The Lost Book of Moses

A gripping account of one man’s quest to find the world’s oldest Bible and learn about the brilliant, doomed antiquities dealer accused of forging it.

In 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira—archaeological treasure hunter, inveterate social climber, and denizen of Jerusalem’s bustling marketplace—arrived unannounced in London claiming to have discovered the world’s oldest Bible scroll in a desert cave east of the Dead Sea. With his phenomenal find, Shapira swiftly became world famous—but, just as quickly, his scroll was discredited as a clever forgery. With the discovery of the eerily similar Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, however, investigators reopened the case, wondering whether Shapira had, in fact, discovered the first Dead Sea Scroll, seven decades before the rest. Here, in a globetrotting narrative with all the suspense of a classic detective story, award-winning journalist Chanan Tigay sets out to find the scrolls and determine Shapira’s guilt or innocence for himself.