The Museum of the Bible, which opened to the public on November 17, 2017, is a $500-million monument to the world’s most popular book. Few artifacts capture the scripture’s timelessness more than the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known copies of Biblical text—which is why the museum’s founders are rumored to have spent millions of dollars to obtain 16 of them for their collection.

However, research suggests that some of the fragments that visitors will encounter may be modern forgeries. On October 22, 2018, the Museum of the Bible announced that five of its 16 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments are probably modern forgeries, based on analyses conducted by Germany's Federal Institute for Materials Research. The report corroborates concerns raised