By Årstein Justnes and Ludvik A. Kjeldsberg
Most of the post-2002 Dead Sea Scrolls-like fragments come with stories. The following list presents information that we have been able to gather about their alleged provenance.
The list is organized chronologically, starting with the first frgs surfacing in 2002–3 and ending with frgs that have been “launched” recently.
| Text(s) and Frg(s) | Provenance | Source |
| William Kando’s post-2002 fragments | “The fragments in the Zurich vault were purchased from the family of a relative in Lebanon, Kando said.
‘They were found in a box by a professor who checked them for my father. This was in 1966. My father kept the box with a cousin in Lebanon and then when the [civil] war in Lebanon began my cousin went to Europe. After the death of my father and after the cousin also died, we gave the money to his family and we got back all the fragments [from the box] and kept them in Switzerland. I think there are now 28 pieces left.’” |
Peter Beaumont and Oliver Laughland, “Trade in Dead Sea Scrolls awash with suspected forgeries, experts warn,” The Guardian, 21 November 2017 |
| “In 1967, during the Arab-Israeli Six Day War, Israeli intelligence officers seized the Temple Scroll from Kando’s home, claiming it as government property. After the incident Kando reportedly started furtively moving his remaining scroll fragments to relatives in Lebanon and later to a bank vault in Switzerland.” | Robert Draper, “Inside the cloak-and-dagger search for sacred texts,” National Geographic, 27 November 2018 | |
| Craig Lampe’s seven fragments | “William Kando . . . [said] that he sold seven fragments in that year [2002] to a man named Craig Lampe and that he thinks some of those fragments later went to a ‘library in California’ . . .” | Owen Jarus, “28 Dead Sea Scroll fragments sold in the U.S.,” Livescience.com/CBS News, 3 April 2017 |
| Am 3:4–5 | “Ca 150 BC.”
“This fragment was found in Cave 4 in 1952 by a bedouin family, who sold it to a Bethlehem antiquities dealer known as Kando. It remained in the hands of the Kando family in Switzerland until 2002. From 2002 to 2004 it was held by a private collector in the United States. It was bought by another collector – the present owner – in 2004.” |
“The Living Legacy Online Gallery”. Thomas Nelson, 2013. |
| Gen 13:1–3 (“8QGen”)
Words from Genesis 22 (“4QpsJubb [4Q226] frg 6a 1–4″) Isa 24:16–17 (“4QIsab [4Q56] frg. 16a 1–2”) Isa 26:19–27:1 (“4QIsab (4Q56) frg. 20a 1–5”) |
“These fragments that came to Europe in the beginning of the sixties were in Lebanon with Mr. Moussa Al-Tawil for safekeeping” (Statement to whom it may concern). | Eibert Tigchelaar, “A Provisional List of Unprovenanced, Twenty-First Century, Dead Sea Scrolls-like Fragments,” DSD 24 (2017): This specific statement of which I have a copy, refers to the fragments that were published by Esther and Hanan Eshel as frgs. 2–5 in DSD 12, was signed by (William) Kando and dated Jerusalem 6 October 2002.” |
| “. . . appear to have originated in Cave 4 at Qumran.” | Esther Eshel and Hanan Eshel, “New Fragments from Qumran: 4QGenf, 4QIsab, 4Q226, 8QGen, and XQpapEnoch,” DSD 12 (2005): 134–57, at 135 | |
| Gen 13:1–3 (“8QGen”) |
“. . . seems to come from Cave 8 (8QGen); this is because Cave 8 was discovered by Roland de Vaux himself (and not by Bedouin), leading to the conjecture that the fragment in question was stolen by one of his workers.” | Hanan Eshel, “Gleaning of Scrolls from the Judean Desert,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context, ed. Charlotte Hempel, STDJ 90 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 49–87, at 73–74. Cf. also note 107: “One cannot rule out the possibility that this fragment was stolen from the Rockefeller Museum, but because it was not photographed, it seems more likely that it was stolen in the field and not at a later stage.” |
