before he began shopping the strips.Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement for 1883, pp. 207–208 Clermont-Ganneau later made the same assessment. Schlottmann, Delitzch, Strack, and Steinschneider, amazed at the ongoing situation in England, each published their July findings for the British audience in September. Ginsburg and Clermont-Ganneau published their final reports that same month.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

File:Punch 1883 Mr Sharp-Eye-Ra. Showing, in very fanciful portraiture, how Detective Ginsburg actually did Mr Sharp-Eye-Ra out of his skin.jpg cartoon of Shapira and Ginsburg]]

Ginsburg's conclusion drove Shapira to despair, and he fled London.{{sfn|Reiner|1995|pp=109, 115, 116}}

{{Quote box|width=256px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quote=

"You have made a fool of me by publishing and exhibiting things you believe to be false. I do not think I shall be able to survive this shame. Although I am not yet convinced that the manuscript is a forgery – unless Monsieur Ganneau did it. I will leave London in a day or two for Berlin.
Yours truly, Moses Wilhelm Shapira" |source= Shapira's letter to Ginsburg, August 23, 1883{{sfn|Reiner|1995|p=110}}}}

In spite of writing to Ginsburg that he would leave for Berlin, he fled London to Amsterdam instead, leaving the manuscript behind, and from Amsterdam he wrote a letter to Edward Augustus Bond, principal librarian of the British Museum, begging for reconsideration of the manuscript.{{sfn|Reiner|1995}} In both letters, Shapira reaffirmed his belief in the scroll's authenticity. Six months later, on 9 March 1884, he shot himself at the Hotel Willemsbrug in Rotterdam.Newspaper "Het Vaderland", March 12, 1884.

Shapira's widow, Anna Magdalena Rosette, had at least part of the scroll in 1884, as evidenced by a note in the Ginsburg file left by Bond.Moshe Goshen-Gottstein "Dead Sea Scrolls and Shapira Forgery." Jewish Advocate (1909–1990), Apr 11 1957, p. 1. ProQuest. Web. 16 Mar. 2021 . Rosette sent "two small pieces" to Schlottmann for further study in 1884. It later appeared in an auction at Sotheby's in 1885 and it was purchased by Bernard Quaritch, a bookseller, for £10 5s. Two years later, Quaritch listed the scroll for sale for £25 and displayed it at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition in 1887.{{sfn|Crown|1970|pp=421–423}}

In 1970 Professor Alan David Crown, on the basis of a misreading{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} of a letter from Sir Charles Nicholson to Walter Scott wherein Nicholson claimed that "most" of the Shapira manuscripts had fallen into his hands, advanced the hypothesis that Nicholson had acquired the Shapira Scroll itself, with the scroll destroyed in a fire in Nicholson's London study in 1899, along with most of his collection.{{sfn|Crown|1970|pp=421–423}} Apart from Nicholson's hyperbole—he is only known to have acquired six Torah scrolls compared to the 167 manuscripts acquired in 1884 by Adolph Sutro—Nicholson never wrote that he acquired the Shapira scroll itself. Crown's hypothesis was widely accepted as the best explanation of the scroll's fate.{{citation needed|date=April 2021}}

In 2011 Australian researcher Matthew Hamilton identified the actual owner of the scroll, the English doctor and natural historian, Dr. Philip Brookes Mason. Contemporary reports show Dr. Philip Brookes Mason displayed the "whole of" the scroll at a public lecture in Burton-on-Trent on March 8, 1889.{{cite web|last=Tigay|first=Chanan |title=Was this the first Dead Sea Scroll?|url=http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20171129-was-this-the-first-dead-sea-scroll|publisher=BBC|access-date=4 March 2018}}{{sfn|Guil|2017|p=25|ps=: "Surprisingly, contrary to the belief held for the last forty five years, the Shapira scroll was not destroyed in a fire that erupted in the house of Sir Charles Nicholson, near London. We presently know that it was Dr. Philip Brookes Mason of Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, who acquired the Shapira scroll in 1888 or beginning of 1889 and probably held it until his death in 1903. There are indications that, after his death, his wife sold his life's collection at an auction. Some good detective work might lead to the rediscovery of the Shapira scroll."}}[https://archive.org/stream/journalofconchol11190406conc#page/105/mode/1up Obituary Notice of Phillips Brookes Mason, by The Rev. Chas. F. Thornewill; Read before the Society, September 14, 1904], Journal of Conchology, Vol XI, 1904—1906, p. 105 "It is not generally known that Mr. Mason became the eventual possessor of the notorious 'Shapira' manuscript, which for a time deceived some of the most experienced authorities on such matters, but was at length discovered to be a remarkably clever forgery." Further whereabouts of the scroll, if it survived, are unknown.

