A gripping account of one man s quest to find the world s oldest bible, and to solve the riddle of the man accused of forging it
In
the summer of 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira archaeological treasure
hunter, inveterate social climber, and denizen of Jerusalem s bustling
marketplace arrived unannounced in London claiming to have discovered
the world s oldest Bible scroll. Written centuries earlier in the barren
plains east of the Dead Sea and stashed away in caves, the mysterious
scrolls called into question the divine authorship of the scriptures,
taking three thousand years of religious faith and turning them upside
down. When news of the discovery leaked to the excited English press,
Shapira became a household name. But before the British Museum could
acquire them, Shapira s nemesis, French archaeologist Charles
Clermont-Ganneau, denounced his find as a fraud. Humiliated, Shapira
fled the country. Six months later he was dead.
With the discovery
of the eerily similar Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, investigators reopened
the case, wondering whether the ill-fated merchant had, in fact,
discovered the first Dead Sea Scroll, decades before the rest. But by
then Shapira s scrolls had vanished.
Tigay, award-winning
journalist and son of a renowned Bible scholar, set out to find the
scrolls and determine Shapira s guilt or innocence for himself. The
globetrotting hunt that follows vibrates with the suspense of a classic
detective tale. Weaving meticulous research into fast-paced
storytelling, Tigay spins a remarkable tale of history and theology;
intrigue and scandal; greed, ambition, and the struggle for
authenticity. With a brilliant eye for detail, Tigay takes us from
restricted storerooms at the Louvre to musty English attics to a flooded
Jordanian gorge and to the German countryside where he meets Shapira s
aggrieved descendants.
At once historical drama and modern-day
mystery, The Lost Book of Moses brings to life nineteenth-century London
and Jerusalem and a cast of rogues, reverends, and relic hunters at
whose center sits Moses Wilhelm Shapira, a flamboyant, ingenious, and
ultimately tragic personality.