Design Exhibit
At DAM

SUSAN R. POLLACK

Special to the Jewish News

Rapids is the` manly
.s. venue for a Dead Sea
a-offs -exhibit.

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Fragment
of Exodus scroll:
About 75 percent
of the Book of Exodus
survives, the parts
containing chapters
6 through 37.
This fragment
is Exodus 6:25-7:19.
It is believed to
date from about
100 B.C.E.

ead to Grand Rapids in the
coming months ro inspect
firsthand some of the earliest
surviving text of the Hebrew
Bible, the oldest phylacteries ever found
and limestone purification vessels dating
back more than two millennia.
They're all part of "The Dead S
Scrolls," a $1.2-million exhibit that wi
be on view Feb. 16-june 1 in what
some might deem an unlikely place: tl
Public Museum of Grand Rapids' Van
ndel Ncluseum Center in IV
so-called. Bible Belt.
In its only U.S. appearance r
the historic display from the Israel
Antiquities Authority showcases I
scrolls, including fragments fro
books of Exodus and-Ps/lbw,
more than 2,000 years ago.
Also featured are dozens of artifac
and documents from Qumran, the
ancient Judean Desert settlement local
near the caves where a Bedouin shep-
herd boy, searching for a lost goat, first
discovered the scrolls in 1947.
Coins, leather sandals, a scroll storage
ar and a pottery inkwell that may have
been used in Writing the scrolls are among
'other treasures on display from the
site 12 miles southeast of
he exhibit is a coup for
largest city, where th
unity numbers only 2000, sa) - -
Stein, executive director of the
n of Grand Ra
ortunity for
mm
she sa
door to door, fi-om
an would be happy to help
arnmgernents, says Stein.
en on parchn-ient and paper
Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek from
B.C.E. to around 68 C.F.., the en
collection of Dead Sea Scrolls includ
parts of every book of the
crept the ,gook of Ether.
BY 1967, researchers had found
nearly complete scrolls arid some 100,00
fragments of another 900 scrolls, NV
ey painstakingl.y pieced together.
Iviost obviously, have tnissin
Few ever leave Israel.
We're getting, 12 scrolls or docu-
ments," says Ellen Middle