Shapira's scroll was composed of fifteen leather strips, some easy to read and others blackened to the point of near-illegibility. Each complete strip was extremely narrow, about 3.5 inches by 7 inches. Each complete strip had an average of ten lines of writing on one side only. They were folded, not rolled. Each complete strip was folded between one and three times, for a total of 40 folds."The Shapira Leathers." The American Hebrew (1879–1902), Aug 24 1883, p. 16. ProQuest. Web. 16 Mar. 2021 . They were covered in dark glutinous matter and had a faint odor of funeral spices or asphalt, known in the nineteenth century for their use in Egyptian mummification but not later found on genuine dead sea scrolls.Chemical tests of the originals by Dr. Walter Flight at the British Museum suggested that the black stuff was not in fact asphalt: The black colouring matter, taken from the back and front of the skins, does not appear to be asphaltum but rather wax, like bees-wax, of a very impure dirty kind. It leaves an ash amounting to 10 to 15 percent. It readily melts and, when destroyed by further heating, does not emit the smell of asphaltum (Nichols, p. 97). Some of the strips were covered in oil, artificially darkening the parchment, on top of which some had a layer of grey ash, which Shapira said had been applied to absorb the oil. Each segment had one rough edge and one smooth edge, consistent with a top or bottom margin recently cut off an older manuscript. Each segment had vertical creases marked with a hard point as a scribe would mark for columns, but the text of the Shapira scroll has no relation to these lines, weaving in and out of them randomly, suggesting that a forger had taken the blank margin of a marked Torah scroll and written his text ignoring the faint column lines. Ginsburg and Clermont-Ganneau suggested that the material was identical to the leather of the medieval Yemenite Torah scrolls in which Shapira had dealt in the preceding years.{{sfn|Reiner|1995}} The outline of a frame could be seen, perhaps used to administer aging chemicals, and the straight edge of one segment looked new.

The scroll is written scriptio continua except in the Decalogue, a style never discovered in other Hebrew manuscripts but widely assumed by Shapira's contemporaries to have been the original form of the text.{{Cite journal|last=Millard|first=A. R.|title="Scriptio Continua" in Early Hebrew: Ancient Practice or Modern Surmise?|date=1970-03-01|url=https://academic.oup.com/jss/article/15/1/2/1660215|journal=Journal of Semitic Studies|language=en|volume=15|issue=1|pages=2–15|doi=10.1093/jss/15.1.2|issn=0022-4480}} In the Decalogue, every word is followed by an interpunct except לא, do not, and nota accusativi. The writing, by multiple hands, more closely resembles that of inscriptions like the Mesha Stele, already published by 1878, than it does the Paleo-Hebrew writing later found on parchment, or even the Siloam inscription, which would be published in 1880; even in the nineteenth century the similarity was thought suspect.{{Cite web|title=Scientific American. v.16 1883.|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858029027285&view=1up&seq=278&q1=shapira|access-date=2021-03-16|website=HathiTrust|language=en|archive-date=19 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121029/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858029027285&view=1up&seq=278&q1=shapira|url-status=live}} André Lemaire authored a recent paleographic analysis (1997):

However, the letter shapes do not correspond exactly to any known ancient West Semitic script. It is neither Moabite (although most letters seem like imitations of Moabite writing in the Mesha Stele, which records the ninth-century B.C.E. Moabite king Mesha's victories over Israel. ...) nor "Canaanite" (West Semitic writing from about the 13th to the 11th century B.C.E.). It is neither the Hebrew script used during the First Temple period nor the archaizing paleo-Hebrew script found on coins of the First Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–70 C.E.) and the Second Jewish Revolt (132–135 C.E.) and in several of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In truth, after a simple look at the facsimile, an experienced paleographer can see it is a forgery.{{Cite web|date=2015-08-24|title=Paleography's Verdict: They're Fakes!|url=https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/23/3/13|access-date=2021-03-21|website=The BAS Library|language=en}}

