Sunday, July 01, 2012

More on SWBTS DSS exhibit

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminar is covered by the Christian Post, Singapore edition, and has some information I don't recall seeing before:
Largest Ever Dead Sea Scroll Fragments on Display

Saturday, Jun. 30, 2012 Posted: 9:46:03PM HKT

Visitors at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's exhibition, "Dead Sea Scrolls & the Bible: Ancient Artifacts, Timeless Treasures" in Forth Worth, Texas, will be able to view the largest Dead Sea Scroll fragments to ever be placed on public display starting July 12.

"The chance to view portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls usually requires an overseas trip to a Near East nation, such as Israel or Jordan," said Bruce McCoy, the exhibition director.

The elaborate display will include the Genesis 37-38 fragment, which is owned by the Kando family of Bethlehem and is considered to be the largest Dead Sea Scroll segment held by a private collector. Five other major fragments will also be on display, including Genesis 33, 1 Kings 13:22-22, Isaiah 28:23-29, Amos 7:17- 8:1 and Joel 3:9-10.

These fragments account for only the latest additions to the impressive ancient artifact display – passages from Nehemiah, Ezekiel, and Jonah are all also featured, and with the help of the Green Collection and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Southwestern's total display has reached 21.

In addition, other rare and interesting artifacts that will be present at the MacGorman Performing Arts Center will include the Isaiah scroll, the Habakkuk Commentary, the Manual of Discipline, and the full Copper Scroll, which were all found at the archaeological site in Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.

[...]
I think there is something wrong with the last paragraph. Granted, the exhibition website (http://www.seethescrolls.com/) is very weak on particulars, but if these superstar scrolls were actually part of it, I would think that would be mentioned somewhere. Not only that, the Copper Scroll was sliced up into a bunch of narrow segments in order to read it and I would be very surprised if all of them were allowed to travel to one exhibition. Moreover, the Copper Scroll is held by Jordan, but there is absolutely nothing on the website about a Jordanian connection.

Not mentioned in the article, but the St. John's Bible and the Gabriel Revelation are also part of the exhibition.

Background here and links.

UPDATE: Reader Theophrastus has e-mailed to point me to the press release on which the article is based and which says clearly that the scrolls I had doubts about are facsimiles.