| Ps 11:1–3 | “Through the generosity of two donors, the Ashland Theological Seminary has received a manuscript fragment on leather from the Dead Sea Scrolls . . . The fragment had been in a private collection and can be traced to the Kando family in Bethlehem . . .” | “ATS Acquires Artifacts,” ATS Koinonia, January (2005): 4. Quoted by Eshel, “Gleaning of Scrolls from the Judean Desert,” 74 note 110. |
| “. . . was purchased from the private collection of a European Roman Catholic priest” | Nick Johnson, “Ancient items, modern wonder,” St.Petersburg Times, 12 August (2007) | |
| 1 En. 8:4–9:3 DSS F.125 |
“Though this fragment was undoubtedly found at Qumran, there is no way to identify the cave from which it came.” |
Esther Eshel and Hanan Eshel, “A New Fragment of the Book of the Watchers from Qumran (XQpapEnoch),” Tarbiz 73 (2004): 171–79 (V) |
| Exod 3:9–10 [=16:10]; 3:13–15; 5:9–14 DSS F.103–105 [these frgs were sold as one scroll] |
1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (ca. 30 BC/20 AD–68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 (68–1952); 3. Khalil Iskander Shahin (“Kando”), Bethlehem (1952–65), Lebanon (1965–69), Zürich (1969-93); 4. Private collection, Switzerland (1993–2001) |
Martin Schøyen, The Schøyen Collection: Short Description Catalogue: Dead Sea Scroll material (not dated) |
| Deut 6:1–2 DSS F.108 |
1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (30 BC–68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 (68–1952); 3. Khalil Iskander Shahin (“Kando”), Bethlehem (1956–72); 4. American priest, later serving in Switzerland (1972–95) |
Schøyen, Catalogue |
| 2 Sam 20:22–24 DSS F.114 |
1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (ca. 30 BC–68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 or 11 (68–1956); 3. Khalil Iskander Shahin (“Kando”), Bethlehem (1956–72); 4. American priest, later serving in Switzerland (1972–95) |
Schøyen, Catalogue |
| Ps 9:8–13 DSS F.118 |
1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (ca. 30 BC–68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 or 11 (68-1956); 3. Khalil Iskander Shahin (“Kando”), Bethlehem (1956–72); 4. American priest, later serving in Switzerland (1972–95) |
Schøyen, Catalogue |
| “As for the small fragments of 2 Samuel (MS 5233/1), Psalms (MS 5233/2), and Deuteronomy (MS 5214/1) . . . , they were bought from the Bedouin in 1952–56, and William Kando states that he was reasonably sure they came from Cave 4. His father sold them to an American priest in 1972, who later served in Switzerland. His heirs in Zurich offered them for sale, with the provision that his name to be kept confidential.” | Martin Schøyen, “Acquisition and Ownership History: A Personal Reflection,” in Gleanings from the Caves: Dead Sea Scrolls and Artefacts in The Schøyen Collection, ed. Torleif Elgvin, with Kipp Davis and Michael Langlois (LSTS 71; London: T&T Clark, 2016), 27–32, at 29 | |
| Tob 14:2–3 DSS F.123 |
1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (ca. 1–68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 or 11 (68–1956); 3. Khalil Iskander Shakin (“Kando”), Bethlehem (1956–1972); 4. Private collection, Switzerland (1972–2003) |
The Schøyen Collection [homepage], “12. Dead Sea Scrolls” [captured 11 March 2004] |
| 1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (ca 50 BC–68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 (68–1956); 3. Khalil Iskander Shakin (“Kando”), Bethlehem (1956–1972); 4. Private collection, Switzerland (1972–2003) |
The Schøyen Collection [homepage], “12. Dead Sea Scrolls” [captured 26 April 2004] | |
