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| A cartoon in Punch magazine, 1883, showing Moses Wilhelm Shapira being apprehended by Christian David Ginzburg outside the British Museum, for allegedly forging an ancient textual find. |
Introduction
This article – based extensively on the research by Professor Idan Dershowitz[1] − examines a work that for many years was regarded as a forgery, but, arguably, turned out to be one of the most significant textual finds of the nineteenth century.
Part 1 describes the human-interest story of the original owner of the text, Moses Wilhelm Shapira and his eventual suicide after being accused of being the forger of the text.
Part 2 advocates for the authenticity of the text, and discusses some of the consequences of this find which Dershowitz considers to be “a text that could change everything” (Dershowitz 2021:vi). Because the text resembled sections of the Book of Deuteronomy which deals with Moses’ farewell speech, Dershowitz has called the Shapira texts the ‘Valediction of Moses.’
Dershowitz is a captivating young professor at the
University of Potsdam in Germany, and he spent some years at Yeshivat Har Etzion before
expanding into academia. I had the privilege to meet him last year at a
conference hosted by my university and I can attest to the esteem in which he
is held by serious international scholars. This research endeavour by Dershowitz
on the Shapira texts, however, may be the most significant, if not the most controversial,
of his work as a biblical scholar.
Part 1
Overview
In 1883, more than fifty years before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, an intriguing text written in Paleo-Hebrew script, surfaced on the ancient text market. It aroused much interest, and the British Museum was about to buy the few worn leather fragments from the antique dealer, Moses Wilhelm Shapira.
At the last moment, the deal was called off, the finds were declared forgeries and Shapira was accused of being the guilty party. Unfortunately, the leather texts then disappeared, and it is not known where they are today or even if they still exist. Fortunately, although none of the remaining photographs of the texts are legible, some scholars as well as ‘naïve artists’ made copies of the original text. These artists were chosen particularly because they did not know how to read ancient Hebrew, to ensure that there would be no textual bias.
Based on new research, Dershowitz has revisited the matter of the alleged forgery and maintains that:
“[i]n light of our current knowledge, none of the original reasons for dismissing the fragments can be considered valid…I present overlooked archival material that severely undermines the verdict of Shapira’s guilt” (Dershowitz 2021:1).
Dershowitz not only demonstrates how the manuscript fragments were not forgeries but that they were indeed authentic ancient documents – so authentic that he argues:
“[It] was composed prior to the canonical book of Deuteronomy. Indeed, Deuteronomy evolved out of…it…or out of a very similar text…illuminating the compositional history of this Pentateuchal text [i.e. Deuteronomy!]” (Dershowitz 2021:1).
The story
Moses Wilhelm Shapira (1830-1884) was born in the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi which is in present-day Ukraine. When he turned twenty-five, he converted to Christianity and moved to Jerusalem where he opened up an antique dealership in Christian Quarter Street in the Old City. He was known to collectors of relics and old manuscripts around the world.
In 1878, some members of the Bedouin Ajayah tribe discovered leather manuscript fragments in a cave on the eastern side of the Dead Sea. They were wrapped in linen and contained blackened leather manuscript fragments that looked like they had been preserved in a type of bitumen. Shapira managed to buy sixteen of these strips of leather for a very low price.
In 1883, Shapira travelled to Berlin to have the fragments assessed by experts. This evaluation was recorded by The Times of London:
“The committee met at the house of…Professor Lepsius…and spent exactly one hour and a half in a close and critical investigation into the character of his [Shapira’s] goat-skin wares. At the end of the sitting they unanimously pronounced the alleged codex to be a clever and impudent forgery. There was some thought of calling in a chemist… [but they] deemed it unnecessary to call for further proof’ (“The Shapira Manuscripts,” The Times, August 28, 1883).
