Like other readers of BAR, I look forward to the news about forgeries and fakes. There’s something deliciously dangerous about these affairs, involving characters who are a hybrid of scholars and criminals. This is the world of Humphrey Bogart (a.k.a. detective Sam Spade) in The Maltese Falcon: Is this bird statue a real antique treasure, or is it a fake or even an antique fake? Who are the mysterious connoisseurs, collectors, enforcers and experts? Why do good guys (scholars, detectives) sometimes turn into bad guys? Who is playing whom as a sap? Like a film noir, everything seems shadowy and dramatic.
The dance between scholars and forgers goes a long way back, with many fascinating byways. It can even be argued that modern historical scholarship—including Biblical scholarship—owes some of its most important practices to the pursuit of forgeries. In other words, the scholars and the forgers are codependent (to use a trendy term), not only in the commission and detection of crime, but in the very practice of historical inquiry. This is why the Renaissance scholar Anthony Grafton calls the forger “the criminal sibling” of the historical critic.1
The most famous moment in the rise of historical criticism in the Renaissance was Lorenzo Valla’s unmasking of a forged text known as the Donation of Constantine. In this text the emperor Constantine (fourth century C.E.) purportedly donated a large part of his empire to the pope. By carefully scrutinizing its Latin usage, Valla showed that this text had not been written in Constantine’s time, but was a medieval forgery. The forger was presumably a papal scribe who was advancing the pope’s claims to political power.
Valla observed—with evident glee—that the forger betrayed himself by using words that were not used during Roman times, such as “satrap” (provincial governor):
Numbskull, blockhead! Do the Caesars speak thus; are Roman decrees usually drafted thus? Whoever heard of satraps being mentioned in the councils of the Romans? I do not remember ever to have read of any Roman satrap being mentioned, or even of a satrap in any of the Roman provinces.2
By carefully combing the text for its diction, style and grammar, Valla was able to demonstrate that its historical provenance was not ancient Rome. He had shown how to detect when a text was written, by a grand demonstration of historical criticism. This was a major intellectual triumph, paving the way for the growth of historical criticism in the Renaissance and beyond. This was a coming-out party, in which the scholar vanquished the forger, and a famous piece of political propaganda was exposed.
The political stakes of modern forgeries are usually less momentous, but there is good money in it, so forgeries proliferate. We should celebrate the historical criticism that rises to this constant challenge. As the forgers become better, so do the scholars. Forgery is, in this respect, a spur to good scholarship, just as it was in Renaissance times. To read the scholars’ criticisms of the Jehoash inscription or the “brother of Jesus” inscription on the James ossuary or the inscription on the ivory pomegranate that says “belonging to the house [of Yahw]eh, holy to the priests,” is a rare treat. It is a drama of erudition, insight and critical thinking, renewing the vigor of historical criticism.
Without the forgers, the scholars would lack the challenge to ply their craft at its highest level. Even an authentic document needs the possibility of forgery as an incentive to keep the focus tight. The Dead Sea Scrolls were initially thought to be medieval texts—or even modern forgeries—but the best scholars of the time methodically proved their antiquity. They demonstrated the historical reality of this ancient trove, shedding new light on a vanished past.
Is it real or not? This question keeps us sharp and keeps the tools of historical scholarship in good repair. We benefit from the presence of forgers. But we don’t want them to sleep well at night. They need to know that savvy scholars—like Sam Spade with a Ph.D.—are on the case.
Like other readers of BAR, I look forward to the news about forgeries and fakes. There’s something deliciously dangerous about these affairs, involving characters who are a hybrid of scholars and criminals. This is the world of Humphrey Bogart (a.k.a. detective Sam Spade) in The Maltese Falcon: Is this bird statue a real antique treasure, or is it a fake or even an antique fake? Who are the mysterious connoisseurs, collectors, enforcers and experts? Why do good guys (scholars, detectives) sometimes turn into bad guys? Who is playing whom as a sap? Like a film noir, everything seems shadowy […]
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