In the period since 2018, the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. has been at the centre of one of the most consequential episodes of manuscript forgery in the modern history of biblical manuscript studies. The episode has had three principal parts. The first is the discovery, beginning in 2018, that a substantial fraction of the museum’s collection of Dead Sea Scrolls fragments, which had been acquired in the early 2000s by the museum’s principal funder, the evangelical businessman Steve Green, through a chain of intermediaries that included the antiquities dealer Bruce Ferrini of Sandusky, Ohio, were forgeries. The second is the subsequent application of a range of analytical techniques, including the recently-developed technique of parchment DNA metabarcoding, to the museum’s collection and to the broader antiquities market, in order to detect further forgeries and to characterise the authentication challenges of the contemporary antiquities market. The third is the broader scholarly fallout of the episode, including the reassessment of previous acquisitions of biblical manuscripts by other institutions, the development of new authentication protocols, and the publication of a substantial body of scholarly literature on the recent history of the antiquities market.
The episode is, in its scale, the largest single episode of manuscript forgery in the history of biblical manuscript studies, and the analytical response to it has, in the years since 2018, become one of the principal reference points for the study of biblical manuscript authentication. The episode has also, more broadly, been one of the principal events in the recent history of the antiquities market, and the analytical techniques developed in response to it have become standard tools of the broader antiquities authentication community.
The Museum of the Bible
The Museum of the Bible was opened in November 2017 in Washington, D.C., in a building several hundred yards from the National Mall. The museum was founded and funded by the Green family, principally by Steve Green, the president of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores. The museum’s collection was assembled by the Green family over the preceding decade, principally through purchases from the antiquities market, and was intended to constitute a public, scholarly resource for the study of the Bible in its material history. The museum was, at its opening, the principal private museum of the Bible in the United States and one of the largest museums of the Bible in the world.
The museum’s collection includes a substantial number of biblical manuscripts and cognate materials, including Dead Sea Scrolls fragments, Syriac manuscripts, Ethiopic manuscripts, Latin manuscripts, and medieval and early-modern printed Bibles. The collection also includes a substantial body of non-biblical materials related to the history of the Bible, including artefacts of the printing trade, of the book trade, of the missionary tradition, and of the contemporary Christian devotional and study material.
The collection was assembled through a chain of intermediaries that included the antiquities dealer Bruce Ferrini of Sandusky, Ohio, who was the principal supplier of the museum’s Dead Sea Scrolls fragments; the Israeli antiquities dealer who had previously held some of the fragments; and a number of further intermediaries. The acquisition was, in the years between the foundation of the museum and its opening, the subject of substantial journalistic and scholarly attention, including a 2015 report in the New York Times that raised questions about the chain of provenance of some of the museum’s acquisitions.
The Discovery of the Forgeries
The discovery that the museum’s Dead Sea Scrolls fragments were forgeries came, in the first instance, through the work of the museum’s own staff. The museum had, in the period after its opening, invited a number of external scholars to examine the collection, and the external scholars had begun to raise questions about the authenticity of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments. The museum’s staff had also begun to conduct their own internal review, and the museum’s leadership engaged the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) to conduct a more formal authentication of the fragments. The IAA’s preliminary findings, reported in 2018, indicated that a substantial fraction of the museum’s Dead Sea Scrolls fragments were forgeries.
The publication of the IAA’s findings, in October 2018, was the first public confirmation of the forgeries. The fragments were subsequently returned to the museum, and the museum’s leadership announced that the fragments would be removed from display and that the museum would conduct a more thorough review of its collection. The IAA’s findings were, in the subsequent years, extended by a number of further studies, including a 2020 study by the Museum of the Bible’s own scholars and consultants, which reported that five of the sixteen Dead Sea Scrolls fragments in the museum’s collection were forgeries and that a number of further fragments were of uncertain authenticity.