| 1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (ca. 50 BC–68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 (68–1956); 3. Khalil Iskander Shahin (“Kando”), Bethlehem (1956–72); 4. American priest, later serving in Switzerland (1972–95) |
The Schøyen Collection [homepage], “12. Dead Sea Scrolls” [captured 17 June 2004] | |
| “Bevor dieses Fragment im Januar 2001 durch die Schøyen Collection erworben wurde, war es von 1956-1972 zunächst im Besitz von Khalil Iskander Shahin (“Kando”), Betlehem, von 1972-1995 dann im Besitz eines nich näher genannten amerikanischen Priesters, der später in der Schweiz tätig war, von 1995-2001 schliesslich im Besitz der Kando-Familie und wurde in Zürich aufbewahrt.” | Michaela Hallermayer and Torleif Elgvin, “Schøyen ms. 5234: Ein Neues Tobit-Fragment vom Toten Meer,” RevQ 22/87 (2006): 451–61, at 452. | |
| “. . . fragments in Hebrew on brown leather, beginning of a scroll with characters in a fine Herodian Hebrew Book Script” | Provenance: 1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran, late 1st Century B.C. – 68 A.D. 2. Qumran Cave 4, 68 AD – 1952. 3. Khalil Iskander Shakin (“Kando”), Bethlehem, 1952-1956. 4. Private Collection, Switzerland, 1956 – 2003. 5. Private Collection, 2003 – 2006. 6. Special Visit Ministry 2007 -. |
specialvisit.org |
| “[Rev. Thom] Miller said one of the fragments was anonymously donated to the [Special Visit] ministry and the other was on loan from a group of physicians from New Jersey.” | Nick Johnson, “Ancient items, modern wonder,” St.Petersburg Times, 12 August 2007 | |
| Gen 31:23–25?, 32:3–6 DSS F.191 |
“Today James Charlesworth presented an image of a fragment (in two parts) that he acquired on 25 October 2006. He said it had been in Zurich since the 50’s and reportedly came from Kando. . . . JC believes it was found in the caves of the Dead Sea region. He wants scholars to report that he has tried to prove that it is a fake and he has been unable to so he asserts that it is authentic. He also announced that he has acquired another 30 DSS fragments.” | Christian Brady, “New Genesis Text from the Judaean Desert,” Targuman, 17 July 2007. Cf. also James H. Charlesworth, “35 Scrolls Still in Private Hands,” BAR 33.5 (2007): 60–63, at 62: “As long as 10 years ago I knew of more than 35 Dead Sea Scrolls that are still in private hands, purchased decades earlier. I published two of them in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert and will soon announce the recovery of a fragment of Genesis.” |
| “. . . previously . . . the property of the book dealer Michael Sharpe” | Jim Davila, “OKC ‘Passages’ exhibition Dead Sea Scroll,” PaleoJudaica, 19 July 2011 | |
|
“Michael Sharpe, a book collector formerly based in Pasadena, California, sold one Dead Sea Scroll piece to Green in February 2010. In a Thursday interview with National Geographic, Sharpe expressed shock and disbelief that the piece he had sold—and that he had bought earlier for his own collection—was inauthentic. . . .
Sharpe acquired the piece, a fragment of Genesis, in a deal brokered by Tennessee-based physician and exhibit curator William Noah. According to Noah, the piece originally belonged to the late manuscript dealer Bruce Ferrini, who fell into bankruptcy after clients and business partners—including Noah—sued Ferrini over allegations that he had defrauded them.
In the fallout, Noah acquired Ferrini’s pieces and notified the Kando family, who agreed to sell the fragments at a discount to Noah and Sharpe.
Noah and Sharpe both say that leading scholars threw their support behind the fragments. Records provided by Nat Des Marais, Sharpe’s former business partner, say that Dead Sea Scrolls scholar James Charlesworth, who retired from the Princeton Theological Seminary in 2019, helped validate the Genesis fragment’s authenticity.”
