A guilty verdict, on the other hand, would destroy the reputation of one of the world's leading collectors of biblical antiquities and drive the entire Israeli market underground.

The foundations of biblical archaeology were laid in the 19th century with the work of antiquarians such as Johann Jahn, whose manual of biblical antiquities, Biblische Archäologie, (1802, translated into English 1839) was immensely influential in the middle years of the 19th century.

At a time when the Greeks are trying to recover the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum, and when Egypt is trying to get its Nefertiti statue back from Berlin, some prominent public figures in Israel are fighting to maintain an open trade in Israeli biblical antiquities.

As the Israeli police neared the end of a two-year investigation of sophisticated forged antiquities, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem has learned that an ivory pomegranate that was the highlight of its collection of priceless biblical antiquities is a fake, The Toronto Globe and Mail reported.

In spite of this Christian Adolph Klotz supported him to obtain the chair of biblical antiquities in the philosophical faculty at Erfurt.

It was considered the most important item of biblical antiquities in the Israel Museum's collection.

In 1769 he helped Karl Friedrich Bahrdt obtain the chair of biblical antiquities in the philosophical faculty at Erfurt.

Films of this genre may have plots set in biblical or classical antiquity, often with plots based very loosely on mythology or legends of Greco-Roman history, or the surrounding cultures of the same era.