Shapira Scroll

The Shapira Scroll, also known as the Shapira Strips or Shapira Manuscript, was a set of leather strips inscribed in Paleo-Hebrew script. It was presented by Moses Wilhelm Shapira in 1883 as an ancient Bible-related artifact and almost immediately denounced by scholars as a forgery.

The scroll consisted of fifteen leather strips, which Shapira claimed had been found in Wadi Mujib (biblical Arnon) near the Dead Sea. The Hebrew text hinted at a different version of Deuteronomy, including the addition of a new line to the Ten Commandments: "You shall not hate your brother in your heart: I am God, your god."^[a] The text also lacks all laws except for the ten commandments, which it renders consistently^[b] in the first-person, from the standpoint of the deity. Scholars took little time to reject it as a fake, and the shame brought about by the accusation of forgery drove Shapira to suicide in 1884.

Shapira's widow had at least part of the scroll in 1884, which she sent to Konstantin Schlottmann [de]. The scroll reappeared a couple of years later in a Sotheby's auction, where it was sold for £10 5s to Bernard Quaritch, who later listed it for £25. Contemporary reports show Dr. Philip Brookes Mason displayed the "whole of" the scroll at a public lecture in Burton-on-Trent on March 8, 1889. The current whereabouts of the scroll, if it survives, are unknown.
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