Professor Tigay's Search for Answers About an Ancient Set of (Possibly Fake) Scrolls

TABLET MAGAZINE -- When he first began to probe the mystery behind these ancient scrolls, Tigay had no idea the search would require hundreds of hours of research and take him to nine countries. After four years, he finally saw physical evidence that granted him answers he had been seeking, close to home — in the library of San Francisco State University, the very place where he teaches Creative Writing. SF State housed a collection of manuscripts that had once belonged to Jerusalem-based 19th-century antiquities dealer Moses Wilhelm Shapira. Tigay didn’t immediately appreciate the significance of what he’d found. It wasn’t the scrolls themselves, but what he discovered ultimately suggested a conclusion to his quest to find what and where the scrolls were and how and why their owner had acquired them. This discovery gave Tigay a satisfying conclusion after his years of research — including visits to Israel, Netherlands, Australia, Jordan, Germany, England and France.