“In an email, Charlesworth noted that when he described the fragment to other scholars in the past, he reported that it was probably authentic but not from the same time and place as the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran. But after another look at a picture of the fragment, Charlesworth voiced fresh skepticism. ‘I am bothered by the handwriting; it now seems to be suspicious,’ he says. Charlesworth also says he has seen pieces of blank, ancient leather in circulation. ‘In the past, when I told the Bedouin that a piece was worthless because it had no writing, I inadvertently suggested how to make it valuable,’ he says.”
|
Michael Greshko, “Exclusive: ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ at the Museum of the Bible Are All Forgeries,” National Geographic, 13 March 2020 (original article). | |
|
“Sharpe
In the fallout, Noah acquired two fragments in Ferrini’s
Noah attempted to return the fragments to the Kando family, but the Kandos instead agreed to sell the fragments at a discount to Noah and Sharpe. According to Noah, the transaction is how Kando and Sharpe met. Years later, Kando directly sold to Sharpe the larger Genesis fragment that made its way to the Museum of the Bible.
|
Michael Greshko, “Exclusive: ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ at the Museum of the Bible Are All Forgeries,” National Geographic, 13 March 2020. Updated version 14 March. Deleted text is |
|
| Jer 48:29–31a DSS F.156 |
“Most likely from Cave 4 . . . Translation by James Charlesworth, Chairman of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project at Princeton Theological Seminary . . . This fragment, previously unknown, has also been examined by Hanan Eshel, Chairman of Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv, and Emile Puech, Chief of Dead Sea Scroll Project at Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem . . .”
|
Michael Sharpe Rare & Antiquarian Books: Book 1, February 2008 |
|
“The provenience is the same as almost all the fragments in the Shrine of the Book. Thus, there is ample reason to assume that this piece of leather and the ink is genuine and from Qumran.”
“This portion of a Dead Sea Scrolls was given to the Foundation on Judaism and Christian Origins by Michael Sharpe, a rare book collector
and dealer in Pasadena, California.”
|
James H. Charlesworth, “Jeremiah 48:29-31a [Provisional Research Report],” May (2010): 1–3, at 2–3 | |
| Deut 27:4–6 DSS F.154 |
“The Arab who formerly owned the fragment belongs to the family through whom the Dead Sea Scrolls have come to scholars. He claims it is from Qumran Cave IV.”“The fragment . . . was among at least forty unknown Qumran fragments that I have examined in Europe; some of them are with those who are now making them available to all. These fragments were sent out of Israel in the l950s and l960s. They were selected by the Arabs for saving because of their importance, according to experts like Roland de Vaux.” | James H. Charlesworth, “What Is a Variant? Announcing a Dead Sea Scrolls Fragment of Deuteronomy,” Maarav 16 (2009): 201–12, at 205 |
| “This popular publication announces the recovery of a Dead Sea Scroll. Along with approximately 40 other Dead Sea Scroll fragments, some relatively large, it was taken from the Holy Land to Europe by Arabs, notably those related to the man who served as mediator between the Bedouin who found the Dead Sea Scrolls and scholars who proved their antiquity and edited the early discoveries. The fragments were taken to Europe, often through Lebanon, in the sixties (whether before or after the so-called Six-Day War I am unable to ascertain).. . . Most of them [the Dead Sea Scrolls] were sold and subsequently hailed as the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times; others (unknown to most specialists on the Dead Sea Scrolls) were hidden and taken to Europe before or after some of the wars between the Arabs and the Israelis. Why? These fragments had been judged in the 1950s and 1960s as the most valuable biblical texts, according to internationally renowned biblical scholars who lived in Jerusalem. The Arabs wanted to reserve the Dead Sea Scrolls for economically challenging times and sell them for millions of dollars.” | James H. Charlesworth, “The Discovery of an Unknown Dead Sea Scroll: The Original Text of Deuteronomy 27?” OWU Magazine (Summer 2012) | |
