The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception

Yadin, Yigael, 12, 23-4, 25, 26, 31, 64-5,142, 233

Zealots, xv, xvi, 167,194,199, 200, 204-7, 208, 211-17, 219-20;

and the Qumran community, 69, 70, 171

Praise for THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS DECEPTION

“An engrossing read…. A racy tale of archaeological sins, religious bigotry, academic megalomania, misconduct and possible criminality, along with bizarre political intrigue.”

—Antiquity (U.K.)

“Crystalline, well-documented… Baigent and Leigh advance startling theories that should change the way we view ancient Judaism and nascent Christianity…”

—Publishers Weekly

“A wonder of savage detail…The reading of the archaeological, historical and analytic-textual evidence is always ingenious.”

—John Leonard, New York Newsday

“Not for the theologically faint of heart.”

—Chicago Tribune

About the Authors

Michael Baigent graduated from Canterbury University, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Richard Leigh followed his degree from Tufts University with postgraduate studies at the University of Chicago and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Together the authors have also written Holy Blood, Holy Grail; The Messianic Legacy; and The Temple and the Lodge. Both writers live in England.

Cover design by Francine Kass

Cover photograph courtesy of APA Videworld Photos

A Touchstone Book

Published by Simon & Schuster

New York

By the Same Authors

THE HOLY BLOOD AND THE HOLY GRAIL

(with Henry Lincoln)

THE MESSIANIC LEGACY

(with Henry Lincoln)

THE TEMPLE AND THE LODGE

Copyright

A TOUCHSTONE BOOK

Published by Simon & Schuster

New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore

Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10020

Copyright © 1991 by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Touchstone Edition 1993

TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks

of Simon & Schuster Inc. Manufactured in the United States of America

9 10 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Baigent, Michael.

The Dead Sea scrolls deception / by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Dead Sea scrolls—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—History. 2. Dead Sea scrolls—Relation to the New Testament. I. Leigh, Richard. II. Title.

BM487.B26 1991

296.1’55—dc20 91-41879

CIP

ISBN: 0-671-73454-7

ISBN: 0-671-79797-2 (pbk)

,

NOTES

1

‘Scrollery’ was a large room containing some twenty trestle tables where scroll fragments were pressed under sheets of glass. Photographs dating from the 1950s show a complete and appalling lack of any environmental control for the material, much of which was already deteriorating. Windows are open, for example, curtains blowing in the breeze. No attempt has been made to exclude heat, humidity, wind, dust or direct sunlight. It is all a far cry from the conditions in which the scrolls are housed today. They are now in a basement room, under a special amber light. Temperature and humidity are rigorously controlled. Each fragment is held between sheets of thin silk stretched in perspex frames.

2

For an outline of Eisenman’s remarks, see Chapter 10, Science in the Service of Faith.