The Mystery of the Shapira Scroll has been solved. Ancient manuscript is the oldest Biblical script
7The Shapira Scroll, an ancient manuscript first discovered in 1883 and dismissed as fake is 'actually the oldest known Biblical script', an expert claims.
Jerusalem antiquities dealer Moses Willhelm Shapira told the world of the discovery of 15 manuscript fragments, said to have been found in a cave near the Dead Sea.
The paleo-Hebrew script on the pieces of manuscript were nearly illegible as they had been blackened with a pitchlike substance, but Shapira claimed they were the 'original' book of Deuteronomy - maybe even the copy owned by Moses.
This was disputed and after selling them to the British Museum for £1 million experts declared them fake - after which they were sold by the museum and disappeared.
In a new book Israeli-American scholar Idan Dershowitz claims to have both archival, linguistic and literary evidence that prove the pieces were a true ancient artefact.
Reconstructing the text from the original 19th century transcriptions and drawings, Dershowitz claims the pieces date back to the time of the First Temple - as early as 957 BC, making them the oldest known biblical artefacts ever discovered.
The Shapira Scroll, an ancient manuscript first discovered in 1883 and dismissed as fake is 'actually the oldest known Biblical script', an expert claims.
Jerusalem antiquities dealer Moses Willhelm Shapira told the world of the discovery of 15 manuscript fragments, said to have been found in a cave near the Dead Sea.
The paleo-Hebrew script on the pieces of manuscript were nearly illegible as they had been blackened with a pitchlike substance, but Shapira claimed they were the 'original' book of Deuteronomy - maybe even the copy owned by Moses.
This was disputed and after selling them to the British Museum for £1 million experts declared them fake - after which they were sold by the museum and disappeared.
In a new book Israeli-American scholar Idan Dershowitz claims to have both archival, linguistic and literary evidence that prove the pieces were a true ancient artefact.
Reconstructing the text from the original 19th century transcriptions and drawings, Dershowitz claims the pieces date back to the time of the First Temple - as early as 957 BC, making them the oldest known biblical artefacts ever discovered.
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