The British PEF had a short-lived American counterpart in the Palestine
Exploration Society set up in New York in 1870. In the words of its organizers:
The work proposed by the Palestine Exploration Society appeals to the religious
sentiment alike of the Christian and the Jew... Its supreme importance is for the
illustration and defence of the Bible. Modern skepticism assails the Bible at the point
of reality, the question of fact. Hence whatever goes to verify the Bible history as real,
in time, place, and circumstances, is a refutation of unbelief... The Committee feels
that they have in trust a sacred service for science and religion.
(in Shaw 2002: 61).Other societies of longer life were the Deutsche Pala ̈stina-Verein (the German
Society for the Exploration of Palestine, 1877) founded by German Lutherans,
the Russian Orthodox Palestine Society (1882) and the Catholic E ́cole Bib-
lique (1890).
The researches conducted by the British and Americans were complemen-
ted in this period by those of the French, mainly represented by Renan and
Clermont-Ganneau. Ernest Renan, despite focusing his attention on ancient
Phoenicia (see below), also travelled into Galilee and southern Palestine on his
trip of 1860–1. Also, Charles Clermont-Ganneau (1846–1923), a former pupil
of Renan and, more importantly, the French Consul in Jerusalem from 1867,
studied several important inscriptions. The most important was that of the
Moabite Stone, an inscription found by chance which mentioned King Mesha
of Moab, a monarch alluded to in 2 Kings 1:1, 3:4: 4–27 (Moorey 1991: 20;
Silberman 1982: ch. 11). Clermont-Ganneau also translated a rock-cut in-
scription in the channel leading to the Pool of Siloam found in 1881 attributed
to Hezekiah on the basis of 2 Chronicles 32:4, 30; a reused inscription in Greek
in which Gentiles were warned against penetrating into the inner courts of the
Temple as described in Acts 21: 28; andWnally another inscription found at Tell
el-Jazar which identiWed the site in which it was found as Gezer (cited in the
Bible in Joshua 10:33; 12:12, etc.) (Moorey 1991: 20–1).
AWnal discovery of these years were some fragments of scrolls. Knowledge
of their existence had been acquired by Moses Shapira (1830–84) in 1878.
Shapira was a Russian Jew converted to Anglicanism, who had moved to
Jerusalem as a young man and lived as an antique dealer. He had been cheated
with a forgery in the past, so was cautious in his examination of the fragments
he possessed. His translation revealed parts of the Deuteronomy with a
diVerent version of the Ten Commandments but his announcement was
received with disbelief, especially after Clermont-Ganneau declared them to
be a forgery. Only the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 would show
the academic world the possible authenticity of Shapira’s scrolls, although
many still believe them to be a forgery. By then, it was too late for him (he had
Biblical Archaeology 151