I had the opportunity of a lifetime. Last night, fellow biblioblogger and good friend, Shaun “the Bible Geek” Tabatt and I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls! They are on display at the Science Museum of Minnesota from now through mid-October.
Words cannot describe the experience. A picture might help. Notice the smiles…
Unfortunately, they don’t allow photography inside the exhibit. But I don’t know how you’d be able to take in the exhibit with flash photography all around.
The exhibit has plenty of information and artifacts to hold your interest for 2 hours or more, easily. I felt like we were rushing and we spent more than an hour and a half. If it was just Shaun and I and no babysitters to worry about, we’d have spent all night there…. As it was we had our wives and another couple along with.
I enjoyed learning more about the history of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Duke University refused to purchase some of them when first found. And three were advertised for sale in a newspaper, if you can believe it.
The scroll jars and artifacts from 2,000 years ago were also fascinating. The coins dating back to before Christ were even more interesting. I couldn’t help but thinking of National Treasure (the movie), when we noticed the humidity and temperature gauges in the display cases.
The highlight, of course, were the scrolls themselves. They had 5 manuscripts on display. I’ve heard that a total of 15 mss will be rotated through the exhibit. Of the 5 I saw, only 3 were Biblical: Isaiah, Psalms and Genesis. The other texts were the Temple Scroll, and the Damascus document.
With my limited Hebrew (and with some help from the English translations), I was able to make out some words in the Hebrew. On the Psalms manuscript, which was by far the largest manuscript there (portions of six or seven columns), a proto-Hebraic script was used for the name of the LORD (Yahweh). On the other scrolls I was able to read the tetragrammaton (YHWH). On the Genesis scroll I was able to see Jacob’s name twice. I also clearly observed that there were no vowel points in the Hebrew script. (A point that some King James Onlyists dispute, siding with John Owen against the unified testimony of evangelical scholarship.)
The whole exhibit was exhilirating, but there was something extra special about a couple of the text choices. Isaiah’s manuscript started with 53:10. They don’t mention how Christianity interprets that text, however. Even more thrilling to me, was seeing Ps. 119:89 written there in a 2,000 year old manuscript. “Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens”. These manuscripts attest that God has preserved His Word for us faithfully down through the ages on earth, even, like it is in heaven.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is widely proclaimed as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time. God in His providence has given us more insight into the original text of Scripture. And while there remain some questions as to particular readings here or there, the Dead Sea Scrolls witness to the stability and accuracy of the text of the Bible. It was a privilege to see some of that in person.
For more on the Dead Sea Scrolls, you’ll want to come up to Minneapolis and visit the exhibit. Or you can learn more at some of the following links.
SO glad you were able to attend this, Bob!!
Sorry, brother. Your post ended up in my spam bin somehow. Glad you enjoyed my post.
In Christ,
Bob
Sadly, when we were able to see them in Mobile, AL several years ago, the place was so full and busy that we could not enjoy it.
Going on a Tuesday night, late (7:30) helped in that regard. We had leisure to not feel rushed and pressed. I can imagine it would be difficult with a line, etc. to really be able to enjoy it.
Two must reads for the Dead Sea Scrolls enthusiast:
The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (find it at Amazon), and
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin–also available at Amazon).
The first volume contains all the copies of Scripture from the Scrolls, the second contains all the non-Scriptural writings, which explain the customs of the Essenes, their apocalyptic writings, etc.
I discovered both of these books for sale when I viewed them in Jerusalem, and finally got around to buying them this past Christmas season. You can read the scrolls anytime in your own language.
PS–Naturally, there’s lots of helpful introductory material about the Essenes and their writings in the Penguin book. Can’t recall how much of that sort of thing there might be in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible. Plus I’m not at home right now, so I can’t check.
Thanks for the recommendations, John. I bet you saw more than just five when you saw the scrolls in Jerusalem. I’m still happy I got to see what I did, and I’m interested in learning more. Shaun and I will be attending a lecture by Dr. Michael Wise on the Dead Sea Scrolls next month.
When we saw the itinerary for the Holy Land Tour, I was the most excited about going to the Dead Sea Scrolls museum. Unfortunately, the night before our visit to the museum, we visited Gordon’s Tomb, where they have facilities for a worship service for your group and you get to keep the little hand-carved olive wood cup for the communion grape juice. After my wife and I got back to the hotel, I was sick as a dog for the rest of the trip (had to find a restroom every so often–far too often). So, I did get to see quite a bit of the fragments and scrolls. They even have a photographic image of the entire famous Isaiah scroll in a big display case in the center of the room. Yes, I saw quite a bit, but didn’t get to savor the experience like I could have because I spent most of the time running around trying to find the public restroom! 🙁 But it was definitely the opportunity of a lifetime.
They didn’t allow us to take pictures either, but there are some on the web if you do a little Googling. It hasn’t always been the rule.
By the way, my ill health also made me miss out on floating on the Dead Sea itself. They said if you have open sores, the salt water will burn like fire. I was concerned about my nether regions, so I passed (I know, TMI–but I still think it’s funny). Still got a water bottle full of Dead Sea water on a ledge in my kitchen, though. After almost three years now, the salt is beginning to crystallize in the bottle.
Sorry to hear that John. At least you got to enjoy most of the trip.
We too enjoyed it here in Milwaukee, although our trip was cut short with my son… It said we could not bring in any food or drink…but he left his lunch on the floor… poor kid. So sick! I found the tomb of the son of the man who carried Christ’s cross to be absolutely fascinating. Just the age of the artifacts was impressive… so close yet so far!
Lori,
Sorry that your comments keep ending up in my spam. Hopefully that won’t happen again as I approved this.
Glad to hear you got to see this too. Really special.
Anyone who has even a remote interest in Ancient History, Archeology, or the Bible would enjoy the Dead Sea Scroll Exhibit… I saw the exhibit at The Field Museum in Chicago about ten years ago… Scientists had a lab set up in the museum and were analyzing pieces of scrolls like a CSI lab… cool stuff!
Sounds cool, Jeff. We didn’t see any “work in progress”, but the exhibit was great.
I must go see this.
Congrats, Elise. You won! You can let me know which title you want and I can bring it to church tomorrow.