The text uses Moabite spellings, made famous by the Mesha Stele in 1870 but never attested in any Israelite text or on parchment; some aberrant plene spellings, as of יום and סיחן, further suggested forgery. The text omits some consonantal yods as well, suggesting an erroneous attempt to replicate Moabite spellings. The scroll contains several apparent misspellings, ungrammatical phrases, and words from later Hebrew, which featured prominently in the negative assessments of its authenticity. The scroll often replaces Deuteronomic words with close synonyms, including ירא > פחד, שכב > בעל, קצפ > אנפ, לפנים > מעלם, and more; these synonyms are not always exact, resulting in incongruent grammar, and sometimes rely on later meanings unattested in Biblical Hebrew.

Despite the unanimous assessment of the 19th century scholars who had access to the manuscripts that they were a forgery,{{Efn|A possible exception is Eduard Meyer, who wrote to Georg Ebers{{Efn|Ebers himself, Meyer's mentor, helped pen a German satire of the forgery.Publishers Weekly, Volume 26}} on 16 July, saying that, although he would not contest the Berlin symposium's decision alone, he was personally convinced of their authenticity. However, Meyer never published this opinion and never contested his partner Guthe's conclusion that the strips were forged based on separate linguistic evidence (Meyer: "ich ja kein besonders fester Hebräer bin"). Guthe published his and Meyer's transcription and his analysis weeks later and is careful to note several differences between his and Meyer's analysis, which were apparently all minor.{{cite journal |last=Bardtke |first=Hans |title=Qumran und seine Funde |trans-title=Qumran and its Findings |journal=Theologische Rundschau |issue=30. Jahrgang Heft 4 (April 1965) |pages=281–315 [290]}}{{cite book |last=Sabo |first=Yoram |title=סוחר המגילות: מסע בעקבות האוצר היהודי האבוד |trans-title=The Scroll Merchant: In Search of Moses Wilhelm Shapira's Lost Jewish Treasure |page=90 |language=he |publisher=Hakibbutz Hameuchad |location=Bnei Brak [Tel-Aviv] |year=2018}}}} a few have argued the scroll was genuine since it was lost.{{sfn|Guil|2017|pp=6–27}}

Menahem Mansoor argued in 1956 that re-examination of the case would be justified.{{cite web|url=https://www.jta.org/1956/08/14/archive/dead-sea-scroll-traced-to-jew-who-committed-suicide-70-years-ago|title=Dead Sea Scroll Traced to Jew Who Committed Suicide 70 Years Ago |agency=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |date=1956-08-14|access-date=4 March 2018|archive-date=19 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319121030/https://www.jta.org/1956/08/14/archive/dead-sea-scroll-traced-to-jew-who-committed-suicide-70-years-ago|url-status=live}}{{sfn|Mansoor|1958|p=225}} Mansoor's conclusion was immediately attacked by Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein and by Oskar K. Rabinowicz,{{sfn|Reiner|1997|p=Endnote 2}} but J. L. Teicher and others argued the scroll could be genuine.J. L. Teicher "The Genuineness of the Shapira Manuscripts," Times Literary Supplement, 22 March 1957.{{cite book |last=Allegro |first=John Marco |authorlink=John M. Allegro |title=The Shapira affair |year=1965 |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=9789120009094 |oclc=543413 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3vI2AAAAMAAJ}}{{cite journal|first=Helen|last=Jefferson|title=The Shapira Manuscript and the Qumran Scrolls|journal=Revue de Qumrân|volume=6|number=3|year=1968|pages=391–399}}

