Dead Sea Scrolls coming to Houston

07:53 PM CDT on Thursday, September 30, 2004

From 11 News Staff Reports

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HOUSTON -- They have been called a window in time. Some of the earliest surviving Biblical texts will be on exhibit in Houston beginning Friday.

Museum of Natural Science The Dead Sea Scrolls are coming to Houston in October.

Hidden for almost 2,000 years in remote caves in the Judean desert, the Dead Sea Scrolls will be exhibited at the Houston Museum of Natural Science from Oct. 1 through Jan. 2, 2005.

The Scrolls include some of the earliest surviving text of the books of the Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament. Regarded as the greatest archeological find of the 20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide a window into an incredible time in history. It chronicles the story of Judaism, a time when Christianity was born and a time when the seeds of Islam were sown.

Until the discovery, no existing texts of the Hebrew Bible could be dated before 895 A.D. The Dead Sea Scrolls are 1,000 years older, having been transcribed and/or copied between 250 B.C. and 68 A.D., mainly on parchment (20 percent on papyrus) in one of three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

The first of many scrolls and fragments were discovered in 1947 by a young Bedouin goat herder and his companions in a cave near the Dead Sea about 12 miles southeast of Jerusalem in the Judaean Desert. Between 1947 and the late '50s and early '60s, archaeologists searched hundreds of caves in the area, 11 of which yielded scrolls and found 28 nearly complete scrolls and some 15,000 fragments. They comprise about 900 manuscripts and include every book of the Hebrew Bible except the book of Esther.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition is a collection of priceless treasures—not gold or jewels—but of powerful words scribed two millennia ago in the deserts of the Holy Land," said Alan Parrish, Houston Museum of Natural Science Interim President. "These artifacts are of tremendous historical significance, and we are proud to bring them to Texas.”

This unique exhibit, rarely seen outside of Jerusalem, includes actual fragments of 13 of the scrolls written more than 2,000 years ago, including pieces from the books of Exodus and Psalms. Other fragments in the exhibit are from Enoch, Pseudo-Ezekiel, Thanksgiving Psalms, War Rule, some Torah Precepts, Damascus Document, Community Rule, Phylactery, Nahum Commentary, Leviticus Va-Yikra and the Calendrical Document.

There are also numerous artifacts from the ancient Dead Sea settlement of Qumran near the caves where the scrolls were discovered. Artifacts include jars identical to those the scrolls were hidden in, ancient coins, leather sandals and an inkwell believed to be connected with the writing of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“The fact that these fragile documents survived at all and came to our attention merely by accident illustrates the nature of archeological and historical research,” said Houston Museum of Natural Science curator of anthropology Dirk Van Tuerenhout, Ph.D. “We are extremely lucky to have these very rare documents in our museum. Their content and the objects associated with them will help bring the ancient community of Qumran back to life.”