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Article: Dead Sea Scrolls spark fake e-mails
- Article from:
- Sunday Gazette-Mail
- Article date:
- November 8, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2009 Sunday Gazette-Mail. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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NEW YORK - Students and university officials started getting e-
mails last year in which a prominent Judaic studies scholar seemed
to make a startling confession: He had committed plagiarism.
The messages, it turned out, were a hoax. Prosecutors filed
criminal charges, saying a lawyer sent the messages to tarnish the
professor, his father's rival.
The court case has drawn attention to issues both ancient (the
origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and decidedly modern (phony online
identities).
On Wednesday, a defense attorney asked a judge to throw out most
of the charges, saying they put parodies, pranks and freewheeling
Internet discussion at risk.
The more than 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls ...