Scholar's son back in court in weird Dead Sea Scrolls case

New York's highest court will consider whether to overturn convictions in the Internet impersonation case of a man who argues that mocking scholars in an academic debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls was protected by the First Amendment.

Raphael Golb, an attorney and writer, was convicted of identity theft and other charges for disguising his identity in email messages and blog posts from 2006 to 2009 to discredit detractors of his father, a University of Chicago professor, in a dispute over the scrolls' origins. The more than 2,000-year-old documents, found in the 1940s in what is now Israel, contain the earliest known versions of portions of the Hebrew Bible.

Many scholars, including New York University Judaic studies chairman Lawrence Schiffman, say the texts were assembled by a sect known as the Essenes. Others - including Norman Golb, a University of Chicago historian and Golb's father - believe the writings were the work of a range of Jewish groups and communities, gathered from libraries in Jerusalem and hidden in caves near Qumran to protect them during a Roman invasion in about 70 A.D.