The Shapira Scrolls: Authentic or Forged?

The Shapira Scrolls, Authentic or Forged, published by the Biblical Archaeology Society in Biblical Archaeology Review in 2021, summarizes the 1883 forgery verdict against dealer Moses Shapira's purported ancient Deuteronomy manuscript, its revival as a live scholarly question following a 2021 reexamination, and the opposing analyses of scholars Idan Dershowitz and Matthieu Richelle on the manuscript's authenticity. Its strength is that Biblical Archaeology Review presents both sides of a genuinely reopened scholarly dispute rather than treating the 1883 verdict as beyond question, giving space to the case for authenticity as well as the case against it. Its limit is that the manuscript itself no longer survives to be tested directly, having been lost after Shapira's death, so the entire modern debate works from copies, drawings and secondhand descriptions rather than the physical object, a limit no source on this question, including this one, can overcome.