Dead Sea Scrolls in Toronto

[Pete Olsen]

The Dead Sea scrolls are in Toronto in 2009. The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit will run June 27, 2009, until Jan. 3, 2010, at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Sixteen of the scrolls, which were found by Bedouin goat-herders and by archaeologists between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, will be on display.

The scrolls, written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek between 250 BC and 68 AD, had been hidden in the caves for more than 2,000 years.

"The Dead Sea scrolls are the earliest written record of much of the first testament or the Torah or the Bible plus a number of other texts about law and the apocalypse," ROM chief executive William Thorsell said in an interview with CBC News.

"They have been in those jars for 2,000 years, so when you look at Genesis, Deuteronomy, the Psalms, the Ten Commandments, these are the earliest written records that we have of these foundation documents really of a number of great traditions," he said.

The exhibit is the most ambitious planned by the ROM since the opening of its new Crystal extension designed by celebrity architect Daniel Libeskind.

"It's really a symbol of why did we do all that expansion; why are we still building galleries here," Thorsell said. "We're really doing it to try to generate activity like this, programming that really matters to people."

Thorsell is hoping the chance to see the ancient scrolls will draw tourists to Toronto.

Six months of lectures, special programs and events around the exhibit are planned to engage students and the public in debate about the significance of the ancient documents.

"They are foundation documents in the Jewish tradition, in the Christian tradition and they are seen as divinely inspired in the Islamic tradition," Thorsell said.

"So this really gives us an opportunity in Ontario, where we have a lot of diverse people, to sit down and have some actual public debates about who wrote this material, how it's united but also divided people over the years, what the ideas are in them and how some of those ideas have changed. "

Eight of the original scrolls, written on papyrus and parchment, will be on display for three months at a time.

That's only a fraction of the more than 1,000 scrolls found, but visitors will have access to a full written translation of all the works, along with videos and background information. Also to be displayed are the jars they were stored in and the stone portals of a temple that the Romans disassembled in 70 AD as well as other artifacts from ancient Judea.

They'll be shown in the huge Garth Weston Hall, which has the security and humidity controls needed for such fragile objects, Thorsell said.

The ROM negotiated the exhibit with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, which has responsibility for the scrolls and has made them available to scholars for study.

"The scrolls come over on a first-class seat carried by people who are responsible for them and there is a very strict protocol that we are dealing with here on bringing them to Canada, how they are displayed — light is the biggest enemy — plus you have to worry about humidity and temperature and so forth," Thorsell said.

Once again - The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit will run June 27, 2009, until Jan. 3, 2010, at the Royal Ontario Museum.

[Darryl Sherkq..the q is silient]

I saww them 2 they are so cool there so old :o

[Steph]

I saw them! Very, very cool. Plus there are a lot of other artifacts from the Ancient Near East, including a chunk of the temple gate that Jesus would have walked through!

[Barry Bauman]

I have been reading more then a carpenter by Josh Mc Dowell who in university was totally against christianity until he started to study history( and of course the Holy Spirit was at work) and as he studied more and more and read the word and measured the actual completeness that history proves for the word of god he became more and more convinced. Josh found that there appeared to be more history proving that the bible was a real text then other parts of secular written litrature.
Then of course after becoming a flat out believer the teachers in the university would close their doors when seeing him coming. Josh would state his arguments and they were all real evidence.
Pretty cool testimony.
So I think I may have to make my way to see these great books of history and truth.
thanks

[Pete Olsen]

For sure eh? It looks amazingly cool. A real part of history that touches our faith!!! Pete

[Shaykhan Diprasuth]

I want to go see these!