Thread by @Simcha_Gross

Regarding the "Shapira Scrolls," I read two fascinating articles from @TheJQR which include a discussion with Shapira's dealer Salim about the marketplace $ production of forgeries in late 19th century Palestine, & some damning details concerning the Shapira Scrolls...

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The first piece is by Abraham Shalom Yahuda (1877-1951), born in Jerusalem, a bibliophile, linguist, polymath & antiquities collector with contacts in the antiquities market in Palestine. He would end his career at the New School in NYC.

Fascinating guy: blog.nli.org.il/en/yahuda/

In 1944, he wrote an article about his visit to Palestine in 1902, and his encounter with the "dragoman" Salim.

Yahuda quickly realized that this was none other than the "self-same Salim" responsible for the infamous forged Moabite antiquities sold in 1872 by M. W. Shapira.

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Salim was still in the business of peddling forged antiquities, & endeavored to convince Yahuda & others to buy a sarcophagus with a Paleo-Hebrew inscription. Salim tries to pressure Y to buy, & Y buys time so as to evaluate the inscription.

In the end, it's declared a forgery.

At this point, Salim tries to ingratiate himself to Yahuda by selling him smaller, & seemingly authentic, items like coins.

Eventually he comes clean and tells him all about the forgery business, and his part in it.

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He said: "I feel much happier with the little money I made out of the coins and the few other things I sold to you, than with all the money I got for the Moabite antiques - and it was a lot - in 'spite of all the endeavors of that rogue of Shapira to rob me as much as he could."

He continues by telling Yahuda that he coached Shapira in... the preparation of the leather strips cut from old Torah scrolls which were then "inscribed with portions of Deuteronomy; and how he taught Shapira to soak these strips in an oil lotion to make them appear much older."

Another time, Salim described at length how "the very eagerness of European scholars & tourists to get antiques encouraged him & many dealers to engage in this nefarious work," & describes his own activities forging Phoenician, Samaritan, Nabatean, & even Himyarite artifacts!

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Lastly, he tells Yahuda that there are still many more forgeries hidden in caves in "Transjordania."

They would take "antique dealers or European tourists & sell them his "finds" at high prices."

He even said that "Some Moabite & Hebrew antiques are still hidden in caves...

He continues:
"One day they will be discovered and again controversies will rise among European savants about them.

Those poor fellows will not know that it was Salim who caused them all this headache."

He sighed, and said "May Allah forgive Salim for his sins."

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Yahuda's article provides a clear picture of the craft of forgers, their ability to provide European scholars, tourists, & antiquarians precisely what they wanted, how the "discoveries" followed similar templates (caves, transjordan), & used "exotic" scripts to allure the buyers.

The business involved many collaborators and ingenious planning, planting the seeds of future "discoveries" well in advance.

And of course, his confession about his role coaching Shapira in the forgery of scrolls is... pretty damning...

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The second article is by Oskar Rabinowicz, a Zionist and Jewish activitist, written in 1965 near the end of his life.

His is a more frontal assault on the Shapira Scroll, challenging the then recent work of Menahem Mansoor & J. M. Allegro.

He begins by condemning the NYTimes for putting a story of the "reopening of the case" on the front page in Aug 13, 1956.

This was the "sensationalism" for which Allegro had "an established reputation," for rushing to news outlets with his discoveries...

Acc. to Rabinowicz, scholars argued that the parallels between the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls & the Shapira Scrolls demanded a reopening of the case.

R, however, shows that there were different versions of the discovery story of the Shapira Scrolls in rotation...

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The most interesting is one that involves Selim. Shapira said that "a certain Selim of the tribe of Adachaje(?)..offered in the Shapira shop a blackish stripe of leather for sale. Shapira himself was not present & found the cheaply acquired leather in the store on his return."

Rabinowicz further adds an important datum: in 1883, the same year as the Shapira Scrolls were made public, Shapira sold five scrolls "Written on leather" to a collector in Philadelphia (his picture is amazing).

Cyrus Adler, of @Penn fame, told the story of these documents.

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Some quickly declared them to be authentic, but others noted some strange features, including green spots. A chemist examined them and showed that they "had been produced by dropping acid on the leather," and also noted that the cut of the parchment was suspicious...

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Apparently, some of these leather strips had also been purchased by the British Museum in 1877. They independently determined that they were forgeries, and even noted later that they had strikingly similar physical characteristics to... the Shapira Scrolls...

The two articles can be found here: jstor.org/stable/1452562…

and here: jstor.org/stable/1453329….

In general, follow @MichaelDPress and his ongoing #ShapiraBookClub.

Fin

Also of interest to @drewjakeprof and his much awaited #gospelthrillers!