Never Before Seen Fragment of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Paleo Leviticus

A portion of the Dead Sea Scroll, on display at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. (Credit: Kristen Bergeron/KTVT)

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth is planning an exhibition in July featured 16 scroll fragments. Here's a sneak peak of a fragment not shown yet to the public.

The fragment is 14.5 centimeters long and 8 centimeters high. It was put on display for CBS 11 in the MacGorman Chapel.





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Latrine Fuels Dead Sea Scrolls Debate

Matti Friedman, Associated Press

Researchers say their discovery of a 2,000-year-old toilet at one of the world's most important archaeological sites sheds new light on whether the ancient Essene community was home to the authors of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In a new study, three researchers say they have discovered the outdoor latrine used by the ancient residents of Qumran, on the barren banks of the Dead Sea. They say the find proves the people living here two millennia ago were Essenes, an ascetic Jewish sect that left Jerusalem to seek proximity to God in the desert.

Qumran and its environs have already yielded many treasures: the remains of a settlement with an aqueduct and ritual baths, ancient sandals and pottery, and the Dead Sea Scrolls — perhaps the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century.

The scrolls, which include fragments of the books of the Old Testament and treatises on communal living and apocalyptic war, have shed important light on Judaism and the origins of Christianity.

Thanks to an Israeli anthropologist, an American textual scholar and a French paleo-parasitologist, researchers can now add another find: human excrement.

The discovery is more significant than it may seem. The nature of the settlement at Qumran is the subject of a lively academic debate.

The traditional view, supported by a majority of scholars since the site was first excavated in the 1950s, is that the settlement was inhabited by Essene monks who observed strict rules of ritual purity and celibacy and who wrote many of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The second school says the people living at Qumran were farmers, potters or soldiers, and had nothing to do with the Essenes. The scrolls, according to this view, were written in Jerusalem and stashed in caves at Qumran by Jewish refugees fleeing the Roman conquest of the city in the first century.

The researchers behind the latrine finding, which is being published in the scholarly journal "Revue de Qumran," say it supports the traditional view linking the residents of Qumran with the Essenes.

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Dead Sea Scrolls, 'Jesus Tomb Ossuaries' on Display in New York

by John R. Quain

| FoxNews.com

Baz Ratner, Reuters - Sections of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2008.

NEW YORK – For the first time ever, some of the most priceless -- and delicate -- writings from biblical times went on public display Friday.

It's part of "Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times," an exhibition at the Discovery Times Square in New York City. Comprising roughly 500 artifacts, some dating back more than 3,000 years, it is one of the most comprehensive displays of artifacts from ancient Israel ever assembled.

"We wanted to piece together history," says Risa Leavitt Kohn, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University and one of the show's curators. The objects in the exhibit range from pottery and ancient altars to tomb artifacts (which some have speculated may be from Jesus' tomb) to the show’s centerpiece -- the Dead Sea Scrolls.

For many, viewing selected sections of the scrolls will be an enlightening experience. Ten sections are on display, ranging from text that later appears in both the Jewish and Christian Bibles to poems and rules for community conduct.

Among the scrolls are remarkable, non-biblical documents, such as the Book of War, which details an apocalyptic battle between angels representing good and evil. Also on public display for the first time are pieces of Aramaic Levi, in which a father explains priestly duties to his son, and Apocryphal Lamentations, ancient poetry concerning the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC.

"We wanted to show a sampling of all the different kinds of texts that are part of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection," Kohn explained. The Dead Sea Scrolls are actually a collection of roughly 900 different texts written in Greek, Aramaic and ancient Hebrew that were uncovered in the 1940s and ’50s in series of 11 different caves. Scholars continue to pore over the tens of thousands of parchment fragments today.

Extreme care has been taken to preserve and protect the scrolls, which are some of the most fragile and important documents ever discovered. Along with the other objects in the exhibit, curators from the Israel Antiquities Authority brought them over on five different flights to prevent the loss of all the relics should an accident occur.

At the Discovery Times Square, the scrolls are housed in dimly lit cases to minimize damage from light, and they are kept at 50 percent humidity between 68 and 70 degrees. When visitors approach each section, a motion sensor turns on the display case lights. The first group of fragments will be on display for only 90 days, when another collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls will replace them, so that the first group can "rest" and avoid damage from overexposure.

Almost inconspicuous in the exhibit are six objects that have generated perhaps the most biblical and religious controversy in recent years, the so-called Jesus Tomb ossuaries. Ossuaries are stone boxes that were used to house the bones of the deceased in underground tombs during the time of Christ.

These particular boxes, discovered during construction of an apartment block in Jerusalem, are unusual because they bear inscriptions including the names Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Maria. Some scholars have suggested that this means it could be the final resting place of Jesus and his family.

Curators of the exhibit point out that these names were popular and common 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem. Scores of ossuaries have been unearthed in recent years, and it's not uncommon to find the name Jesus, for example, scratched on an ossuary. Indeed, to underscore the point, the exhibit includes a tiny stone box bearing the name Jesus, assumed to have held the remains of a child found in another tomb.

Other highlights of the exhibit include a 3-ton stone from the Western Wall in Jerusalem, upon which some early visitors have already placed prayer notes, and a short video detailing the initial discovery of the first Dead Sea scrolls by Bedouin tribesmen and how the precious texts were secretly purchased from antiquities dealers.

The exhibition in New York City runs until April 15, 2012, and then travels to Philadelphia to go on display at the Franklin Institute.