On Thursday, 16 August 1883, a reporter from the Liverpool Daily Post expressed, on behalf of the believers in the authenticity of the leather strips, that if the manuscript were a forgery, Dr. Ginsburg would have already declared them as such. The fact that he had refrained from publishing his opinion one way or the other led some to believe they were genuine.
“Dr. Ginsburg is still busily engaged at the British Museum in deciphering Mr. Shapira’s latest antiquarian “find;” and the reticence he displays leads many to put faith in the original assertion, that these scraps of leather are hundreds of years older than the Christian era. It is argued by these believers that if the skins had been forgeries, such an acute scholar as Dr. Ginsburg would have been able long before this to have detected the fraud; but more cautious mortals are willing to wait the learned doctor’s decision before they put entire trust in Mr. Shapira’s importation. The circumstance that, just as this alleged original of Deuteronomy was laid before the British public, the lying tale anent Noah’s Ark having been discovered on Mount Ararat was set afloat, has, undoubtedly, caused a doubt to spring up in a good many minds as to the authenticity of the manuscript.”
The next day, Clermont-Ganneau would return to the British Museum hoping to be permitted to examine the strips, and The Times would publish the second installment of Dr. Ginsburg’s translation of the strips.