Exhibit tells story of scrolls Duke let go

In 1950, Duke University was offered a chance to buy a portion of what is now considered the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century. The university turned it down.

Now, the Dead Sea Scrolls are in the possession of the Israel Antiquities Authority and routinely travel to museums worldwide, drawing thousands of visitors who pay upward of $20 to view them.

An exhibit of the scrolls opens today at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, showcasing the historic artifacts Duke once passed up.

Unearthed by a Bedouin goat herder in a cave near the Dead Sea in 1947, the scrolls offer an exquisite glimpse of the formative years of Judaism and Christianity.

They were on exhibit in San Diego last year, and in Charlotte in 2006.

But the Raleigh exhibit tells the story of the scrolls in relation to North Carolina. The exhibit, which visitors enter through a life-size re-created cave, begins with the scrolls' discovery and initial examination by a group of scholars, including Duke doctoral student William Brownlee, who was studying in Jerusalem.

Three years later, four scrolls traveled to Duke, where they were seen by 30,000 people during a one-week exhibit in the university's chapel. According to legend, one elderly man promptly fainted when told the Isaiah scroll he was looking at was written during the time of Jesus.

But though the public was enthusiastic, university officials were less so.

"No one in the U.S. was prescient enough to know what they were and how important they were," said Eric Meyers, professor and director of the Judaic Studies Center at Duke. "It was a missed opportunity."

The exhibit, a high-tech affair, includes three-dimensional multimedia presentations of North Carolina in proximity to the Dead Sea and a virtual tour of the Jerusalem temple. It is intended for adults but includes some displays for children.

Ancient copyists

The scrolls -- there are 900 altogether -- offer some of the earliest found copies of every book in the Hebrew Bible except Esther. A Jewish sect known as the Essenes may have copied some of these biblical books in addition to other books of Jewish literature and commentary found in the caves.

Many scholars consider the Essenes as forerunners of yet another early Jewish sect: Christians.

Like some early Christians, the Essenes led a celibate lifestyle, practiced a kind of baptism and held to apocalyptic beliefs that the end of the world was near.

Unlike Christians, this group died out after the Romans destroyed their compound in the year 68. Christians, who showed great skill in reaching out to new followers, eventually flourished.

"We felt these texts have relevance to many people in the community -- Christians and Jews," said Albert Ervin, special exhibits coordinator at the museum. "Even people of other faith traditions would find them of significance to society."

Excavations near the caves where the scrolls were found revealed a compound, known as Qumran, where historians think the Essenes lived. Findings unearthed there include several inkwells as well as a "scriptorium" or writing room, which suggests the Essenes devoted themselves to copying sacred texts.

But there is no scholarly consensus on the scrolls. Some maintain they were written by various Jewish groups which, anticipating the siege of Jerusalem in the year 70, squirreled them away in clay jars and hid them in caves around the Dead Sea for safekeeping. The museum offers this point of view, too.

"We say there is a debate, and we leave it open," said Hava Katz, one of the Israeli curators who worked on the exhibit. "The visitor can decide."

Scrolls rotated

In keeping with its mission as a museum of natural sciences, the exhibit includes a room devoted to explaining how the scrolls were pieced together and preserved. The six scrolls on display are in a dimly lit room, in line with strict preservation rules that dictate they not be exposed to damaging light. The cases containing the scrolls are controlled at a temperature of 68 degrees and humidity of 50 percent.

Although the exhibit lasts until the end of December, the six scrolls will be replaced in October with six others, to keep from exposing any one set to more than three months of light. In Israel, the scrolls are kept in darkness and rotated for short periods when they are exhibited.

Now on display are scroll pieces from the books of Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy, as well as three nonbiblical texts.

Though Duke University passed on the scrolls, it has over the years collected other ancient manuscripts, such as historic Bibles. The last room of the exhibit features Bibles from Duke's Rare Book collection, including a Latin Bible from 1260, a Gutenberg Bible from 1454 and a Geneva Bible from 1560.

The idea was to show that the writing of sacred texts continued after the first century, curator Ervin said. In the year 700, books replaced scrolls, and in the 15th century, the forerunner of the printing press was introduced.

Katz, the Israeli curator of the scrolls, said the exhibit is intended to be a "spiritual adventure," showing how two faiths emerged from a common source.

"We all have the same roots," she said.