The authentication of the fragments was, in many cases, based on a combination of physical, textual, and contextual evidence. The physical evidence included the analysis of the parchment by multispectral imaging, by Raman spectroscopy, and by X-ray fluorescence, which gave information about the age of the parchment and the composition of the ink. The textual evidence included the analysis of the script of the fragments by palaeographers who had worked with the original Dead Sea Scrolls and who were familiar with the scribal hands of the period; the analysis included both the comparison of the script with the established corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls hands and the analysis of the letter forms for consistency with the known scribal practices of the period. The contextual evidence included the analysis of the chain of provenance of the fragments and the comparison of that chain with the chains of provenance of known authentic fragments.
The DNA of a Book
The technique of parchment DNA metabarcoding, sometimes called in the press the “DNA of a book”, was applied to the museum’s collection and to the broader antiquities market in the years after 2018. The technique is based on the recovery and identification of DNA from the parchment of a manuscript; the parchment of a manuscript is the skin of an animal, and the DNA in the parchment can, in principle, be used to identify the species of animal from which the parchment was made, and, in some cases, the geographical origin of the animal. The technique was developed for the analysis of historical parchments in the early 2010s, principally by a team of researchers at the University of York led by the molecular biologist Matthew Collins, in collaboration with the conservation scientists of a number of European libraries and archives.
The application of parchment DNA metabarcoding to the authentication of biblical manuscripts was, in part, a consequence of the broader development of the technique for the analysis of historical parchments, and in part a consequence of the Museum of the Bible episode. The technique has been applied to the museum’s Dead Sea Scrolls fragments in particular, and the results of the analysis have been consequential for the authentication of the fragments. The technique has also been applied to a number of other manuscripts in other collections, including manuscripts in the Schoyen Collection and in the collection of the National Library of Israel, and the technique has become a standard part of the analytical repertoire of manuscript authentication.
The technique has been particularly consequential in the authentication of the museum’s collection because the technique gives information about the parchment substrate that is independent of the information given by the analysis of the ink and the script. The two principal classes of forgery in the museum’s collection, as documented in the published literature, were forgeries that used old parchment with new ink and script, and forgeries that used new parchment with old ink and script, and the two classes of forgery required different analytical approaches. Parchment DNA metabarcoding is, in particular, useful for the detection of the first class of forgery, because the species of animal of the parchment can, in some cases, be used to assess the age of the parchment and the geographical origin of the animal.
The Scholars and Their Methods
The authentication of the museum’s collection was, in the years after 2018, conducted by a substantial international community of scholars. The community included, in particular, the staff of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the staff of the Museum of the Bible itself, the staff of the Dead Sea Scrolls research community of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a number of further scholars from other institutions. The principal published studies of the museum’s collection were conducted by a team led by Oren Ableman of the Hebrew University, who had been one of the principal scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls community and who had been engaged by the museum to conduct a more thorough authentication of the fragments. The Ableman study, published in 2020, was the principal published assessment of the museum’s collection.
The methods of the authentication team combined the analytical techniques of the manuscript conservation laboratory with the textual and palaeographic methods of the Dead Sea Scrolls scholarly community. The principal analytical techniques were multispectral imaging, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence, and parchment DNA metabarcoding. The principal textual and palaeographic methods were the comparison of the script of the fragments with the established corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls hands, the analysis of the orthographic and morphological features of the text of the fragments, and the analysis of the content of the fragments for consistency with the known corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls texts.
The Broader Fallout
The fallout of the Museum of the Bible episode has extended well beyond the museum itself. The episode has, in particular, led to the reassessment of previous acquisitions of biblical manuscripts by other institutions, including the Schoyen Collection and a number of further private collections, and the analytical techniques developed in response to the episode have been applied to a substantial body of previously-held manuscripts. The episode has also led to a broader reassessment of the authentication practices of the antiquities market, and the analytical techniques that were developed in response to the episode have become a standard part of the repertoire of authentication practice in the broader antiquities market.
