If you ever have a chance to go see the Dead Sea Scrolls in any kind of exhibition, do.
We expected to spend maybe a couple of hours looking at some old parchment that documented some of the formative writings of Judaism and Christianity. What I didn't expect was that the two youngest would be attentive for 3 hours and that we would spend about 5 hours total exploring, learning about and viewing the Dead Sea Scrolls.
It was an incredible experience. Not only was it incredible from a personal religious standpoint, but it was unfathomable from an historical standpoint.
Part of what we saw was a copy from Deuteronomy, specifically, the passages containing the 10 Commandments. The portion of the scroll on display was maybe three inches across and perhaps 10 inches long. It contained the 10 commandments written twice (two different copies...hard to explain) including interpretive text in the original paleo-Hebrew. The writing was positively minuscule and perfect. The condition of the parchment was impeccable. It just blew me away to see such a beautiful example of writing from so long ago.
Really, I'm struggling to put into words how much this affected me. I expected to be wowed by our visit today. I didn't expect to be so deeply moved. This was well worth every penny we spent today. I'm so glad we went.
2 comments:
I would like to see them - over the years I've heard and learned so much about them. What was it that moved you so specifically?
There were many things, on many different levels that moved me. I was astonished to learn that although our current bible has been through many translations (from paleo-Hebrew, to Aramaic, to Greek, to Latin, to English under King James in the early 1600's), that it has not strayed from its original meaning. A direct translation of the scrolls today very closely follows our present day bible. To go through so many translations, and the "spin" or interpretation that each translator could have left...it is just amazing to me that the original intent and feel is still intact.
I was amazed that they had papyrus in good condition. I was amazed at the size of the tiny scrolls of parchment. The writing was minuscule and absolutely perfect. It must have taken an immense amount of practice to get the writing so uniform. There was some variance between scribes, so you could see a slight difference in slant or spacing, but when one scribe wrote an entire scroll, his penmanship didn't vary throughout. He must have had a good eye for maintaining a proper tip on his writing instrument, proper amount of ink, and perfect penmanship.
Perhaps I'm not wording this well and I'm sure others could put this into words much more eloquently, but it really was a memorable experience. We went to see the King Tut exhibit when it was in Los Angeles. As incredible as it was to see his sarcophagus, coffins and the many relics from his tomb, it just didn't touch me the same way the Dead Sea Scrolls did.
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