The Berlin committee had conducted a very cursory examination of the fragments and a disappointed Shapira then took his collection to Leipzig to the biblical scholar, Hermann Guthe who examined the texts together with the historian Eduard Meyer who spent some days on this investigation. The problem was that in those days there was not yet infrared photography and once the texts had been exposed to the environment, they were becoming darker at a rapid rate. Most of the text, written in black ink, did not show up clearly against an ever-degrading black background. Gute and Meyer described their examination as follows:
“We were only able to read small parts without any kind of aid. Usually, we applied some alcohol (spirit) with a small brush to sections of the manuscript and then tried to identify the letters that glistened from the moisture. Unfortunately, this was not always possible, even with help of a magnifying glass.”[2]
At first, Guthe considered these fragments to be authentic but later declared them to be forgeries.
Shapira then travelled to London where he tried to sell his fragments to the British Museum for one million pounds. The Museum was well acquainted with Shapira and agreed to the sale on the condition that the scholar, Christian David Ginsburg[3] authenticate the material. Ginzburg’s examination was more thorough, and it took some weeks. In the meantime, the Museum put two of the fragments up for exhibition and it aroused much interest, including from Prime Minister, William Gladstone, who asked for an audience with Shapira.
Another visitor to this exhibition at the British Museum was the French orientalist and diplomat Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau who had a previous long and antagonistic relationship with Shapira. Clermont-Ganneau asked to examine the fragments and Ginsburg gave him literally a few minutes and only a sample of the fragments and he immediately pronounced them to be forgeries. Ginzburg asked Clermont-Ganneau not to announce his determination until the former had completed his thorough investigation, but the next day it was all over the newspapers. This, despite the admission by Clermont-Ganneau that:
“In these circumstances, the object of my mission became extremely difficult to attain, and I almost despaired of it…I set to work with the meagre means of information which were at my disposal: – (1) The hasty inspection of two or three pieces which M. Ginsburg had allowed me to handle for a few minutes on my first visit; (2) the examination of two fragments exposed to public view in a glass case in the manuscript department of the British Museum – a case very ill-lighted and difficult of approach, owing to the crowd of the curious pressing round these venerable relics” (The Times, August 21, 1883).
Nevetheless, Clermont-Ganneau developed an elaborate theory and accused Shapira of manufacturing his fragments by cutting off the lower sections of Torah scrolls because, as an antique dealer, “he deals in them.”
This was a terrible blow to Shapira to be so publicly humiliated. Soon after Clermont-Ganneau had announced his verdict on the fragments, Christian David Ginzburg added salt to the wound along similar lines. He concurred that the fragments had been cut from the bottom section of Torah scrolls. This was why the fragments were smoothly cut at the top and deteriorating at the bottom. Ginzburg added the detail that they had been cut specifically from Yemenite Torah scrolls because Shapira specialised in old Yemenite Torah scrolls.
Ginzburg also claimed the forger was clearly of European Jewish extraction because European Jews sometimes mixed up Hebrew letters like chaf and chet. According to Ginzburg, this was evidence that the forger was:
“a Polish, Russian, or German Jew, or one who had learned Hebrew in the north of Europe” (The Times, August 27, 1883).
This was followed by a distasteful cartoon that appeared in Punch on September 8, 1883, showing Shapira as a stereotypical Jew with a big, hooked nose (although he, like Ginzburg had converted to Christianity), “with the ink of his devious forgery still dripping from his fingers” (Dershowitz 2021:7). The cartoon shows Shapira being apprehended by Ginzburg in front of the British Museum.
The British Museum was guided by Ginzburg’s opinion and refused to purchase the ‘forged’ documents from Shapira. Shapira was devastated. In a terribly sad letter, Shapira wrote to Ginzburg expressing just how betrayed he felt:
“Dear Dr. Ginsburg!
You have made a fool of me by
publishing & exhibiting things that you believe to be false. I do not think
I will be able to survive this shame. Although I am yet not Convinced that the
M.s. is a forgery…
I will leave London in a day or
two for Berlin.
Yours truly,
M W Shapira” (BL Ms. Add. 41294, 16).
Somehow, this letter was leaked to The Times and they
responded:
“[Shapira] is so disappointed with the results of his bargain that he threatens to commit suicide. This, we venture to think, he will not do” (The Times, August 27, 1883).
