Tuesday, June 03, 2008

THE ISAIAH SCROLL EXHIBIT is covered by Bloomberg:
Dead Sea Scroll's 2,100-Year-Old Peace Appeal Goes Back on Show

By Gwen Ackerman

June 3 (Bloomberg) -- The yellowing parchment, pocked with dark blotches from the sun, has ragged and fragile edges. The lure remains as strong as ever for the hundreds who study all 16 feet of it keenly under the dim light. While the 2,100-year-old inscription has faded, its words still resonate.

``They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks,'' the Prophet Isaiah's famous vision of peace says. ``Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.''

The two longest sections of the oldest existing copy of the book of Isaiah are on display for the first time in 40 years at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The most complete of the Dead Sea Scrolls was taken out of storage and will be on show through Aug. 19 to mark the founding of the Jewish state 60 years ago. Israel is negotiating peace with the Palestinians and Syria after concluding agreements with two of its Arab neighbors in the past three decades.

``It's a real archaeological miracle that we have such a piece from 100 years before Jesus was born,'' said curator Adolfo Roitman, the head of the museum's Shrine of the Book for the past 14 years. ``This is the real Mona Lisa of the Jewish nation.''

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