Scroll pieces likely fakes
Museum tied to Green family pulls Dead Sea Scroll fragments
The $500 million Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., has removed from display five of its Dead Sea Scrolls fragments after extensive testing determined they are likely fakes.
The museum announced Monday that researchers in Germany concluded after a battery of tests that the fragments “show characteristics inconsistent with ancient origin.”
The museum was built by the Green family and displays rare biblical texts and artifacts acquired by the family over the last decade. The Green family owns Oklahoma City-based craft retailer Hobby Lobby and the Christian education and supply company Mardel.
The museum opened last November three blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
The museum sent the five fragments to Germany in April 2017, before they went on display, for analysis of the ink and of the sediment layers.
“Though we had hoped the testing would render different results, this is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts,
the elaborate testing process undertaken and our commitment to transparency,” the museum’s chief curatorial officer, Jeffrey Kloha, said.
The scrolls are a collection of ancient Jewish religious texts first discovered in the mid-1940s in caves on the western shore of the Dead Sea in what is now Israel. The massive cache of documents is believed to date back to the days of Jesus. With more than 9,000 documents and 50,000 fragments, the entire collection took decades to fully excavate.
Most of the scrolls and fragments are tightly controlled by the Israeli Antiquities Authority.
The five removed fragments were among 16 in the museum’s Dead Sea Scrolls collection.
The museum announced three other fragments will be on display to replace the five removed fragments.
Those three fragments will be on exhibit “pending further scientific analysis and scholarly research.” Labels tell visitors that questions have been raised about their authenticity and that further research will be conducted.
“The museum continues to support and encourage research on these objects and others in its collection both to inform the public about leading-edge research methods and ensure our exhibits are presenting the most accurate and updated information,” Kloha said.