The Times was mistaken. Shapira was so distraught and shamed from being publicly humiliated that he never returned to his family in Jerusalem. For a few months, he wandered throughout Europe and on March 9, 1884, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head while in a hotel in Rotterdam, Holland.
Dershowitz defends the authenticity of the fragments
Dershowitz points out that there is much similarity between the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1946-7) some sixty-three years later, and the Shapira Scrolls (1883). Both were found in caves near the Dead Sea by Bedouins, wrapped in linen and covered with a bituminous substance. Dershowitz writes that had the Shapira Scrolls been discovered after the Dead Sea Scrolls, there would have been important precedents for many of the issues raised over the Shapira fragments.
Had the Dead Sea Scrolls been discovered earlier, the world in which Shapira found himself would have understood that old scrolls could survive the vicissitudes of times. One of the numerous criticisms levelled against Shapira was that:
“It is really demanding too much of Western credulity to ask us to believe that in a damp climate like that of Palestine any sheepskins could have lasted for nearly 3,000 years, either above ground or under ground, even though they may have been abundantly salted with asphalte from the Vale of Siddim itself.” (Sayce 1883:117).[4]
The Dead Sea Scrolls, however, proved that ancient scrolls can endure. In fact, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, at first, many believed the find was a hoax and they were also discovered by Bedouins in caves around the Dead Sea, wrapped in linen and covered with a bituminous substance.
In 1949, the respected Solomon Zeitlin, an expert on the Second Temple period and editor of the Jewish Quarterly Review, used the Shapira affair to ‘prove’ that the Dead Seas Scrolls were also forgeries. Zeitlin referenced the Shapira affair in his article on the “alleged antiquity of the [Dead Sea] Scrolls”:
“Scholars and experts of the British Museum were convinced of its authenticity until it was discovered to have been produced by Shapira himself over a period of twenty years. Thus ‘the Bedouin and the cave’ became a myth” (Zeitlin 1949:67).[5]
Today we know that Zeitiln was wrong because the Dead Sea Scrolls were soon confirmed to be authentic, and they became important markers in the field of biblical studies.
Today we also know that what was thought at the time to be a bituminous substance, was nothing other than the normal results of decaying leather. Although, ironically, bitumen is prevalent in the Dead Sea area, the black substance found on the Dead Sea Scrolls and their linen wrappings is simply decomposed leather over the span of millennia.
Another criticism that was used against Shapira was that the fragments had surprising and distinct vertical creases indicating that the texts had been folded, which is not expected in writings that were supposed to have been written in the form of a scroll. Again, the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit similar vertical creases, and they are genuine.
The other criticism of the Shapira fragments was that, as mentioned, the top edges were straight and smooth (suggesting recent cutting) while the bottom edge was rough and variated. The Dead Sea Scrolls display exactly the same characteristics. Yet Ginzburg used this observation as an indication that Shapira’s texts were inauthentic:
“Now, many of the Shapira slips are only ragged at the bottom, but straight at the top, thus plainly showing that they have been comparatively recently cut off from the scrolls since they have not yet had time to become ragged at the top” (The Times, August 27, 1883).
Clermont-Ganneau was similarly bothered by the straight tops and ragged bottoms of the Shapira fragments, and he was so convinced they had been cut from existing Torah Scrolls, that he called on experts to check whether the lower and longer portions of the final Hebrew letters that protrude below the uninked writing lines, were visible. This would prove that the section had been severed from more recent Torah Scrolls. However, on investigation, no traces of letters from the alleged ‘upper and missing’ row were found on the tops of Shapira’s leather strips.
Furthermore, the Shapira fragments were considered forgeries because the writing did not follow the dry-point lines. Even today if one looks at any Torah Scroll in the light, there are uninked incision lines that the scribe follows while writing, to produce a straight and neat writing format. The Shapira fragments did not follow such lines, although they were still visible, and that led to experts declaring them to be fraudulent. The Dead Seas Scrolls, however, also often exhibit the same disregard for these dry-point lines.