More recently, Shlomo Guil (2017),{{sfn|Guil|2017}} {{ill|Idan Dershowitz|de}} (2021),{{cite journal |title=The Valediction of Moses: New Evidence on the Shapira Deuteronomy Fragments |journal=Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft |last=Dershowitz |first=Idan |issue=1 |volume=133 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1515/zaw-2021-0001 |year=2021 |issn=1613-0103 |doi-access=free}}{{cite book |last1=Dershowitz |first1=Idan |title=The Valediction of Moses A Proto-Biblical Book |date=2021 |publisher=Mohr Siebeck Tübingen |isbn=978-3-16-160644-1 |url=https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dershowitz/files/the-valediction-of-moses-open-access.pdf}} Ross Nichols (2021),{{Cite book|first=Ross|last=Nichols|title=The Moses Scroll: Reopening the Most Controversial Case in the History of Biblical Scholarship|date=24 February 2021|publisher=Horeb Press|location=St. Francisville, LA|isbn=978-1-7366134-0-5}} and others{{Cite journal|last=Sass|first=Benjamin|title=Can a Unique Letterform Clinch the Authenticity of the Shapira Leather Manuscripts? A Rejoinder to Matthieu Richelle|journal=Semitica|volume=63|year=2021|pages=223–242|url=https://www.academia.edu/63676314}}{{Cite journal|date=Winter 2021|first=James|last=Tabor|title=The Shapira Scrolls: The Case for Authenticity|url=https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/47/4/6|journal=Biblical Archeological Review}}{{cite journal|first=Etienne|last=Nodet|year=2022 |journal=Revue Biblique|pages=290–291|title=Review of The Valediction of Moses. A Proto-Biblical Book, by Idan Dershowitz}} have argued that the strips were genuine.

However, such claims have been contested by many scholars.{{cite web|title=Deja Vu all over Again: The Antiquities Market, the Shapira Strips, Menahem Mansoor, and Idan Dershowitz |website=Rollston Epigraphy|last=Rollston|first=Christopher|url=http://www.rollstonepigraphy.com/?p=896|access-date=2021-12-20}}{{cite web|title=The Myth of Moses Shapira|url=https://www.ancientjewreview.com/read/2021/8/31/the-myth-of-moses-shapira|access-date=2021-12-20|website=ANCIENT JEW REVIEW|date=September 2021 }}{{cite journal |title=The Shapira Strips in Light of Paleography: Six Impossible Things before Breakfast |journal=Semitica |url=https://www.academia.edu/48905750 |last=Richelle |first=Matthieu |volume=63 |pages=243–294 |doi=10.2143/SE.63.0.3289905 |year=2021}}{{cite journal|last=Hendel|first=Ronald|date=2021-06-01|title=Notes on the Orthography of the Shapira Manuscripts: The Forger's Marks|url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zaw-2021-2008/html|journal=Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft|language=de|volume=133|issue=2|pages=225–230|doi=10.1515/zaw-2021-2008|s2cid=235219521|issn=1613-0103}}{{cite web |url=https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/the-shapira-fragments/ |title=The Shapira Fragments |date=2021-03-18 |access-date=2021-12-20 |website=Bible History Daily |last=Klawans |first=Jonathan |publisher=Biblical Archaeology Society}}{{cite journal|last=Suchard|first=Benjamin|date=2022|title=The "Valediction of Moses" is not a proto-Deuteronomy: evidence from the verbal system|url=https://www.academia.edu/46783534|journal=Academia Letters}}{{cite journal|last=Samuel|first=Harald|date=2021-05-07|title=A Reply to Idan Dershowitz and Na'ama Pat-El's 'Response to Benjamin Suchard'|url=https://www.academia.edu/48837407|journal=Academia Letters}}{{cite journal |title=The Shapira Scrolls: The Case for Forgery |journal=Biblical Archaeology Review |url=https://www.academia.edu/62029328 |last1=Richelle |first1=Matthieu |issue=4 |volume=47 |pages=39–46 |last2=Hendel |first2=Ron |year=2021 |url-access=subscription}}{{cite journal |title=Shapira's Deuteronomy, Its Decalogue, and Dead Sea Scrolls Authentic and Forged |journal=Dead Sea Discoveries |url=https://doi.org/10.1163/15685179-bja10032 |last=Klawans |first=Jonathan |issue=2 |volume=29 |pages=199–227 |doi=10.1163/15685179-bja10032 |year=2022 |issn=0929-0761}}{{cite journal |title=A Text That Was but Isn't: On the Contribution of Literary Evidence in the Assessment of Shapira Deuteronomy |journal=Maarav |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/726572 |last=Stackert |first=Jeffrey |issue=1–2 |volume=27 |pages=74–90 |doi=10.1086/726572 |year=2023 |issn=0149-5712}}{{cite book |title='Now These Records are Ancient': Studies in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History, Language and Culture in Honor of K. Lawson Younger, Jr. |last=van Bekkum |first=Koert |publisher=Zaphon |year=2022 |isbn=978-3-96327-191-5 |pages=53–59 |editor-last=Averbeck |editor-first=Richard E. |chapter=Moses Wilhelm Shapira’s ‘Deuteronomy’ between Epigraphy and Literary Criticism |editor-last2=Hoffmeier |editor-first2=James K. |editor-last3=Howard |editor-first3=J. Caleb |editor-last4=Zwickel |editor-first4=Wolfgang |chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/91595201}}{{Cite news|title=האומנם נוסח קדום של ספר דברים?|language=he|work=הארץ|url=https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/study/.premium-1.9666788|access-date=2021-12-28}}{{Cite news|title=בכל זאת זיוף|language=he|work=הארץ|url=https://www.haaretz.co.il/literature/study/.premium-1.9808506|access-date=2021-12-28}}{{Cite journal |last=Richey |first=Madadh |date=2022 |title=The Valediction of Moses: A Proto-Biblical Book by Idan Dershowitz (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/56/article/872106 |journal=AJS Review |volume=46 |issue=2 |pages=405–407 |doi=10.1353/ajs.2022.0052 |issn=1475-4541}}{{Cite journal |last=Rüterswörden |first=Udo |date=2021-12-01 |title=Zur »Valediction of Moses« |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zaw-2021-4006/html |journal=Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft |language=de |volume=133 |issue=4 |pages=526–528 |doi=10.1515/zaw-2021-4006 |issn=1613-0103}}{{Cite web |last=Greene |first=Nathaniel E. |date=2023 |title=The Valediction of Moses |url=https://www.sblcentral.org/home/bookDetails/1000455 |access-date= |website=Review of Biblical Literature}}

