[continued from Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit (Part 1)]
But lo and behold, there was a sign that said "Exhibit Continues". We followed it, and a man beckoned us into a theater. "The presentation is starting in five minutes," he said.
We entered the magnificent theater that contained very few people. Then the presentation started.
It was a very well-done video, about 5 minutes long, discussing the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There were a couple things of note in the video. One was that the groups of people who are thought to have written the scrolls, the Essenes, were a group of Jews who believed that the way the Pharisees and Sadducees were treating the Scripture was wrong. Therefore, there was going to be a judgment from God, and the Essenes did not want to get caught up in the calamity. They formed a commune in the desert called the Qumran, and spent their days dedicated to holiness and the preservation of Scripture, much like the CHristian monks who came along hundreds of years later. The second thing was the similarity between the Essene writers and the New Testament writers. While it is not advisable to draw too many conclusions from the Dead Sea Scrolls, they did seem to value the same Old Testament books as the New Testament books. More copies of Isaiah and Deuteronomy, for example, were found in the caves than any other book, suggesting that they valued these books more highly. The New Testament writers quote Isaiah and Deuteronomy the most.
At the end of the video, the stage behind the screen lit up in one area. It was a cave! They had built a small cave that you walk through prior to entering "The Scroll Room".
The Scroll Room was magnificent. It was laid out in such a way that you snaked your way through the exhibit in a back-and-forth patter, and each display was spaced out to allow an adequate number of people to view each display.
Each fragment was in a special display case that illuminated the text for 15 seconds, and then would turn off for 30 seconds. This was to preserve the delicate parchment for as long as possible.
The fragments were very small, for the most part, and it was difficult to see the text. However, there were some fragments that contained a large amount of text. Since I don't know Hebrew very well at all, I contented myself to picking out the names of God and basking in the pure ancientness of it all.
I must admit, if I had gone to this exhibit a couple of years earlier, I would have enjoyed the Dead Sea Scrolls a lot more. However, since I had just discovered that the New Testament papyrus fragments were so close to the originals, as well as all the other awesome stuff that I was learning about them, I would have to say that I was looking forward to the New Testament papyri a bit more. I had read about them and I was beyond stoked to see several ancient papyri a few inches from my face. My heart pounded as I rounded the corner to the New Testament section.
[to be continued...]
