Angel Scroll. Real Dead Sea Find or Hoax?

The Dead Sea Scrolls are intriguing. These scraps of ancient text written on papyrus and animal skins stored in jars that date back to the time of Jesus were first found in the caves in the Judea Desert by a young Bedouin shepherd. The initial find kicked off a ten-year search for scroll fragments in eleven caves, as well as the excavation of the Qumran ruin, a complex of structures between the cliffs where the caves are and the Dead Sea, located in Israel and Jordan, 15 miles east of Jerusalem. The Dead Sea scrolls were a sensational archeological find, and then in 1999 came this from the AP in Jerusalem about a more recently recovered text called The Angel Scroll:

”A religious text that has mysteriously surfaced in Israel and is being billed as one of the "lost" Dead Sea Scrolls uses some of the same phrases and imagery as the other 2000-year-old writings, a scholar said Monday after studying excerpts. But it's too soon to say whether the "Angel Scroll" parchment, which describes a believer's trip through the heavens, is a major find that will shed new light on Jewish mysticism and the origins of Christianity, or an elaborate hoax, said Stephen Pfann, president of the University of the Holy Land. The story of the Angel Scroll is shrouded in mystery. Rumors have circulated for years among scholars in the Holy Land that one of the scrolls - the religious writings of the Essenes found in caves near the Dead Sea between 1947 and 1954 - made its way to an antiquities dealer in one of the nearby Arab capitals.”

Since those early reports, however, scholars have increasingly dismissed claims that this new parchment exists, saying they rest on flimsy, unverifiable evidence. Real or false, the idea of a newly surfaced historical artifact became the jumping-off point for The Angel Scroll novel.

Check out more on the fascinating story of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the alleged Angel Scroll, and the amazing secrets they reveal about the Essenes, Jesus, and the early Christian church.