[First version: 17 August, 2017]
| No. | Content | Designations |
Asking price |
Purchase price Dealer/seller ➤ Collector/buyer |
| 1 | Gen 13:1–3 | 2003: $250,000 for 4 frgs: Gen 13:1–3; “Genesis 22”; Isa 24:16–17; Isa 26:19–27:1 (William Kando) | ||
| 2 | Words from Genesis 22 | dss01 “Genesis Midrash” |
2003: $250,000 for 4 frgs: Gen 13:1–3; “Genesis 22”; Isa 24:16–17; Isa 26:19–27:1 (William Kando) 2004: $680,000 (William Noah & James Ferrell?) |
|
| 7 | Gen 37:26–38 | “Butterfly fragment” | 1965–66: $ 20.000–30.000 (Weston W. Fields 2011)2008: $1.2 million (Amir Ganor according to Daniel Estrin 2013)
2011: €30 millon (James H. Charlesworth to Hershel Shanks 2011); $42 millon (lowered from 50 million) 2013: upwards of £26 million (Lee Biondi according to Mike Parker 2013); $40 millon (Jerry Pattengale according to Estrin 2013); $35 millon (Randall Price according to Melissa Barnhart 2013) ?: the Kando family was offered $50 million, but turned it down (Bruce H. Porter 2016) ?: William Kando said he was offered $40 millon by Steve Green, but “refused”; $40 millon (Steve Green) [Robert Draper 2018] |
|
| 16 | Exod 18:6–8 [Tigchelaar: Hab 2:1–3?] |
APU1 DSS F.151 (Unid) [earlier: DDS F.Exod1] |
Feb 2009: $145,000 (Michael R. Thompson, Booksellers) [PaleoJudaica.com] | 2009: $1,38 million (total price of fragments APU1–5; Kipp Davis, “Cave of Dispute: Patterns of Correspondence and Suspicion in the Post-2002 ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ Fragments,” DSD 24.2 [2017]: 229–70 [237 n.22])
William Kando ➤ Lee Biondi ➤ |
| 19 | Lev 10:4–7 | APU2 DSS F.152 (Lev1) |
2009: $1,38 millon (total price of fragments APU1–5; Davis, “Cave of Dispute,” 237 n.22)
William Kando ➤ Lee Biondi ➤ |
|
| 21 | Lev 20:24, 18:28–30 | Dearing Fragment DSS F.162 (Lev2) |
“That scroll fragment includes passages from chapters 18 and 20 concerning the laws of sexual morality, and carried a special price tag because of the text’s significance” [Bruce McCoy, SWBTS] | “[a] family said it donated $500,000 for the purchase” |
| 19 | Lev 23:38–39 | ArugLev frg. a | $20,000 for ArugLev frg. a–c | 2005: $3000 for ArugLev frg. a–c
Beduin ➤ Hanan Eshel |
| 24–25 | Lev 23:40–44, 24:16–19 | ArugLev frg. b-c | See above | See above |
| ? | A Deuteronomy frg | “… a well-known professor in Jerusalem offered to facilitate the sale of a Deuteronomy fragment to a U.S. dealer for $250,000.” [Estrin 2013] | ||
| 33 | Deut 8:2–5 | APU3 DSS F.153 (Deut1) |
2009: $1,38 million (total price of fragments APU1–5; Davis, “Cave of Dispute,” 237 n.22)
William Kando ➤ Lee Biondi ➤ |
|
| 38 | Deut 27:4–6 | APU4 DSS F.154 (Deut2) |
“insured for more than $900,000″ (Alison Stanton, “Dead Sea Scrolls fragment finds home in Sun City,” The Northwest Valley Republic, Weekend ed., 21 April [2007]), 32)* | 2009: $1,38 million (total price of fragments APU1–5, Davis, “Cave of Dispute,” 237 n.22)
William Kando (?) ➤ Legacy Ministries International ➤ |
| 55 | Neh 3:14–15 | MS 5426 DSS F.122 (Neh1) |
“well into six figures” (Greatsite.com) | |
| 58 | Ps 11:1–3 | 2004: partial donation from Ferrini (Jenkins 2004)
William Kando ➤ Bruce Ferrini ➤ Ashland Theological Seminary |
||
| 59 | Ps 22:4, 6–9, 11–13 | Patterson Fragment DSS F.165 (Ps1) |
3 Sept 2010: A gift
William Kando ➤ Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary |
|
| 64 | Isa 24:16–17 | dss04 | 2003: $250,000 for 4 frgs: Gen 13:1–3; “Genesis 22”; Isa 24:16–17; Isa 26:19–27:1 (William Kando)
2004: $470,000 (William Noah & James Ferrell?) |
|
| 65 | Isa 26:19–27:1 | dss02 | 2003: $250,000 for 4 frgs: Gen 13:1–3; “Genesis 22”; Isa 24:16–17; Isa 26:19–27:1 (William Kando)
2004: $580,000 (William Noah & James Ferrell?) |
|
| 69 | Jer 24:6–7 (Eshel & Eshel 2007) Jer 48:29–31 (Puech?; Charlesworth 2010) |
DSS F.156 (Jer3) | Feb 2008: $285,000 (Michael Sharpe Rare & Antiquarian Books) | |
| 71 | Dan 5:13–16 | APU5 DSS F.155 (Dan1) |
Feb 2009: $275,000 (Michael R. Thompson, Booksellers) [PaleoJudaica.com] | 2009: $1,38 million (total price of fragments APU1–5, Davis, “Cave of Dispute,” 237 n.22)
William Kando ➤ Lee Biondi ➤ |
| 85 | 1 En. 8:4–9:3 | MS 4612/12 DSS F.125 (En2) |
2009: 700 000 NOK
William Kando ➤ Schøyen Collection |
|
| 93 | Unidentified | The Loveless fragment DSS F.168 (Text1) |
3 Sept 2010: A gift William Kando ➤ Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary |
