Opened in 2017, the Museum of the Bible is a sprawling institution in Washington, D.C. that seeks to provide “an immersive and personalized experience with the Bible, and its ongoing impact on the world around us.” Funded by Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby, the museum boasts among its prized possessions 16 fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which Green began collecting as far back as 2009.
Doubts as to the scrolls’ authenticity began swirling just as soon as they were put on display, and indeed, five were confirmed to be fake within short order. The museum still held onto claims that the rest of its collection was authentic, but recently, a study commissioned by the museum itself reached the conclusion that “none of the textual fragments in the Museum of the Bible’s Dead Sea Scroll collection are authentic.” The conclusion was reported by Michael Greshko for National Geographic, and it didn’t take long for news outlets and social media to pick up the story and run with it.
While the results are a huge blow for the Museum of the Bible, it casts no doubts upon the authenticity of the Dead Sea Scrolls held by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Those scrolls, discovered in 1947 in a cave at Qumran, near the shores of the Dead Sea, remain among the most precious relics of the ancient world we have in our possession.
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