Endnote 2 – Tracking the Shapira Case: A Biblical Scandal Revisited

Most of the basic primary-source documents are collected in British Library Add. MS. 41294, “Papers Relative to M.W. Shapira’s Forged MS. of Deuteronomy (A.D. 1883–1884).” Contemporary accounts of the incident are contained in Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (October 1883), pp. 195–209; Hermann Guthe, Fragmente einer Lederhandschrift (Leipzig, 1883); A.C.R. Carter, “Shapira, the Bible Forger,” in Let Me Tell You (London, 1940), pp. 216–219; Walter Besant, Autobiography of Sir Walter Besant (New York, 1902; reprint, St. Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press, 1971), pp. 161–167.

A second group of publications followed the investigation by Menahem Mansoor. See The New York Times (August 13, 1956) and The Jewish Chronicle (London) (December 28, 1956). Mansoor’s research is presented best in his article “The Case of Shapira’s Dead Sea (Deuteronomy) Scrolls of 1883,” in Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, vol. 47 (1958), pp. 183–229; Mansoor concludes that “neither the internal nor the external evidence … supports the idea of a forgery” and that “there is justification … for a re-examination of the case” (p. 225). Mansoor’s conclusion is attacked by Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein (“The Shapira Forgery and the Qumran Scrolls,” Journal of Jewish Studies 7 [1956], 187–193, and “The Qumran Scrolls and the Shapira Forgery” [in Hebrew], Ha’aretz, December 28, 1956) and by Oskar K. Rabinowicz (The Shapira Forgery Mystery,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 47 [1956–1957], pp. 170–183); Mansoor is supported by J.L. Teicher (“The Genuineness of the Shapira Manuscripts,” Times Literary Supplement, March 22, 1957).

Additional studies of the incident include John Marco Allegro, The Shapira Affair (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965); Neil Asher Silberman, “One Million Pounds Sterling, the Rise and Fall of Moses Wilhelm Shapira, 1883–1885,” in Digging for God and Country (New York: Knopf, 1982); and Mansoor, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Textbook and Study Guide, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983), chap. 25, pp. 215–224; and Yaakov Asya, “Parashat Shapira,” supplement to: Myriam Harry [pseud.], Bat Yerushalayim Hakatanah (in Hebrew) (A. Levenson Publishing House, 1975) originally published as La Petite Fille de Jerusalem (Paris, 1914).

Further investigations include Alan D. Crown, “The Fate of the Shapira Scroll,” Revue de Qumran, 7:27 (1970), pp. 421–423; Colette Sirat, “Les Fragments Shapira,” Revue des études juives 143 (1984), pp. 95–111; Hendrik Budde, “Die Affaere um die ‘Moabitischen Althertuemer,’” in Budde and Mordechay Lewy, Von Halle Nach Jerusalem (Halle: Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt, 1994), pp. 106–117.