A year ago, scholars published a transcription of a fragment of papyrus, on which were written in ancient Hebrew the words “Jerusalem,” “king,” and “jars of wine.” A number of experts agreed with these scholars’ conclusion that the fragment was part of a letter dating to the 7th century BCE, a conclusion supported by the radiocarbon dating of the papyrus. Christopher Rollston, however, an expert on ancient Near Eastern epigraphy, concludes that it is a forgery. In part, he bases his argument on the irregular use of what linguists call the “construct form,” which was common in biblical Hebrew but is uncommon in the modern language. He also notes problems with the laboratory evidence:

[I]t is not all that difficult for someone to acquire ancient potsherds, ancient metals, stones of Levantine quarry, small pieces of ancient papyrus, or vellum. Therefore, the antiquity of the medium (e.g., papyrus, vellum, potsherd, or metal) is certainly no guarantee of the dating of the writing on that medium. To put it differently, only the dullest of forgers would forge an inscription on modern papyrus, modern vellum, modern potsherds, or modern metals.

After all, most forgers are quite sharp and they know that laboratory tests are routinely performed, and so the forgers know that it is important for them to use ancient materials from the correct period as their medium. And forgers have produced a fair number of forgeries in the last 40 or 50 years, and this is the way they do it. . . .

There are also additional aspects of the carbon-14 test that deserve scrutiny. Namely, quite a number of people said to me that the papyrus was carbon-dated to the 7th century BCE, and the script is also dated to the 7th century BCE; therefore, they said, that sort of correspondence is very good evidence for the antiquity of the writing. After all, it might be difficult to find a piece of papyrus that was from the 7th century, [as opposed to merely being ancient. However], for carbon-dating materials from antiquity, there is normally a fairly substantial plus or minus range. . . .

[In the case of this papyrus], the carbon dates . . . fell into the Hallstatt Plateau [a period during which it is impossible for radiocarbon dating to yield very precise results], and so all that can actually be said is that this papyrus dates to sometime between 800 and 400 BCE. . . . In other words, there is not some sort of dramatic convergence of the carbon date and the putative date of the script.

Last week, the New York Times reported, based on unnamed sources within the Trump administration, that the president had asked Israel not to carry out a planned strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. That is, somebody deliberately gave this information to the press, which later tried to confirm it by speaking with other officials. Amit Segal writes that, “according to figures in Israel’s security establishment,” this is “the most serious leak in Israel’s history.” He explains:

As Israel is reportedly planning what may well be one of its most consequential military operations ever, the New York Times lays out for the Iranians what Israel will target, when it will carry out the operation, and how. That’s not just any other leak.

Seth Mandel looks into the leaker’s logic:

The primary purpose of the [Times] article is not as a record of internal deliberations but as an instrument of policy itself. Namely, to obstruct future U.S. and Israeli foreign policy by divulging enough details of Israel’s plans in order to protect Iran’s nuclear sites. The idea is to force Israeli planners back to the drawing board, thus delaying a possible future strike on Iran until Iranian air defenses have been rebuilt.

The leak is the point. It’s a tactical play, more or less, to help Iran torpedo American action.

The leaker, Mandel explains—and the Times itself implies—is likely aligned with the faction in the administration that wants to see the U.S. retreat from the world stage and from its alliance with Israel, a faction that includes Vice-President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and the president’s own chief of staff Susie Wiles.

Yet it’s also possible, if less likely, that the plans were leaked in support of administration policy rather than out of factional infighting. Eliezer Marom argues that the leak was “part of the negotiations and serves to clarify to the Iranians that there is a real attack plan that Trump stopped at the last moment to conduct negotiations.”