| Neh 3:14–15 DSS F.122 |
“The one who had the fragment since the sixties reports that it is from Qumran Cave IV.” | James H. Charlesworth (20 July 2008) |
| 1. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (circa 30 BC–68 AD); 2. Qumran Cave 4 (A.D. 68–1952); 3. Bedouin discoverers to Khalil Iskander Shahin in Bethlehem. 4. Khalil Iskander Shahin to a private collector in France (1953–2004) 4. [sic!] Private collection, Switzerland (2004–6). Purchased and re-conserved by an American dealer in 2006. The item is guaranteed to be authentic, legally exported from the Middle East in the 1950s and legally imported into the United States. |
Greatsite.com (first captured 22 October 2008) | |
| Ex 18:6–8 DSS F.151 (APU 1) |
“Found at Qumran, on the Dead Sea, in Cave 4, some time between 1952 and 1956. The fragment itself dates between 150 BC – AD 68 (the Roman destruction of Qumran).” | Jim Davila, “Dead Sea Scrolls for Sale,” PaleoJudaica.com, 2 February 2009 [quoting from the blog of Michael R. Thomspon, Booksellers] |
| Dan 5:14–15 DSS F.155 (APU 5) |
“Found at Qumran, on the Dead Sea, in Cave 4, some time between 1952 and 1956. The fragment itself dates between 50 BC – AD 68 (the Roman destruction of Qumran).” | Davila, “Dead Sea Scrolls for Sale,” 2 Feb 2009 |
| The Azusa Pacific University frgs | “All five fragments are from Qumran Cave 4.” | Azusa Pacific University, “Dead Sea Scrolls Collection,” apu.edu |
| “Four of the fragments were obtained from Lee Biondi of Biondi Rare Books and Manuscripts in Venice, California. The fifth fragment came from Legacy Ministries International, a Phoenix, Arizona-based nonprofit committed to telling the story of the Bible and assembling artifacts, objects, Bibles, and documents tracing the history of Scripture.” | Azusa Pacific University, “Azusa Pacific University Acquires Five Dead Sea Scroll Fragments and Rare Biblical Artifacts,” apu.edu (3 September 2009) | |
| “[William] Kando told The Associated Press he was the source of all the fragments.” | Daniel Estrin, “Dead Sea Scroll fragments to hit the auction block,” Times of Israel, 25 May 2013 | |
| “Before Azusa Pacific University purchased the scroll fragments, the university received assurances from William Kando that the Kando family had owned those fragments in the past, [Robert] Duke said. . . . Duke said that he’s not certain if Azusa’s Dead Sea Scroll fragments were among those sold by the Kando family to [Craig] Lampe in 2002.” | Jarus, “28 Dead Sea Scroll fragments” | |
| Ps 11:1–4 DSS F.199 |
“The piece is from the Nahal Hever discovery in the Judean Desert. Circa AD 50–135.” | Lee Biondi, “Writing and the Mind of Man: from Origins to Alphabets,” Firsts: the Book Collector’s Magazine 20.2 (2010): 18–22, at 21. |
| Purchased from Dr. Craig Lampe in November 2009 | “A Journey for the Truth: Investigating the Recent Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments,” Museum of the Bible | |
| Gen 37:8 DSS F.102 |
1. The Temple, Jerusalem (ca. 170–100 BC); 2. Community of the Essenes, Qumran (ca. 100 BC–68 AD); 3. Qumran Cave 4 (68–1952); 4. Khalil Iskander Shahin (“Kando”), Bethlehem (1952–1965), Lebanon (1965–1969), Zürich (1969–93); 5. The Kando Family collection, Zürich (1993–2010), acquired May 2010. | PENTATEUCH DEAD SEA SCROLL (4QRPB), schoyencollection.com |
| “N’ayant sans doute pas repéré les quelques lettres difficilement lisibles, son propriétaire Alexander Shahin, alias Kando, avait négligé de montrer, dans les années 1950, aux membres de la première équipe un fragment de cuir. À l’occasion d’une de mes premières rencontres lors de mon entrée dans l’équipe d’édition en 1974, Kando me montra des petits bouts de cuir dont l’un se révéla inscrit portant quelques lettres. Nous remercions William Kando, son fils, de nours en confier la publication.” | Emile Puech, “Un nouveau fragment 7a de 4QGn-Exa = 4QGen-Ex 1 et quelques nouvelles lectures et identifications du manuscrit 4Q1,” RevQ 25/97 (2011): 103–11, at 103 |
