A multimillion-dollar trade in fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls fuelled by a surge in interest from wealthy evangelicals in the US includes a significant number of suspected forgeries, two prominent experts have said. For years an association between the Kando family and the scrolls was seen as a stamp of authenticity in a trade peopled by flamboyant scholars and elusive middlemen. “There is this sense of [bible fragments] bringing you closer,” said Kipp Davis, an associate of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University. “There is a spectrum of authenticity [and] I put six of the Green family fragments close to the forgery side of the spectrum,” Davis said. Photograph: Zach Gibson for the GuardianThe vaultJustnes told a gathering of scholars in Berlin this year that since 2002 “more than 75 previously unknown Dead Sea Scrolls fragments have surfaced on the antiquities market.

Source: The Guardian November 21, 2017 06:01 UTC