NY Case Spotlights Dead Sea Scrolls, Fake E-mails

JENNIFER PELTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — Students and university officials started getting e-mails last year in which a prominent Judaic studies scholar seemed to make a startling confession: He had committed plagiarism.

The messages, it turned out, were a hoax. Prosecutors filed criminal charges, saying a lawyer sent the messages to tarnish the professor, his father's rival.

The court case has drawn attention to issues both ancient (the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and decidedly modern (phony online identities).

On Wednesday, a defense attorney asked a judge to throw out most of the charges, saying they put parodies, pranks and freewheeling Internet discussion at risk.

The more than 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1940s in Israel and include the earliest known version of portions of the Hebrew Bible. They have shed important light on Judaism and the beginnings of Christianity.

Their origin is the subject of an insular, but notoriously heated, academic debate.

Many scholars say the scrolls were assembled by an ancient Jewish group, the Essenes. Others, including University of Chicago professor Norman Golb, say the writings were the work of a range of Jewish sects and communities.