Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World's Oldest Bible
    The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World's Oldest Bible
    The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World's Oldest Bible
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World's Oldest Bible

    Written by Chanan Tigay

    Narrated by Chanan Tigay

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    In the summer of 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira-archaeological treasure hunter and denizen of Jerusalem's bustling marketplace-arrived unannounced in London claiming to have discovered the world's oldest Bible scroll. When news of the discovery leaked to the excited English press, Shapira became a household name. But before the British Museum could acquire them, Shapira's nemesis, French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau, denounced his find as a fraud. Humiliated, Shapira fled the country. Six months later he was dead.

    With the discovery of the eerily similar Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, investigators reopened the case, wondering whether the ill-fated merchant had, in fact, discovered the first Dead Sea Scroll, decades before the rest. But by then Shapira's scrolls had vanished.

    Award-winning journalist Chanan Tigay set out to find the scrolls and determine Shapira's guilt or innocence for himself. The globetrotting hunt that follows vibrates with the suspense of a classic detective tale. Weaving meticulous research into fast-paced storytelling, Tigay spins a remarkable tale of history and theology; intrigue and scandal; greed, ambition, and the struggle for authenticity.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 3, 2016
    ISBN9781515973423

    Related to The Lost Book of Moses

    Related audiobooks

    History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Fallen Ones

      Jun 11, 2019

      The Fallen Ones
      3 min read

    • Article

      Kabbalah

      Feb 28, 2020

      Think of the mystical religion Kabbalah, and many will immediately picture the singer Madonna. As one of a number of celebrities to embrace its ancient wisdom in recent years, she has sought to study and understand Kabbalah’s deep teachings, often in

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Hidden Origins of Mankind

      Nov 12, 2019

      The Hidden Origins of Mankind
      8 min read

    • Article

      10 Jewish Biblical Facts That Hardly Any Christians Know…

      Oct 28, 2022

      As a new believer in Yeshua (Jesus), I assumed I was no longer Jewish—that believing in this Jewish Man had nothing in common with Jewishness. However, after reading the New Testament, I was shocked to find out that it was a Jewish book, telling a Je

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Dead Sea Scrolls

      Dec 5, 2019

      The Dead Sea Scrolls
      2 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      May 31, 2022

      Reviews
      3 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Nov 23, 2023

      The Jewish 'Avengers' (or Nokmim, in Hebrew) were a paramilitary group of about 50 Holocaust survivors who sought violent revenge for the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust. Many of the group, including its leader, the poet Abba Kovner,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Miscellany

      Nov 23, 2023

      Miscellany
      9 min read

    • Article

      Book Of Books

      Nov 16, 2022

      Book Of Books
      3 min read

    • Article

      Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb

      Oct 6, 2022

      Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb
      9 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Mar 16, 2023

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ancient World

      Dec 21, 2023

      Ancient World
      7 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Apr 11, 2024

      Q&A
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Sporting Life In Africa

      May 17, 2023

      A Sporting Life In Africa
      5 min read

    • Article

      Michael Wood On...

      Jul 7, 2022

      An Irish writer friend of mine stayed with me recently. At the kitchen table, the conversation ranged from rugby to James Joyce (this year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses in book form) and Sally Rooney, bestselling author of

      3 min read

    • Article

      Treasure Trove

      Jan 21, 2021

      Treasure Trove
      8 min read

    • Article

      Source Secrets

      Sep 29, 2022

      Source Secrets
      3 min read

    • Article

      Of British History, Britten And Puffins

      Jul 21, 2021

      AS a child, I was given a charming book called They Lived Like This in Chaucer’s England. Its drawings of minstrels, pilgrims, dogs and merry-making ignited a spark of fascination for the daily lives of people in the Middle Ages. Therefore, I devoure

      7 min read

    • Article

      Ten Ways to Save the World

      Oct 16, 2020

      If imagining yourself as the messiah could get you decapitated by the 10th century Abbasids, then in 20th-century Michigan it only got you institutionalized. The post Ten Ways to Save the World appeared first on The Millions.

      30 min read

    • Article

      Encounters

      Feb 16, 2023

      Encounters
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Textual Pompeii

      Jan 23, 2023

      A Textual Pompeii
      5 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Mar 10, 2020

      Reviews
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Lost Book of Moses

    4/5

    18 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Non-fiction about the author’s quest to locate a lost biblical manuscript, and to solve the mystery of its origins. In 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira, an antiquities dealer from Jerusalem, brought a scroll, purported to be an early version of the book of Deuteronomy, to England, along with a story of where he found it. Several notable experts examined the scroll and declared their findings. Decades later, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Did Shapira find the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls sixty years earlier or was it a clever forgery? Chanan Tigay, an American journalist and son of a biblical scholar, traveled to many countries across the world on a four-year journey to uncover the truth.

      “If the fragments, and so the scrolls, were real, they would reveal so much about how the Bible developed – how it was written, rewritten, and revised over the course of centuries. And if they were a forgery, whoever created this manuscript was some kind of genius – clever, creative, and profoundly learned. In conjuring a wild version of Deuteronomy, they had somehow managed to predict the Dead Sea Scrolls decades before their discovery. Who had the chops to pull off a fraud this brilliant?”

      This book is meticulously researched and well-written in a journalist style. The author keeps a sense of suspense in the narrative by doling out information gradually. At any given time, the reader will not know more than the author knew at that point in his search. The mystery is unraveled in alternating chapters between Shapira’s story and the author’s search, with historical context provided as necessary.

      Tigay tells an intriguing tale of obsession, rivalry, scandal, suicide, and journeys into remote and previously unmapped regions. I found it fascinating. This book will appeal to those interested in historical mysteries or the history of theological artifacts.
    • 4/5
      A well-told mystery with a surprise ending.
    • 4/5
      Wavering between 3 and 4 stars. Rounding up to 4 because I suspect I'd have enjoyed it more if I'd read rather than listened – the author reads in my Audible recording and does an excellent job, but my listening/walking periods have been sporadic lately and I kept losing the train of the narrative. So, reader-fail. On the other hand, the story never became compelling enough that I was “drop-everything” eager to get to it, so maybe it wasn't just me.Anyway, this is a story-within-a-story, and, while not exactly thrilling (I notice that some reviewers felt that it was “Indiana Jones-like.” My memories of Indiana Jones may be off, but I recall lots danger and action, rather than extensive library research and meetings. Still, there is a search for an Ark of the Covenant era artifact, and lots of antisemitism, if no Nazis, so...) it is interesting. Except when it gets repetitive. The story is about the hunt by our author, Chanan Tigay, for the leather strips, lost at the end of the 19th century, purported by their “discoverer”, Moses Shapira, to be the oldest copy of Deuteronomy. Along with the tale of his search, he tells Moses Shapira's story, debating the question of whether Shapira was the brilliant creator of a clever hoax, the persecuted victim of antisemitic prejudice, or the maligned discoverer of an ancient treasure. Or a little of all of these. An intrinsic problem for Tigay's story is that we, his readers, would have noticed if news headlines had recently gone wild with the story of the discovery of a genuinely ancient copy of the Book of Deuteronomy and of a maligned antiques dealer. So we know right up front that Tigay isn't going to find the strips, have them analyzed using modern dating methods, and discover that they really are what Shapira suggested they were. So, our options are more limited and with less potential for thrills. Still, given this, Tigay does manage to maintain some suspense and to create a reasonably satisfying conclusion. The ins and outs of Tigay's hunt and of Shapira's intrepid efforts are fairly engaging despite the predictable outcome.