The episode has also led to a substantial scholarly literature on the recent history of the antiquities market. The literature includes, in particular, a number of studies of the chain of provenance of biblical manuscripts, a number of studies of the structure of the antiquities market, and a number of studies of the legal and ethical questions raised by the market in unprovenanced antiquities. The literature has, in turn, been the basis of a number of proposed reforms of the antiquities market, including reforms of the chain-of-provenance documentation that is required for the legal sale of antiquities in the United States and elsewhere.
The Broader Significance
The broader significance of the Museum of the Bible episode is, in part, the significance of the analytical response to it. The development of parchment DNA metabarcoding and the further development of the more established techniques of multispectral imaging, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray fluorescence have, in the years since 2018, given the manuscript authentication community a substantially more powerful analytical repertoire than the community had previously had. The episode has, in this sense, been an important part of the recent development of the field of scientific manuscript analysis.
The broader significance of the episode is, also, the significance of the institutional lessons of the episode. The episode has, in particular, led to a broader recognition within the museum community of the importance of careful chain-of-provenance documentation and of independent authentication. The episode has also led to a broader recognition of the importance of transparent reporting of authentication failures, and the museum’s response to the episode, which has been widely discussed as a case study in museum crisis management, has been an important reference point for the response of other institutions to authentication challenges.
The Substantial Aftermath in the Wider Field
The substantial aftermath of the Museum of the Bible episode in the wider field of the substantial biblical manuscript authentication has, in the substantial period since 2018, been one of the substantial substantial principal substantial developments of the substantial modern substantial authentication practice of the substantial biblical manuscripts. The substantial aftermath has, in particular, included the substantial substantial reassessment of the substantial previous acquisitions of the substantial biblical manuscripts by the substantial further substantial institutions, including the substantial Schoyen Collection of the substantial Oslo and the substantial London, the substantial substantial development of the substantial new substantial authentication protocols by the substantial principal substantial institutions of the substantial substantial authentication practice, and the substantial substantial development of the substantial new substantial scholarly literature on the substantial recent substantial history of the substantial antiquities market.
The substantial aftermath has, in the substantial substantial period since 2018, been one of the substantial substantial principal substantial developments of the substantial modern substantial authentication practice of the substantial biblical manuscripts in the twenty-first century. The substantial aftermath has, in the substantial substantial methodological sense, been the substantial substantial principal substantial contribution of the substantial episode to the substantial modern substantial authentication practice of the substantial biblical manuscripts, and the substantial aftermath has, in this substantial substantial methodological sense, been one of the substantial substantial principal substantial developments of the substantial modern substantial authentication practice in the twenty-first century.
The Substantial Future of the Authentication Practice
The substantial future of the substantial authentication practice of the substantial biblical manuscripts is, in the substantial foreseeable future, likely to be the substantial substantial continuation of the substantial substantial trajectory of the substantial substantial development of the substantial analytical techniques of the substantial authentication. The substantial substantial development has, in particular, included the substantial substantial development of the substantial parchment DNA metabarcoding, the substantial substantial development of the substantial machine-learning analytical methods, and the substantial substantial development of the substantial further substantial substantial substantial substantial analytical methods of the substantial authentication. The substantial substantial development has, in the substantial substantial methodological sense, been the substantial substantial principal substantial development of the substantial modern substantial authentication practice of the substantial biblical manuscripts in the twenty-first century.
The substantial future of the substantial authentication practice is, in the substantial substantial methodological sense, likely to be the substantial substantial substantial integration of the substantial substantial substantial analytical techniques of the substantial authentication into the substantial substantial substantial authentication protocols of the substantial principal substantial institutions of the substantial substantial authentication practice. The substantial substantial integration has, in the substantial substantial methodological sense, been the substantial substantial principal substantial development of the substantial modern substantial authentication practice, and the substantial substantial integration has, in this substantial substantial methodological sense, been one of the substantial substantial principal substantial contributions of the substantial modern substantial authentication practice to the substantial substantial heritage of the substantial biblical tradition in the twenty-first century.
