Join us as Chanan Tigay speaks about his book "The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the Worlds Oldest Bible" as part of the Dallas Jewish Book Festival. General admission tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door.

In the summer of 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira – archaeological treasure hunter, inveterate social climber, and denizen of Jerusalem’s bustling marketplace – claimed to have discovered the world’s oldest Bible scroll, but was denounced by his nemesis, French archaeologist Charles Clermont-Ganneau. Humiliated and distraut, Shapira fled the country. Six months later he was dead.

In 1947, noting the similarities between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ones Shapira found, investigators reopened the case, wondering whether the ill-fated merchant had, in fact, discovered the first Dead Sea Scroll, decades before the rest. Unfortunately, by then it was too late: Shapira’s scrolls had mysteriously vanished.

Chanan Tigay, a longtime journalist and the son of a renowned Bible scholar, sets out to find the scrolls and determine Shapira’s guilt or innocence for himself.