File:Dershtable.png

{{Gallery

|File:dersh1.png |alt1= |Two photographs of Fragment E, columns 1–2, and one unknown fragment. In the top image, Fragment E is folded in half, with column 4 (verso) partially visible behind column 1 (recto). The image of the unknown fragment is cropped at the bottom.

|File:dersh2.png |alt2= |Ginsburg's sketch of Fragment E

|File:dersh3.png |alt3= |Drawing of Fragment E prepared by Dangerfield Lithography (London, 1883), in consultation with Ginsburg

|File:dersh4.png |alt4= |Drawing of Fragment E prepared by Dangerfield Lithography (London, 1883), in consultation with Ginsburg

|File:dersh5.png |alt5= |Drawing of Fragment E prepared by Dangerfield Lithography (London, 1883), in consultation with Ginsburg

|File:dersh6.png |Table by Guthe of letterforms in Fragments D and E

|File:dersh7.png |Drawings of Fragment E from The Graphic (1883). Column 3 is shown below. The text on top is from Fragment A, column 1

|File:dersh8.png |Drawing of fragment from The Illustrated London News (1883)

|File:dersh9.png |Ginsburg's drawing of Fragment E that was analyzed by Lemaire (BL Ms. Add. 41294, 35)

|File:dersh10.png |Different version of Ginsburg's drawing of the same column (BL Ms. Add. 41294, 34)

|File:dersh11.png |First page of Shapira's draft transcription

|File:dersh12.png |Second page of Shapira's draft transcription

|File:dersh13.png |Third page of Shapira's draft transcription}}

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite journal|last=Guil|first=Shlomo|date=2017|title=The Shapira Scroll was an Authentic Dead Sea Scroll|journal=Palestine Exploration Quarterly|volume=149|issue=1|pages=6–27|doi=10.1080/00310328.2016.1185895|s2cid=165114970}}