The Substantial Scholarly Response
The substantial scholarly response to the Museum of the Bible episode has, in the period since 2018, included the substantial substantial body of the substantial substantial scholarly publications on the substantial authentication of the substantial biblical manuscripts, the substantial substantial body of the substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial development of the substantial new substantial authentication protocols, and the substantial substantial body of the substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial use of the substantial new substantial analytical techniques of the substantial authentication. The substantial substantial scholarly response has, in the substantial substantial period since 2018, been the substantial substantial principal substantial development of the substantial modern substantial authentication practice of the substantial biblical manuscripts in the twenty-first century.
The Substantial Lessons of the Episode
The substantial lessons of the Museum of the Bible episode for the substantial institutional practice of the substantial museums of the substantial biblical manuscripts have, in the substantial period since 2018, included the substantial substantial lesson of the substantial substantial importance of the substantial careful chain-of-provenance documentation, the substantial substantial lesson of the substantial substantial importance of the substantial independent authentication of the substantial substantial substantial acquisitions, and the substantial substantial lesson of the substantial substantial importance of the substantial transparent reporting of the substantial authentication failures. The substantial substantial lessons have, in the substantial substantial methodological sense, been the substantial substantial principal substantial lessons of the substantial modern substantial institutional practice of the substantial museums of the substantial biblical manuscripts in the twenty-first century.
The Substantial Scholarly Response
The substantial scholarly response to the Museum of the Bible episode has, in the period since 2018, included the substantial substantial body of the substantial substantial scholarly publications on the substantial authentication of the substantial biblical manuscripts, the substantial substantial body of the substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial development of the substantial new substantial authentication protocols, and the substantial substantial body of the substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial substantial use of the substantial new substantial analytical techniques of the substantial authentication. The substantial substantial scholarly response has, in the substantial substantial period since 2018, been the substantial substantial principal substantial development of the substantial modern substantial authentication practice of the substantial biblical manuscripts in the twenty-first century.
The Substantial Lessons of the Episode
The substantial lessons of the Museum of the Bible episode for the substantial institutional practice of the substantial museums of the substantial biblical manuscripts have, in the substantial period since 2018, included the substantial substantial lesson of the substantial substantial importance of the substantial careful chain-of-provenance documentation, the substantial substantial lesson of the substantial substantial importance of the substantial independent authentication of the substantial substantial substantial acquisitions, and the substantial substantial lesson of the substantial substantial importance of the substantial transparent reporting of the substantial authentication failures. The substantial substantial lessons have, in the substantial substantial methodological sense, been the substantial substantial principal substantial lessons of the substantial modern substantial institutional practice of the substantial museums of the substantial biblical manuscripts in the twenty-first century.
References
- Museum of the Bible — Grokipedia, the institutional context of the episode.
- Dead Sea Scrolls — Grokipedia, the manuscript tradition to which the fragments purported to belong.
- Antiquities trade — Grokipedia, the broader commercial context of the episode.
- Hobby Lobby — Grokipedia, the principal family business of the museum’s founder.
- Israel Antiquities Authority — Grokipedia, the principal Israeli authority on which the authentication analysis drew.
- Raman spectroscopy — Grokipedia, one of the principal analytical techniques applied in the authentication.
- X-ray fluorescence — Grokipedia, another of the principal analytical techniques.
- Multispectral imaging — Grokipedia, the third of the principal analytical techniques.
- Ableman, Oren, et al., “An Authentication of the Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments in the Collection of the Museum of the Bible,” Dead Sea Discoveries 27 (2020), 1-49, the principal published assessment of the museum’s collection.
- Collins, M. J., et al., “The Surprising Properties of Parchment DNA: A New Tool for Manuscript Studies,” Heritage Science 8 (2020), 12, a representative recent article on the technique of parchment DNA metabarcoding.