The Dead Sea Scrolls

Barb and I visited the exhibit at the Pacific Science Center. Very interesting. It wasn’t overwhelming or awesome. It was more like somber reverence. To actually be looking at documents that were written over 2100 years ago put me in a very somber mood.

From what I could tell there weren’t any big revelations in the documents. A lot of them were copies of known works of the existing Bible. Others were rules for “purification” and other standards of behavior for a particular Jewish sect.

It was worth my time and money to see them since it was only a 30 minute drive and $20.00 to get in the door. Knowing what I know now I probably wouldn’t travel a 1000 miles and pay hundreds of dollars to see them. But then I’m an atheist and don’t consider the documents to be the word of god(s) either.

Update: I forgot to mention the indignity of attending. There was a big sign just before you went in the building but after you had paid for your ticket that said no firearms or knives. It even said mandatory search of bags. I had to find a locker across the way to put my knives and my handgun in. There was no search of my person and I’m pretty sure there were no metal detectors so I probably could have defied the sign and gotten away with it.

But what was the reason? Did they think someone was going to go off the deep end and shoot a 2100 year old scrap of parchment? Oh, I forgot, they don’t need a reason.

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2 thoughts on “The Dead Sea Scrolls

  1. “Did they think someone was going to go off the deep end and shoot a 2100 year old scrap of parchment? Oh, I forgot, they don’t need a reason.”

    Considering there is a large segment of the worlds population that thinks that all things jewish should be destroyed; yes, it’s probably a reasonable concern. Not terribly valid, but reasonable.

  2. My brother has been a really big student of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He has travelled around to the various symposia and exhibits and has read pretty much everything published about them. Not only that, he has some rather lenghty discussions with some of the main players in the arena.

    The ones you see on tour aren’t the originals. The ones on display in Israel aren’t even the originals. Sure, they make a big point of talking about how they are, but they aren’t. The keepers are just way too concerned about some anti-Jew destroying them.

    Even the fakes in Israel have an alarm system that drops them down into the floor into a bunker like environment in case of threat. And, they aren’t even the real thing! Of course, you would have to give the official copies as much protection as you would the real ones, or else you’d have some ‘splainin to do if someone damaged them and you pulled the originals out from their safe place.

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