The Bible Museum will display the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient texts from the time of Jesus
A new exhibition featuring fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other rare ancient texts will open in May at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. The exhibition will run through September.
This was reported by the Daily Mail.
Among the artifacts on display will be fragments of the Book of Isaiah, written in ancient Hebrew on parchment and created around the 1st century CE by scribes of that time. They contain excerpts from several chapters.
The Book of Isaiah is considered one of the key prophetic texts, warning of judgment upon sinful nations and containing passages that, in Christian tradition, are interpreted as prophecies about the coming of the Messiah.
The exhibition will also feature an apocryphal text about the birth of Noah, fragments of the Jewish Book of Tobit, and parts of phylactery scrolls used during prayer.
Museum director Bobby Duke called the Dead Sea Scrolls “the greatest archaeological discovery of all time.” They were found in 1947 in the Qumran Caves near the Dead Sea and comprise about 1,000 ancient manuscripts preserved in the form of thousands of fragments. The texts are written on parchment, papyrus, and metal sheets.
The scrolls are written in four languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean.
Since the authors of the texts usually did not sign their works, very little is known about the scribes.
Risa Levitt, Executive Director of the Museum of the Biblical Lands of Israel, noted that the exhibition was created to provide a better understanding of the historical context of the artifacts.
“We want the public to understand the place, the geography, and the historical context so that by the time they encounter the scrolls, they can better understand them,” she said.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known copies of biblical texts dated to around 1000 CE, so the 1947 find allowed us to go back more than a thousand years closer to the original sources.
Among the exhibits will also be the Apocryphal Book of Genesis, which adds new details to the story of Noah’s birth, including a description of concerns about his unusual appearance and his father’s doubts.
Fragments of the Book of Tobit—an ancient text about faith, healing, and divine guidance—will be displayed separately.
In addition to manuscripts, visitors will be able to see archaeological artifacts from ancient Jerusalem, including a fragment of paving from a 1st-century pilgrimage route, the Stone of Mary Magdalene with a carved menorah, and a 1.8-ton stone from the Temple Mount.
As a reminder, in a small town near Madrid, there are plans to erect the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ. However, the local authorities’ plans have “divided” society into two camps.
Meanwhile, construction has begun on a statue of the Virgin Mary near Toruń, Poland. It will stand 55.6 meters tall, making it taller than the statue of Jesus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
