Hidden Scrolls, Buried Bibles: How We Discover the Sacred Past. Yale University Press, 2026.I noted the publication of the book here.... The discovery story is a genre with conventional tropes: animal guides, abandoned caves, untrustworthy locals who know the way but threaten the discoveries, and a new world of ancient revelation. The cultural and mythic preconditions that shaped our modern scholarly folklore have developed over hundreds of years of storytelling. And as a robust genre, discovery stories have often overshadowed discoveries themselves. For most people, for example, the interesting thing about the Dead Sea scrolls was not the texts, but the fact that they were hidden for two thousand years in a remote cave, and providentially discovered by a stray goat. That story became their “real meaning,” told as a religious or mythic narrative. ...
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