Mr. Golb’s father is Norman Golb, a professor at the University of Chicago and a critic of claims that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of a sect called the Essenes, thought to have lived near the Qumran caves where the scrolls were found. Professor Golb has suggested that the scrolls were actually the product of several libraries in Jerusalem and were taken to the caves around the time the city fell to the Romans in the year 70. This is not a dispute for the fainthearted. Golb the Son has taken up his father’s cause with all the vigor permitted by multiple Gmail accounts.

When he was arrested, Mr. Golb was asked by prosecutors if he wrote under the name “Charles Gadda,” one of the most visible Internet advocates for his father. He would not answer directly.

“They would say that my father is doing it or asking me to do it,” Mr. Golb said, according to court papers. “My father certainly never asked me to do anything of the kind.”

But he allowed that “Charles Gadda” was doing pretty well. “Do you realize that the Charles Gadda articles have been read by thousands of people?” Mr. Golb continued. “I know that, because I look at them, it says on them.”

The Internet is, of course, both gold mine and sludge pile, where people lie about their ages, their abilities, the world. The prosecutors say that by adopting all those false identities, Mr. Golb was trying to obtain a benefit, and so committed criminal impersonation, identity theft and aggravated harassment. But Mr. Golb’s lawyers maintain that there was no tangible benefit, and therefore no crime.

“Gaining an advantage in academic debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls is not the kind of benefit required by the law,” said Ronald Kuby, one of the defense lawyers.

But what about the injury Mr. Golb apparently tried to inflict on Lawrence H. Schiffman, the chairman of Judaic studies at N.Y.U.? Someone wrote from larry.schiffman@gmail.com to Professor Schiffman’s graduate students and dean, alerting them to an article that suggested he had committed plagiarism. Perhaps two things go without saying: The article was actually written under one of Raphael Golb’s pseudonyms, and Professor Schiffman has been critical of the theories of Golb père.