"Reading this book is an encounter with a brilliant mind. Eva Mroczek's work is startling in its fresh thinking about history and texts--indeed, about thinking itself. She is an extraordinary scholar, immensely creative and deeply knowledgeable."--Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College "Eva Mroczek's Hidden Scrolls, Buried Bibles is a captivating and sobering tour through tales of the loss and recovery of ancient texts as an authorizing strategy within myth and history."--Dan McClellan, author of The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture's Most Controversial Issues "Leading us on a literary journey from the earliest Bibles to Mary Shelley, Mroczek unfolds the intimate relationship between the search for hidden sacred texts and true crime. A brilliant book on why we cling to book discovery tales despite their unreliability."--Roberta Mazza, author of Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts "An indispensable read for anyone interested in manuscript discovery lore, written by one of the most creative thinkers and gifted narrators in Jewish studies."--Liv Ingeborg Lied, coauthor of Working with Manuscripts: A Guide for Textual Scholars "What makes an origin story 'true'? With vivid examples from across space and time, Mroczek reveals the longstanding practice of authenticating and laundering sacred sources by means of a discovery myth.

Elegantly written and deeply researched, this book invites an honest appraisal of scripture-making as a human response to a world of endless change and inevitable decay."--Jennifer Wright Knust, author of Unprotected Texts: The Bible's Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire.