“Much Clean Paper for Little Dirty Paper”: The Market for Dead Sea Scrolls in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Since 2002, more than 100 “new” Dead Sea Scrolls fragments have surfaced on the antiquities market. They were launched with great stories and soon became big business. In this study, we analyze the market for post-2002 fragments. After a detailed chronological overview of the sales over the last 20 years, we discuss some of the most essential questions related to these sales: How did a market arise for Dead Sea Scrolls in the twenty-first century? What made some fragments especially attractive? How much money has been spent in total? Where did these new fragments come from? We argue that the post-2002 “saga” reads first and foremost as a story about Christian Dead Sea Scrolls.