|
| Gen 37:26–38 (“Butterfly frg”) | [41:37-45:14]: “Now here was a situation, where Kando was broke, Palestine Museum was broke, and they found these big pieces from Cave 11 and Kando couldn’t buy’em from the Bedouin. He was able to get a hold of Psalms and Paleo-Leviticus and Targum of Job because they were smaller, but the Temple Scroll he couldn’t touch. So, he thought about it, and now I’m going by the family tradition, that’s been told to me by William, and he came up with a solution, OK? His solution was to go to a cousin of his who was living in Germany and borrow some money. But of course if he was going to borrow money he would have to give collateral. And he had a big pice of Genesis from Cave 4, three columns, twenty-two lines at a column, Genesis 37, that he had not sold to the Palestine Archeological Museum. Now we don’t know that he ever offered it, but for some reason, he still had it. So, he sent this off to his cousin in Germany. The normal route was Jerusalem, Beirut, Cyprus, Zurich and then wherever in Europe after that. And so the cousin kept this collateral. Eventually, some years later, after the Israelis invaded the West Bank and took it over in 1967, including Bethlehem and East Jerusalem, the Six Day War […] Kando still had this Temple Scroll in his house. . . . Yadin knew about that. Yadin was by now no longer a general, but he had a of course influence in the Israeli army. So they put together a team of four Moussad members, twelve soldiers, and they went straight to Kando’s house and they took the Temple Scroll. He eventually was paid 110 000 dollar for that, but when he got the 110 000 dollar he thought, well, you know, why should I pay back my cousin? He has a scroll. I’ve got the case[?]. At that point the Genesis piece, I figure by prices at the time, was probably worth about 20 or 30 000 dollar. So, he just left that piece with the cousin in Germany and eventually it made its way to the vault and that’s where it’s been since 1965 or 1966.” | Weston Fields, “Dead Sea Scrolls: Significance of the Latest Developments,” YouTube (16 April 2011) |
| Ps 22:4, 6–9, 11–13 DSS F.165 |
[50:37-51:23]: “. . . last Tuesday when I was in Jerusalem I said to William [Kando], well, and I told him this story, again, just to remind him, and I said: ‘William, is it possible that the fragment that Southwestern Seminary just bought was in that box that your dad showed to Frank Cross in March of 1966 under that bridge in Beirut?’ And he said: ‘Yes, it’s possible.’ So, that gives you a clue, sorta to the root of a lot of these fragments. . . . probably from Beirut, to Cyprus, to Zurich, . . . , probably in 1966, just before the six day war, and we don’t have any idea how many there are.” | Fields, “Significance of the Latest Developments” |
| The Schøyen Collection of “Dead Sea Scrolls” as described 22 December 2011:
“. . . fragments from 29 scrolls (+ scraps of four more), twenty of these so far unpublished. 21 are biblical, some sectarian, five apocryphal or Enochic (including a fragment from an unknown Enoch-related text).” |
“Most of the fragments were found by the Bedouin in Cave 4, while 2–4 likely derive from Bar Kokhba caves.” | Torleif Elgvin, “News from the Schøyen Collection,” torleifelgvin.no [captured 12 January 2012] |
| The Schøyen frgs published in Gleanings from the Caves that were acquired between 2009–10:
Gen 36:7–16 Gen 37:8 Num 16:2–5 Deut 32:5–9 1 Sam 5:10–11 1 Kgs 16:23–26 Jer 3:15–19 |
“The remaining fragments published in this volume came from a distinguished family collection, which was based in Lebanon c. 1965–69. It was moved to Europe in 1969 and kept in Zurich from 1993. Nearly all these fragments were purchased from the Bedouin between 1952 and 1956 and were also believed to come from Cave 4. I know the identity of the owners of this family collection, but the family asked me to be so kind as not to reveal it, which I hereby honour.” | Schøyen, “Acquisition and Ownership History,” 30.
