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Kansas City hosts exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Union Station in Kansas City, Mo., is hosting an exhibit of fragments of the historic Dead Sea Scrolls in the only Midwest stop in a tour of American cities. The exhibit runs through May 13

It takes place under an arrangement with the Israel Antiquities Authority and is only the 18th time pieces of the scrolls have been shown. None of these fragments have been on display in the United States before, and three of them are on exhibit for the first time ever. All are small, with the largest no longer than a ruler.

They are part of the archaeological discovery known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which contain the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Old Testament.

On exhibit in Kansas City will be pieces of first century copies of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Job and the Psalms. Non-biblical scroll fragments also will be on display.

In addition, this exhibit includes dozens of artifacts from Qumran, the community near the caves where the scrolls were found. These include pieces of pottery, scroll jars, a pair of men’s sandals and a hair comb and help shed light on first century life.

About the scrolls
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls by a Bedouin shepherd remains one of the most significant archeological finds of the 20th century.

Most of the scrolls were discovered in caves along the western shore of the Dead Sea from 1947 to 1956. The most famous of these are the 11 caves near Qumran, where a community lived that some scholars identify as Essenes, a Jewish sect known to have existed elsewhere in Israel during the time of Jesus.

Scrolls also were discovered at several other locations north and south of Qumran, and in the 1960s scrolls were unearthed during the excavation of Masada. A few have been discovered during the past decade. About 15 percent of the fragments have yet to be identified.

They comprise more than 800 documents, some complete or nearly complete but many quite fragmentary. There are about 100,000 fragments in all.

Most of the scrolls are made of dried animal skins (parchment), and some of the larger ones stretch as long as 30 feet. They date from the second century B.C. to the first century A.D.

Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts were written on the scrolls in columns. Containing all or part of every book of the Old Testament except Esther, the scrolls also include many non-biblical books, some previously known only in Greek or other languages but now found in Hebrew. There are many compositions that were previously completely unknown.

Why are they important?
The scrolls comprise, among other things, the oldest copies of the Bible in existence. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest existing manuscripts of parts of the Hebrew Bible came from about 800-1,000 A.D. The oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible, the Leningrad Codex, dates to 1008 A.D.

The scrolls also have enabled scholars to learn more about how the Bible was written and how it was transmitted from generation to generation. In many cases the scrolls show a remarkable similarity to the text of the Hebrew Bible currently in use. Most modern translations of the Bible, such as the New International Version, incorporate some of the new information from the scrolls.

Information for this report came from the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, Union Station and the TopekaCapital-Journal.