Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Discovery of fragment of ancient Biblical mss

Today's JTA reports:
Scroll from the sand
An Israeli archeologist claims to have made the most important biblical find in the Judean Desert in 40 years. Professor Chanan Eshel of Bar-Ilan University announced this month that he had discovered two fragments of a nearly 2,000-year-old parchment scroll in the Dead Sea area. If authenticated, it would be the first such find in the area since 1965. The two small pieces of animal skin, which carried Hebrew verses from Leviticus, have been passed to Israel’s Antiquities Authority for authentication.
1. A Google news search tells me that this news is several days old, and is in fact not "Breaking news" at all

2. Hopefully more uncontroversially authentic than other recent finds - the Jesus Ossuary, the Pomegranate, the Yoash inscription etc etc .....

3. And - it is not clear that he 'discovered' the fragments himself. They surfaced via a local Bedouin, which increases the suspicion. On the other hand ......

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I had to pleasure of take a undergraduate class with Mr. Eshel at the University of Michigan last year about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community. Professor Eshel is a really great guy...he's very nice, funny, and quite intelligent. He's very knowledgeable about this kind of stuff..to the extent that i would believe anything he says on this topic. Its great to see him in the news. Love your site too!