As to Ginzburg’s objection that letters like chaf and
chet were sometimes confused with each other, indicating a Europen
Jewish forger, Dershowitz points out that in some Dead Sea Scrolls exactly the
same ‘confusion’ existed where we find examples of כסר instead of חסר.
Part 2
Conceptual background
In Rabbinic literature, surprisingly, the biblical book of Deuteronomy has often been treated differently from the earlier four books of the Torah.
During the 1460s, R. Don Yitzchak Abravanel wrote to R. Yosef Hayyun (d. 1497), the rabbi of Lisbon, asking:
“My question and request is
whether this book of Deuteronomy was given by the Lord from heaven or whether
Moshe himself composed Deuteronomy… Why does
Deuteronomy refer to Moshe in the first person, whereas in the preceding books
he is referred to in the third person?[6]
Rashi’s grandson, Rashbam, also allows for some flexibility and initiative from Moshe in his literary style.[7]
R. Yosef Bechor Shor (12th century) suggested that Moshe made his own contribution to the composition of the Torah, as we can see from his commentary on Genesis 18. Interestingly, his view was not considered exceptional among the Tosafists.
R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, the great-grandson of R. Chaim Volozhin maintains that in Deuteronomy, Moshe is the speaker. This is because, in Deuteronomy, Moshe says “G-d spoke to me”, whereas in the earlier books, it states “G-d spoke to Moshe.[8]”
According to the Vilna Gaon, “The first four Books were
heard directly from the mouth of the Holy One… Not so Deuteronomy… the Book of
Deuteronomy was heard from the mouth of Moshe himself.”
Taking some of these rabbinic voices on the status of the
Book of Deuteronomy into consideration, we can proceed to the next stage of
Dershowitz’s argument.
A Deuteronomic text?
In a sense, some of the rabbinic views expressed above on the nature of Deuteronomy, seem to prefigure debates over Deuteronomy in academic circles. At the time of the Shapira incident:
“the discipline of biblical studies was very much in its infancy, and little was known about the composition history of Deuteronomy” (Dershowitz 2021:9).
For this reason, scholars in the late nineteenth century may not have been aware of the fertile ground Deuteronomy presents from a historical perspective, and how the Shapira fragments could have shed some light on the matter. Most of the Shapira fragments correspond to the Book of Deuteronomy. But there are some significant differences:
Dershowitz (2021:41) explains that the Shapira fragments contain nothing at all corresponding to chapters 12 through 26 of Deuteronomy – that is, the law code. The Shapira fragments’ legal corpus indeed comprises only its unique version of the Ten Commandments. The poems of Deuteronomy 32 [Ha’azinu] and 33 [veZot haBeracha] are also absent in the Shapira fragments, as is the story of Moses’s death in Deuteronomy 34.
Dershowitz points out that very few Deuteronomic verses have identical counterparts in the Shapira fragments:
“Unlike Deuteronomy, in which the narrator intervenes repeatedly, the Valediction of Moses [i.e. the Shapira fragments] has no narrator except in the introductory and concluding verses. Coincidentally, these two brief narrational passages contain the only instances of the Tetragrammaton [i.e., Y-H-V-H] in V [i.e. the Shapira fragments].[9] Moses is the speaker throughout the remainder of the work, and he never utters this divine name [i.e., Y-H-V-H]; instead we find only “Elohim” (Dershowitz 2021:42).[10]
For those interested in such matters, these are fascinating observations. What do they teach us and what do they say about the composition of Deuteronomy?
Could the Shapira texts, until recently passed off as simple forgeries, be a different version of the Deuteronomic words of Moses? The Shapira fragments present some tantalising options for consideration:
“Is V [i.e. the Shapira fragments] a reworked and excerpted Deuteronomy, or is Deuteronomy a reworked and expanded V? A third option must also be considered, namely that V and Deuteronomy have a common ancestor. If this is the case, then one of the texts may be higher in the family tree, but neither would be directly dependent upon the other” (Dershowitz 2021:42).
