Dead Sea Scroll Hoaxes Cost Mega Millions of Dollars
A theory of billions of dollars in art forgeries to save a country. And some tips on how to fake old art and archeological artifacts.
There's a religious scandal going on. We may be being bamboozled by bogus Bible books. Museums are also questioning the Dead Sea Scrolls’ authenticity. If you don’t follow my art history research, it’s about ancient artifacts that uncover lost histories and conspiracies. facebook.com/CodedHistory and DecodedHistory.blogspot.com
Recently fact checking the Dead Sea Scrolls, I found something conspiracy theory spooky. Museums are questioning the Dead Sea Scrolls’ authenticities. Checking reports that the scrolls could be fakes, I added my habit of researching the politics around art and forgeries. War and economics have interesting effects on art and religion.
To me, the whole pages in photos of the scrolls all look fake. I am an art historian and studied fine art in London and exhibited a drawing at the London Royal Academy. It’s not difficult to make paper or metal or anything look old. Old coffee grounds, tea bags, hand made ink, old copper, compost, mineral salts, acids or old tree leaves in hot water. Run candle around the edges to singe them brown or black and a couple of cigarette/hash burns for extra touches. For metal, a blow torch or your kitchen stove to soften the edges. Then bury it in acidic soil from the desired location for a few months or years. Years are better.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947, but until 1967 were accessible to only a few cherry picked scholars. Plenty of time to create and age good quality forgeries. The following is an art historian’s theory.
1966 to 1967 Israel was in economic recession from war and corruption. According to Thomas L. Friedman for the New York Times “The crisis, economists say, has been produced partly by excessive military burdens but also by the peculiar structure of Israel's political system, the economic restraints of Zionism, years of living beyond the nation's means and sheer mismanagement by some of its governments.” Then Israel’s economy suddenly jumped back in leaps and bounds, as if by magic. On top of more money to spend on more wars.
There’s a big black market for Dead Sea Scroll artifacts. Millions of dollars for a two inch fragment to private collectors. Nobody knows how many Dead Sea Scroll fragments, fake or real, are out there. For every one fragment we are told there could be thousands of fakes to fill in the rest of the scroll.
At $50,000 to $5,000,000 USA per fragment or collections of fragments sell for tens of millions of dollars. In late 1960’s to mid 1970’s currency that could theoretically restart a small country’s economy, as well as fund new wars. It’s a theory.
Considering the whole country was bankrupt, it was a clever thing to do. Nefariously smart-ass and religiously immoral, but it saved their country and was mostly harmless. The knock on effect problem is that people believe the texts to be real history and that belief has a body count.
The bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls that look authentic are tiny fragments. This makes more sense, due to how we are told the scrolls were stored. Fragments are not enough to prove a whole page, let alone a whole book. Not without another source, but the other sources have proven to be corrupt. Now the authenticity of all fragments are in question. There’s a big black market for Dead Sea Scroll artifacts. It is hawked to wealthy believers and private churches around the planet.
A Jewish museum curator commented that most all Dead Sea Scroll artifacts are fakes. It’s also being confirmed by other museums. Modern museum testing is finding most all Dead Sea Scroll fragments and artifacts are fakes. Some are multimillion dollar forgeries in public and private collections all over the world.
We should remind ourselves that the Bible is not a history book. It is a theology book. Art history in archeology, geology, ancient politics, other writings and DNA prove that. Many of the historical events were very different and different heroes and victims. Some of the plot twists are completely reversed. But people want to believe their religion is history. For that, or for nefariousness, they redact and edit our history books and movies to fit their beliefs. Belief is not reality. Believers who to have too much faith in religion as history get scammed.
There’s always existed a global market for religious relics, since organized religion began. There’s always existed fake religious relics for that market. Many relics were forged centuries ago. Sometime the forgeries are 1000 and 2000 years old. This, more often than not, gives false readings to modern museum tests and art history research. Who is to say that the scrolls were not originally authored as fiction for political or religious propaganda? It only takes one generation to forget.
Those who don’t know that the Bible is not history and that the many religious artifacts and texts are fakes become victims. This includes those with the funding to get museum testing and unbiased research. They believe in having faith. But you can’t fund better schools, medical and humanities for your flock on faith.
We are not told the truth of how fabulous human beings are and can be. Instead, we get Bible miracles and ancient aliens. Humans are a lot more intelligent than we are allowed to be. We can save the world when given correct data.
We can teach humanity to save itself and Planet Earth in animated books and documentaries and augmented reality games.
And I don’t think it is yet definitive that the Essenes authored the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Easy reference links:
Doubts About All Dead Sea Scroll Artifacts https://news.artnet.com/art-world/all-the-museum-of-the-bibles-dead-sea-scrolls-are-fake-1804395
New Rounds of Museum Testing. BBC UK 2018 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45948986
Doubts About All Dead Sea Scroll Artifacts, Haaretz Israel 2020 https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-after-dead-sea-forgeries-exposed-how-do-we-know-the-scrolls-in-israel-are-real-1.8679396
Looters and Black Market. BBC UK 2014 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30366842
Fake Copper Scrolls, Dr Robert Cargill 2009. https://robertcargill.com/2009/09/09/this-is-why-we-must-fight-pseudoscientific-fake-archaeology/
Economic Crisis and Recovery in Israel. New York Times USA 1984 https://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/29/business/economic-crisis-in-israel-may-remold-the-country.html
Dead Sea Scroll Scholars and Articles 1949 to 1967. Israel Antiquities Authority https://il-antiquities-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo-explore/search?query=any,contains,dead%20sea%20scroll%20article&tab=default_tab&search_scope=default_scope&sortby=date2&vid=972IAA_V1&lang=en_US&offset=0