• {{Cite book |title=The Shapira Manuscripts|pages=195–209 [195–198] |publisher=Palestine Exploration Fund |date=October 1883 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3moUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA195 |access-date=13 March 2021}}, including the assessments by A. Neubauer, Clermont-Ganneau, C. R. Conder, and C. D. Ginsburg.
• Asya, Yaakov (1975). "Parashat Shapira", supplement to: Myriam Harry [pseud.], "Bat Yerushalayim Hakatanah" (in Hebrew, A. Levenson Publishing House), originally published as "La Petite Fille de Jerusalem" (in French, Paris, 1914)
• Besant, Walter. "Autobiography of Sir Walter Besant" (New York, 1902; reprint, St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press, 1971), pp. 161–167
• Carter, A.C.R. "Shapira, the Bible Forger", in "Let Me Tell You", pp. 216–219, London, 1940
• Clermont-Ganneau, C. S. "Les fraudes archéologiques en Palestine", Paris, 1885, pp. 107ff., 152ff. 159, 173
• Guthe, Hermann. "Fragmente einer Lederhandschrift", Leipzig, 1883
• {{Cite book |last=Neubauer |first=Adolf |title=The Shapira MSS. of Deuteronomy |year=1883 |publisher=J. Murray |location=London |volume=589 (18 Aug. 1883), 590 (25 Aug. 1883) |pages=116, 130–131 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=420-AQAAMAAJ |access-date=13 March 2021}}

• Goshen-Gottstein, Moshe H. "The Shapira Forgery and the Qumran Scrolls", Journal of Jewish Studies 7 [1956], 187–193, and "The Qumran Scrolls and the Shapira Forgery" [in Hebrew], Haaretz, 28 December 1956
• {{cite journal|last=Mansoor|first=Menahem|title=The Case of Shapira's Dead Sea (Deuteronomy) Scrolls of 1883|journal=Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters|volume=47|date=1958|pages=183–229|url=http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/transactions/WT1958/reference/wi.wt1958.mmansoor.pdf}}
• {{cite journal |last=Rabinowicz |first=Oskar K. |title=The Shapira Forgery Mystery |pages=170–183 |journal=Jewish Quarterly Review |series=New Series |number=47 [1956–7] }}
• Teicher, J.L. "The Genuineness of the Shapira Manuscripts", Times Literary Supplement, 22 March 1957

