Scrolls Debate Footnote: An Arrest in New York

The scholarly debate over authorship of the Dead Sea Scrolls has led to the arrest of the son of one proponent of the theory that the Essenes did not write the ancient scriptures.

Raphael Golb, son of Norman Golb, a professor at Chicago University, was arrested in New York this month for allegedly creating online aliases and conducting a campaign of harassment against academic opponents of his father’s theories.

Father and son claimed that members of mainstream academia were trying to silence the professor. The younger Golb reportedly accused his father’s critics of being anti-Semites trying to deny the link between the scrolls and established Jewish institutions.