The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception

The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception (1991, ISBN 0-671-73454-7) is a book by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.

Rejecting the established scholarly consensus that the Dead Sea scrolls were the work of a marginal Jewish apocalyptic movement, and following primarily the thesis of Robert Eisenman, the authors argue that the scrolls were the work of Jewish zealots who had much in common with, and may have been identical to, the early followers of Jesus led by his brother James the Just.

Their unconventional hypothesis provides a different version of the history of early Christianity and challenges the divinity of Jesus.

Leigh and Baigent claim that the scrolls were kept under wraps for decades by a team dominated by Catholic scholars under the leadership of a Dominican friar, Roland de Vaux.

[1] Catholic biblical scholar Joseph Fitzmyer has described it as consisting largely of a "pattern of errors and misinformed statements".