Enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll makes rare show in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (AP) — A fragment of an enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll has gone on public display at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum for the first time since its discovery 70 years ago.
The Genesis Apocryphon, the sole copy of an ancient Jewish text elaborating on stories from the first book of the Bible, dates to the first century B.C. and was among the first seven scrolls found in the Judean Desert in 1947. The Associated Press previewed the exhibit Tuesday.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts found in desert caves in the West Bank near Qumran in the 1940s and 1950s, date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. They include the earliest known copies of biblical texts, documents outlining the beliefs of a little understood Jewish sect, as well as related texts like the Genesis Apocryphon.
“This is the only copy of this book on Earth,” said Adolfo Roitman, curator of the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book, where the scrolls are housed.
References
ILAN BEN ZION — Associated Press
Photo credit: Associated Press
