Dead Sea Scrolls Museum

We were brought to the museum where the dead sea scrolls were kept and displayed for us tourists. very interesting stuff, though i must say i didn't understand quite a lot of them. (and that's why i'm bent on going back in like maybe 5 years time to experience Israel once again. and i'm sure then, it'll be a totally different experience considering i would hopefully be more "wise" and "knowledgable" by then..)



they had this cool model of Jerusalem, the city. Moshe told us so many things about where this and that was.. so much!


what was really cool was when Moshe showed us the "Fingerprint" of God. SHIN, the hebrew letter, is said to be "God's name". or the letter of God, something like that. like SHaddai. the "SH" - that's the SHIN.

so from the city of Jerusalem, there are actually 3 valleys. or there WERE 3 valleys. 2 of them are still present today, as you can see from the bottom most corner (of the picture on top), each taking one side of the city. it's like a trench/valley thingy. 90 degrees.

there's a HIDDEN one, which was covered by the Romans or some group of people, to deny that the God of Israel lives. they filled that valley with soil, and today, it's a shopping street. terrible people. but who can ever stop God from being made known?!



from the "south", (which is from where this picture was taken), you can see that the corner or meeting point of the SHIN is at the corner of the south-east. and it so happens that those are the two entrances for people to enter the temple. the southern steps and the eastern gate. and it's like God is saying, I'm guarding the doors of Israel. HOW COOL!!

all in all, i think it's just so amazing how God had planned the city this way. using nature's wonders of valleys to stamp His signature and claim this city as His very own. Awesome God!!




At this same place, we find the Dead Sea Scrolls Museum. in fact, this is what the place is famous for (Though i was personally more intrigued by the 3D model of Jerusalem)

Weren't allowed to take pictures, so sorry, no photos for this one!

Moshe told us a bit about how the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. in 1947, a sheep ran into a little creek. Shepherd boy came to the rescue, and threw some stones to measure the depth of the creek. he heard, instead, the breaking of pottery. he went down, and found jars that contained leather skins with weird writings. Tried to sell them in Jerusalem, but nobody really cared. Only this shoemaker who found it interesting bought it, and brough it to an Israeli professor expert on such writings.

So these leather-parchments were brought all the way to America, where in 1954, the business man who finally bought it placed an advert int he newspapers asking for a quarter million for the scrolls! Of course, Israel bought the scrolls, and there you have, the Dead Sea Scrolls!

Prior to this find, the last find of manuscripts was in the 10th Centuary, AD.

This round, all books were found, except for Esther, and they believe it's because the word "God" was not in the book of Esther, therefore they didn't think it to be worth duplicating and storing. Everything else, however, was almost exactly word for word!

exceptions are, out of all the books of psalms copied, there was one copy that had 151 psalms instead of 150. haha.. don't ask me why!