Dershowitz’s daring and challenging assumptions have upset many traditional as well as academic scholars. Dershowitz acknowledges this. However, he goes on to present a very convincing, detailed and technical set of arguments (beyond the scope of this article but worth exploring further) that support his hypothesis. He writes:
“I provide evidence that – contrary to the view held by nearly all scholars – V [i.e., the Shapira fragments] is indeed a proto-Deuteronomic text or closely related to such a text…As for literary kinship, it can be established that several Pentateuchal passages are derived from V, or from a text very similar to V” (Dershowitz 2021:44).
One short example will follow:
In Deuteronomy 11:26 (Parshat Re’eih) the narrative concerning the blessings and curses on the mountains of Gerizim and Eval begins. But this introduction of six verses is abruptly interrupted by a huge section of legal code − including laws of Kashrut, slavery, festivals and sacrifices − which goes on for fifteen chapters comprising almost forty per cent of the Book of Deuteronomy. Only after that extremely long break, in Deuteronomy 27 (Parshat Ki Tavo), does the narrative of the blessings and curses continue.
In the Shapira fragments, however, the same narrative thread appears but this time as a single and cohesive unit. After an extensive analysis of the texts, Dershowitz arrives at a very bold conclusion, after an exhaustive philological analysis, that:
“Not only is the Valediction of Moses [i.e. the Shapira fragments] authentic, it is indeed more ancient than the book of Deuteronomy…One can thus characterize the book of Deuteronomy as an updated version of V [i.e. the Shapira fragments] that has been edited to include a substantial law code and two large poems and then edited to smooth over the resulting unevenness” (Dershowitz 2021:70).
Many would regard Dershowitz’s study as controversial. It certainly is. But it's not controversial to contemplate a controversial view. If Dershowitz is correct, and considering some possible rabbinic license and precedent for placing Deuteronomy in a different category from the other four books of the Pentateuch, then his research is indeed groundbreaking because:
“[n]ever before has a proto-biblical book been unearthed” (Dershowitz 2021:71).
And, if Dershowitz is correct, one wonders how much the British
Museum would be prepared to pay for them today if they were ever to be located
again…
Further Reading
Kotzk Blog: 183) FASCINATING VIEWS CONCERENING THE AUTHORSHIP OF DEVARIM:
Kotzk Blog: 347) ABRAVANEL’S HYPOTHESIS:
Kotzk Blog: 342) HAYYUN’S HYPOTHESIS: DANCING BETWEEN THE LINES:
[1]
Dershowitz, I., 2021, The Valediction of Moses: A Proto-Biblical Book, Mohr
Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany.
[2]
Guthe, H., 1883, Fragmente einer Lederhandschrift enthaltend Mose’s letzte
Rede an die Kinder Israel, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 21 (Translation
by Dershowitz).
[3]
See Kotzk
Blog: 193) DANIEL BOMBERG –THE STORY BEHIND THE TZURAS HADAF:
And Kotzk
Blog: 221) R. ELIYAHU HABACHUR – TEACHING KABBALAH TO CARDINALS?
[4]
Archibald H. Sayce, A.H., 1883, ‘Correspondence: The Shapira Mss. of
Deuteronomy’, The Academy 589, 116–17, at 117.
[5]
8 Solomon Zeitlin, S., 1949, ‘The Alleged Antiquity of the Scrolls’, Jewish
Quarterly Review, 40, no. 1 57–78, at 67.
[6]
Gross, A, 1993, ‘Rabbi Joseph ben Abraham Hayyun: Leader of the Lisbon Jewish
Community and His Literary Work’, Bar Ilan University Press, Ramat Gan.
[7]
See Rashbam on Gen. 1:1, 5, 27; 19:37; 37:2; Num. 24:14; 30:2–3; Deut. 2:5.
[8]
Stone Edition of The Chumash, ArtScroll Series, 1993, 938 -9.
[9]
“V” represents what Dershowitz calls the Valediction of Moses = the Shapira
fragments.
A Hebrew book was just printed on the subject. https://www.sefer.org.il/items/7195817-%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%96%D7%99%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%9F-%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A8-%D7%91%D7%A8-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%9F
ReplyDeleteThank you Yossie.
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