The case is bizarre, on a number of grounds. A New York court has sentenced the man pictured here, Raphael Golb, on misdemeanor criminal impersonation and forgery charges. If this were just another petty crook, it wouldn't be worth our notice at Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed . But this is the son of an important scholar, and the crimes were committed on behalf of the proper interpretation of certain ancient texts, the lifework of that paternal inspiration. Raphael's father, Norman Golb, is known as an advocate of the view that the Essenes had no especially close association with the Dead Sea Scrolls . \ Why is that important? The Essenes, an ascetic sect of Judaism that disagreed firmly with both the Sadducees and the Pharisees, are mentioned by several ancient authors (Philo, Josephus, Pliny) and are widely thought to have withdrawn from the wicked world into the purer environment of Ein Gedi, near the shore of the Dead Sea. As ancient scrolls were discovered n...