‘Nine Dubious “Dead Sea Scrolls” Fragments from the Twenty-First Century’

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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Secret Alias
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‘Nine Dubious “Dead Sea Scrolls” Fragments from the Twenty-First Century’

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https://www2.brill.com/New-methods-for- ... -fragments
A variety of palaeographical, scribal and textual anomalies are demonstrated in the nine fragments from The Schøyen Collection above that correspond to similar observations made regarding several already published fragments from the collection as well as those belonging to Museum of the Bible. The authors of this article continue to harbour doubts as to the authenticity of a good number of these additional, non-provenanced fragments, but the fragments featured in this article are deemed to be among the most suspicious from the high combination of cited palaeographical and scribal anomalies mentioned above.

In addition, the following common physical features were observed in the fragments to varying degrees:

· Papyri written transversa charta as opposed to the traditional method of inscribing on the horizontally grained papyrus leaf
· Parchments written on the flesh side as opposed to the grain side
· Composition and distribution of sedimentary deposits that are incongruous relative to the DSS fragments
· The occurrence of pen strokes and ink in regions of delamination or skinning of the surface layer
· Uncharacteristic properties in inks

These observations cumulatively raise doubts with regards to the authenticity of these nine fragments. At least two papyri in this study, MS 4612/6 and MS 4612/12, can be regarded with a high degree of confidence to be modern forgeries. More than that, all the fragments discussed here are most likely ancient leather and papyrus penned in modern times; in several instances fragments have undergone further treatment to induce the appearance of age or damage to the text in an effort to conceal their twentieth / twenty-first century origin.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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