Q&A: Biblical Criticism
Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.
Biblical Criticism
Question
I would appreciate it if the Rabbi would address this article:
https://www.haaretz.co.il/magazine/the-edge/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-MAGAZINE-1.9626847
Answer
If there is a specific argument, you can raise it for discussion.
Discussion on Answer
To the esteemed M: It seems you did not read the Haaretz article, and perhaps not Dershowitz's thesis either. To claim that the thesis "was rejected by everyone" is simply a lie/error. Haaretz brings examples of people who support the thesis. Likewise, in his article, Dershowitz addresses your claims ("late script forms," etc.).
Unfortunately, this is nonsense. Shapira, the discoverer of the scrolls, had previously been involved in forgery affairs. The text itself contains quite a few signs of forgery. For example, the term "freedom" that appears in it is an anachronistic term. There are late spelling forms, verse changes that alter the clear logic underlying the original text (see, for example, the order of the geographical names, which is deliberately structured in the original), and many other errors. Dershowitz proposed this hallucination to the scholarly world already several years ago, and it was rejected by everyone. They're just hyping it up now because a popular book was published. From the standpoint of actual scholarship, this is baseless. Unfortunately, like every popular book, this will now become, in the eyes of people in the humanities who are unfamiliar with the discourse in academia and know only what the newspaper tells them, "the scholarly view" or an "innovative thesis," when in fact it's a familiar and refuted claim.