The Moses Scroll

By: Ross Nichols

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In 1878, a Jerusalem antiquities dealer named Moses Wilhelm Shapira acquired a curious biblical manuscript consisting of sixteen leather strips. The manuscript, written in ancient, Paleo-Hebrew contained what appeared to be a form of the Bible’s Book of Deuteronomy but with significant variations. It was allegedly discovered by Bedouin tribesmen around 1865, east of the Dead Sea, in a remote cave, high above the Wadi Mujib (biblical Arnon). Shapira believed that his manuscript was both ancient and authentic. In 1883, he presented his scroll to the leading scholars of Europe. Newspapers around the world covered the unfolding story as scholars debated the genuineness of the leather strips. Ultimately the scroll was deemed a forgery and Shapira the forger. However, beginning in 1947, ancient scrolls discovered in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea lead us to ask—were the critics wrong? The Moses Scroll documents the details of the entire saga based upon what we know today including a chronological telling of the fascinating story based upon 19th-century reports; an assessment of the genuineness of Shapira’s scroll; a new transcription of the manuscript as seen through the eyes of the 19th-century’s best Hebraists; and the author’s own translation of the original sixteen leather strips with a commentary and notes.

My first AI audio book.

I have the print version of the book, and it's a fantastic read. A page turning ancient mystery with implications for the Bible and religion.

Since this is my first AI audiobook, I didn't know what to expect. The voice is good, easy to listen to. However, there are still glitches in the technology. There are places where the program doesn't handle the text the way a human reader would.

This shows up mostly in abbreviations. For example, 1 Kings is sometimes rendered as "1 kilograms," etc. This doesn't detract much from the listening experience, although it does elicit the occasional chuckle.

Where it does detract from the experience is in the reading of the scroll in the last chapter. The program did a bad job of handling that portion and made it difficult to listen to. This was disappointing because to me, it's one of the most important parts of the text.

For this reason I gave the performance only 4 stars. If Ross were to ever decide to give this book a reading to replace the robot, the audio version would greatly benefit.