Early Wednesday morning, Paul, Terry, John Alexander, and I took off for Raleigh. My hybrid car did well; we obtained 41.8 mpg going 70 mph (legal speed in NC on the road we traveled) with the air conditioning on. After a short trip to the downtown farmers' market where I bought sun gold tomatoes, Italian bread, and fresh basil, we made our way to the North Carolina Museum of Science on Jones Street. Tickets to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit were $22, a small price, indeed, when you consider that tickets to see Barbra Streisand are as much as $600. We had a nice surprise, though, because senior tickets for those 60 and over were only $16. So, I got in with an $8 discount! The entire exhibit was quite well done. You enter through a cave and have a hand-held listening device that you hold up to your ear to hear pre-recorded information about each facet of the exhibit. I learned so much ancient history that my head is completely filled and the rest has leaked into my body. This is probably why I look fat. :-) Because much of the exhibit focused on them, I was reminded of a book I had read in my early college days about the Essenes. The author's perspective was that Jesus was an Essene, though I am not convinced that he was. It is believed that the Essenes may have created some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
As we went from room to room, the light grew dimmer. By the time we made it into the high-security chamber with the actual scrolls, the light was so low that it was eerie. This is required because the scrolls are disintegrating at a fast rate and can have only so many minutes of light on any given day. There were pieces--literally fragments--of six different scrolls. I think that many people do not realize that there are various versions of many books of the Bible written in several different languages. The gospels weren't written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John; in fact, they were written 70+ years after Jesus died.
So I can now say that I have seen Dead Sea Scrolls. They were interesting, of course, but so were all of the other artifacts on display. I kept wondering, "Who made this? What was this person's life like? How would he feel if he knew that thousands of years later, people like me are filled with wonder as we gaze at his handiwork?" I have so many questions that I have a ton of research to do. The next time I go back, I'll take notes so that I can be better organized about my research. I was left with one big question, though, one I've thought of at other times I have visited ancient treasures: What else is out there and when will it be uncovered?
2 comments:
The book you are thinking of that you read in the 70s, was it Elaine Pagel's The Gnostic Gospels? I just finished that on audio and it was published about that time period. I am now reading her Beyond Belief about the Gospel of Thomas. I find the factual historical beginnings of Christianity fascinating, I would love to see this exhibit. I wonder too about the writers of the scrolls and of all the Christian texts, even the ones that never made it into official canon. I wonder what they were like, what their agendas were (if they had any), etc. What was so interesting about the Pagels book was that it clearly demonstrated that Christianity was very diverse in the early days, and it makes me wonder why a specific "version" won out and became the official doctrine. Was it power related, were the "winners" really the ones who held the one true faith? I know many ardent Christians are dismissive of historians like Crossan or Borg or Pagels, but I've found that everyone tied into religion seems to have a personal agenda and it is hard for anyone, historian or not to put aside their personal faith beliefs and be totally objective. Reading lots of Christian theologians and scholars gives the best rounded out picture.
This is in fact a biased and misleading exhibit, in which the current state of research has been carefully distorted to cater to the interests of influential members of the old Dead Sea Scrolls monopoly group. The group's control over access to the scrolls collapsed in the midst of scandal following John Strugnell's antisemitic outbursts some fifteen years ago, but they have retained control over the way the scrolls are presented in museum exhibits, even though their views have now been rejected by an entire series of major historians and archaeologists.
In a word, the Raleigh museum (which is run by the North Carolina Department of the Environment) agreed to downplay and conceal the evidence brought to light by Jewish researchers who, over the past decade, have rejected the old "Qumran-Essene" theory of scroll origins, and to physically exclude them from participating in the lecture series accompanying the exhibit.
I would highly recommend reading University of Chicago historian Norman Golb's editorial at http://www.forward.com/articles/10497/, as well as his more detailed article on "Fact and Fiction in Current Exhibitions of the Dead Sea Scrolls," available on the Oriental Institute website at http://www.oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/dss_fact_fiction_2007.pdf.
Since the museum is a state-run institution, the role of government officials in displaying religiously controversial artifacts must also be addressed. Is it appropriate for a North Carolina government agency to take sides in an acrimonious scholarly dispute while entertaining people with a religiously oriented exhibit in, of all places, a natural sciences museum?
Is there any public accounting of how this exhibit was funded, and of where the profits ($22 per ticket) will be going?
This is, of course, a serious issue that should be carefully examined by the media. Instead, we have silence, viciously implied innuendo about Jewish culture coming from North Carolina authorities (including an antisemitic insinuation on the museum's website), mendacious claims about a fabricated "consensus" that no longer exists, and a continuing pattern of catering to private interests.
For further information on this propaganda masquerading as an exhibit, previously dished out to the public in various private "science" museums around the country, see, e.g.,
http://spinozaslens.com/libet/articles/dworkin_ethicsofexhibition.htm
or
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/did-christian-agenda-lead-biased-dead-sea-scrolls-exhibit-san-diego.
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