Marzeah Papyrus – «the world's oldest known Hebrew / Moabitic writing on manuscript» – en moderne forfalskning

The Marzeah Papyrus, regnet som en forfalskning av ledende epigrafer som Frank Moore Cross, Andre Lemaire og Christopher A. Rollston, fortsetter stadig å bli utstilt som «the world's oldest known Hebrew/Moabitic writing on manuscript».

I forbindelse med Ink & Blood-utstillingen i 2005 (Ink & Blood: Dead Sea Scrolls to Gutenberg) beskrev man fragmentet slik:

Marzeah Papyrus

Seventh century B.C.

Egypt

The world's oldest known Hebrew / Moabitic writing on manuscript 

Translation:

"Thus says God (Elohim) to [Gera]: The marzeah and the millstones and the house are yours.  As for [Yisa], he should keep away from them. And Malka is the depositary [guarantor]."

The Marzeah Papyrus is possibly the oldest known surviving Hebrew or Moabitic script on papyrus by several centuries. There are extant papyri written by Jews from the colony of Jewish soldiers stationed in Elephantine in Upper Egypt from the Fifth Century B.C., but these are written in Aramaic, not Hebrew (at the Staatliche Museen Aramaic Papyri, Berlin).  All other surviving Hebrew papyri are significantly later.  Any evidence of the languages of Palestine at this time comes from inscriptions on stone and pottery.  The three Eastern branches of Canaanite (Moabite, Edomite, and Ammonite) are known only from stele, ostraca, and seals.  Examined and authenticated by the British Museum (Carole Mendelson and Terence Mitchell, early 1980s), the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Professor H. Kantor, using photographs), the Louvre (on deposit, early 1990s), and the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem (2002).  Analyses were both paleographic and scientific, and considered the papyrus itself, the inscription, and the bulla.

I katalogen From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Forbidden Book: A History of the Bible (Lee Biondi, 2003, 2004) presenteres fragmentet som The Elohim Papyrus:

The Elohim papyrus is from about 700 years before Christ ... It is the oldest known example of the name of the Judeo-Christian God in the form Elohim (19).

Kombinasjonen av angivelig datering og anvendelse av gudsnavn er interessant, siden flere forskere vil datere aktiviteten til den såkalte elohisten til denne tiden. 

Edward M. Cook gir en glimrende innføring i en del av problemene med dette fragmentet i bloggposten Thoughts on the Marzeah Papyrus.