• {{cite book |last=Allegro |first=John Marco |authorlink=John M. Allegro |title=The Shapira affair |year=1965 |publisher=Doubleday |isbn=9789120009094 |oclc=543413 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3vI2AAAAMAAJ}}
• {{cite book|last=Brown|first=Judith Anne|title=John Marco Allegro: The Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fXHf8qdq9kYC&pg=PA148|year=2005|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0-8028-2849-1|pages=148–}}
• Budde, Hendrik (1994). Die Affaere um die 'Moabitischen Althertuemer{{'}} [The 'Moabitic Antiquities' Affair], in Budde and Mordechay Lewy, Von Halle Nach Jerusalem [From Halle to Jerusalem], pp. 106–117, in German. Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt [Science Ministry of the State of Saxony-Anhalt], Halle.
• {{cite journal|last=Crown|first=Alan D.|title=The Fate of the Shapira Scroll|journal=Revue de Qumran|volume=7|issue=27|date=1970|pages=421–423}}
• {{cite web |last=Davila |first=James R. |authorlink=James R. Davila |title=The Shapira forgeries raise their moldering heads again |date=3 November 2013 |website=PaleoJudaica.com |url=http://paleojudaica.blogspot.co.il/2013_11_03_archive.html#810475699851573000 |access-date=6 December 2014}}
• Dershowitz, Idan (2021). [https://www.academia.edu/45450947/The_Valediction_of_Moses_A_Proto_Biblical_Book The Valediction of Moses: A Proto-Biblical Book]. Forschungen zum Alten Testament.
• Dershowitz, Idan (2021). [https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zaw-2021-0001/html "The Valediction of Moses: New Evidence on the Shapira Deuteronomy Fragments."] Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 133 (1): 1–22.
• Guil, Shlomo (2012). [https://www.academia.edu/2127379/In_Search_of_the_Shop_of_Moses_Wilhelm_Shapira_the_Leading_Figure_of_the_19TH_Century_Archaeological_Enigma In Search of the Shop of Moses Wilhelm Shapira, the Leading Figure of the 19th Century Archaeological Enigma]
• {{cite journal|last=Guil|first=Shlomo|date=2017|title=The Shapira Scroll was an Authentic Dead Sea Scroll|journal=Palestine Exploration Quarterly|volume=149|issue=1|pages=6–27|doi=10.1080/00310328.2016.1185895|s2cid=165114970|ref=none}}
• Mansoor (1983). The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Textbook and Study Guide, 2nd ed., chap. 25, pp. 215–224. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI.
• Nichols, Ross K. (2021). [https://www.themosesscroll.com The Moses Scroll: Reopening the Most Controversial Case in the History of Biblical Scholarship], Horeb Press, St. Francisville, LA. {{ISBN|978-1-7366134-0-5}}.
• {{cite journal |last=Press |first=Michael |title="The Lying Pen of the Scribes": A Nineteenth-Century Dead Sea Scroll |journal=The Appendix |date=July 2014 |volume=2 |issue=3 |url=http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/7/the-lying-pen-of-the-scribes-a-nineteenth-century-dead-sea-scroll |access-date=8 December 2014}}
• {{cite journal |last=Rabinowicz |first=Oskar K. |date=July 1965 |title=The Shapira Scroll: An nineteenth-century forgery |journal=The Jewish Quarterly Review |series=New Series |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=1–21 |doi=10.2307/1453329 |jstor=1453329}}
• {{cite journal|last=Reiner|first=Fred N.|title=C.D. Ginsburg and the Shapira affair: a nineteenth-century Dead Sea Scroll controversy|journal=British Library Journal|volume=21|issue=1|date=1995|pages=109–127|url=https://www.bl.uk/eblj/1995articles/pdf/article8.pdf}}
• {{cite book|last=Reiner|first=Fred N.|title=Standing at Sinai: Sermons and Writings|pages=301–|date=28 June 2011|publisher=AuthorHouse|isbn=978-1-4567-6507-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-PFDzCve9FwC&pg=PA301}}
• {{cite journal|last=Reiner|first=Fred|title=Tracking the Shapira Case: A Biblical Scandal Revisited|journal=Biblical Archaeology Review|date=1997|url=https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/23/3/2}}
• Silberman, Neil Asher (1982), One Million Pounds Sterling, the Rise and Fall of Moses Wilhelm Shapira, 1883–1885, in "Digging for God and Country" New York: Knopf
• {{cite journal |last=Sirat |first=Colette |author-link=Colette Sirat |title=Les Fragments Shapira |year=1984 |journal=Revue des études juives |volume=143 |pages=95–111 |url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_RqlSRxIicLZUtsNHh2U1hDRGs/view }}
• {{cite book |last=Tigay |first=Chanan |title=The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World's Oldest Bible |year=2017 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-220642-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q_S-jwEACAAJ}}
• Sabo, Yoram (2014). Shapira & I. A documentary film. In the footsteps of Shapira and his scroll.
• Sabo, Yoram (2018). The Scroll Merchant: In Search Of Moses Wilhelm Shapira's Lost Jewish Treasure (Hebrew). Hakibbutz Hameuchad.

{{Commons category|Shapira Scroll}}

• British Library Add. MS. 41294, "Papers Relative to M. W. Shapira's Forged MS. of Deuteronomy (A.D. 1883–1884)."
• Some letters and images were published in {{Cite journal|last=Shavit|first=Yaakov|title=הערה לביוגראפיה של משה וילהלם שפירא, סוחר העתיקות מירושלים ולזיופיו|trans-title=Note to the biography of Moshe Wilhelm Shapira, the antiquities dealer from Jerusalem and his forgeries|language=he|date=1984|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23398966|journal=Cathedra|issue=31|pages=182–188|jstor=23398966|issn=0334-4657}}

Category:Archaeological forgeries

Category:19th-century hoaxes

Category:Judaism-related controversies