|
| Scraps | Unidentified (Greek and/or Hebrew letters?) | “3 frgs plus 2 frag. sets, totaling 15 frgs” | 2016: $1 million (Les Enluminures) |
Mike Parker, «Israel furious over Dead Sea Scroll fragment sold in private deals.» Express 2 June 2013:
“A California-based antiquities expert says he has already brokered 15 to 20 private deals for the scraps, some no bigger than a postage stamp, for the Palestinian family that found them.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express, Santa Barbara-based dealer Lee Biondi revealed: ‘Most of what I have sold is in the $400,000 to $600,000 (£263,000 to £394,000) range.’
‘There are many much smaller pieces available, some as small as a quarter-of-an-inch square that might be bought for much less, say somewhere between $10,000 to $12,000 (£6,577 to £7,893).’”
* Thanks to David Bradnick, who sent me a copy of this article
The Lying Pen of Scribes 
[…] Årstein. “The Post-2002 DSS-like Fragments: A Price List.” Lyingpen.com, 17 […]
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[…] The Post-2002 DSS-like Fragments: A Price List – The Lying Pen of Scribes The Lying Pen of Scribes […]
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I am the owner of the company listed as Number 41 on your list above
(GREATSITE.COM – Online Showroom of The Bible Museum),
and I know or have dealt with most of the other people on the list.
What is this website and list all about? Why the accusatory title
“The Lying Pen of Scribes”? Are you accusing any of these dealers
of being frauds or selling materials that are not genuine?
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Dear John Jeffcoat,
Thank you for your comment. The website belongs to an interdisciplinary research project (the Lying Pen of Scribes) dealing with modern manuscript forgeries, situated at the University of Agder in Norway. There is a robust consensus among Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Nehemiah 3-fragment posted on your website is a modern forgery. See for instance:
https://michaellanglois.fr/en/publications/neuf-fragments-de-manuscrits-de-la-mer-morte-douteux-apparus-au-xxie-siecle and https://www.academia.edu/34891469/_Nine_Dubious_Dead_Sea_Scroll_Fragments_from_the_21th_Century_Dead_Sea_Discoveries_24_2_2017_189_228
We were a bit surprised to find this fragment on Greatsite.com since it, according to our knowledge, was acquired by a Norwegian collector already in 2009.
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We briefly offered to broker the sale of this material many years ago.
I never personally had possession of any of it, and I never sold any of it,
and after being offered on our website briefly, it was completely removed
from our website years ago. So, our involvement in this mater is
peripheral and very much minimal and confined to a brief time
many years ago.
This is the first we have heard of anyone claiming that material
is not genuine, and I am shocked to hear that, though I am not
qualified to make any assessment regarding its nature.
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A few yrs ago it was brought to my attention that there was a small group of American businessmen who had set up a company for investors in which money invested would be then used to buy DSS scrolls which would then later be resold to the highest bidder. What ever happened to that idea? Did they succeed? .
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Dear Joe Zias, do you remember the name of the company? Could it be The American Judeo-Christian Heritage Foundation (later The Artifact Research & Translation Foundation)? I don’t think it is around anymore. Its mission was “To purchase, translate, display and promote the last remaining Dead Sea Scrolls (DDS) and other early Christian manuscripts.” James Charlesworth and Bruce Porter seem to have played a central part in this. See further https://web.archive.org/web/20161004142424/http://scrolls.us/
All the best,
Årstein Justnes
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[…] the early days have distanced themselves from this fragment. In an exchange from December 2017 in the comments on the Lying Pen site, the owner of Greatsite.com, John Jeffcoat, posed some questions and offered […]
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