See also Gen 37:8 (DSS F.102) above |
| The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary frgs | “. . . Zurich, Switzerland, where the scroll fragments had been kept for decades in a vault at the UBS Bank. ‘Old Man Kando,’ as I affectionately remember him, being a shrewd businessman, had known that the time for taking any artifacts out of the country was short. He thus took fragments of the scrolls in his possession out of the country before the enactment of laws that would have prevented any such movement.” | Armour Patterson, Much Clean Paper for Little Dirty Paper: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Texas Musâwama (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012), 30 |
| Amos 7:17–8:1 DSS F.181 |
“Bought by Mr. Mark Lanier from the Kando family in 2013, their provenance according to the Kando family tradition is Qumran Cave 4. They are recorded here with all due caution as possibly deriving from that cave from which most Qumran fragments originated. However, the fragment could have come from any place . . .” | Emanuel Tov, “New Fragments of Amos,” DSD 21 (2014): 3–13, at 3 |
| The Museum of the Bible frgs | “Some of these fragments must have come from Qumran, probably Cave 4, while the others may have derived from other sites in the Judaean Desert. Unfortunately little is known about the provenance of these fragments because most sellers did not provide such information at the time of the sale.” | Emanuel Tov, “Introduction, Text Editions, the Collection of the Museum of the Bible, Textual and Orthographic Character, Relation to Other Fragments from the Judaean Desert,” in Dead Sea Scrolls Fragment, 3–18, at 5 |
| “Antiquities dealer William Kando told Live Science that he doesn’t know where the donated fragments originated.” | Owen Jarus, “25 New ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ Revealed,” Live Science, 10 October 2016 | |
| “The Green family has not disclosed the source of its 13 fragments, but the Guardian has established that almost half were bought from William Kando, and that Steve Green visited the Kandos’ vault in Zurich to view fragments.”“. . . he [William Kando] said he had sold seven fragments to Steve Green . . .” | Beaumont and Laughland, “Trade in Dead Sea Scrolls,” 21 Nov 2017 | |
| “‘Here, you can see,’ he [William Kando] says, pointing to a notation that he had sold seven Dead Sea Scroll fragments to Green in May 2010.” | Draper, “Inside the cloak-and-dagger search for sacred texts” (2018) | |
| Les Enluminures frgs (“the so-called ‘W’ fragments”) |
From “circa 50 B.C.E.–60 C.E.”“They were acquired by their American owner from the legal heirs of Khalil Iskander Shahin in 2002, and they are almost certainly from Cave IV.” | Sandra Hindman, “Unpublished and previously unknown fragments will be on exhibit in ‘2000 Years of Jewish Culture’,” Medieval text manuscripts Blog (3 November 2016) |
|
“Discovered by Bedouin and purchased by original purchaser Khalil Iskander Shahin of
Bethlehem on the West Bank.
He moved his collection to Beirut in the early 1960s and to Zurich in the late 1960s. Acquired by purchase from the legal heirs of Khalil Iskander Shahin in 2002. Unstudied and unmarketed until 2016.”
|
Les Enluminures press release from 3 November(?) 2016 | |
| “[Sandra] Hindman said she believes all 15 fragments were once in the collection of Bruce Ferrini, a collector in Ohio who died in 2010.Hindman said that her information indicates that the 15 fragments were originally sold by the Kando family in 2002 before being passed through a series of collectors. William Kando expressed concerns about this claim . . .” | Jarus, “28 Dead Sea Scroll fragments,” 3 April 2017 |
The Lying Pen of Scribes 
[…] than 70 pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been offered for sale on the antiquities market in the past two decades. It seems unlikely a criminal would produce and […]
LikeLike