GATINEAU, Quebec — The Canadian Museum of Civilization has announced it will extend its hours in response to “unprecedented” interest in its exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The museum also announced that attendance in December — 84,512 visitors — was the highest in that month in its history, driven largely by the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The exhibit, “Ancient Treasures and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” features more than 100 objects, including portions of three of the scrolls, one of which is among the oldest biblical manuscripts ever found.
A thousand years older than previously known Hebrew copies of the Bible, the Scrolls, discovered in a cave in Qumran in 1947, reveal currents of religious thought and society in Israel in the centuries just before and after the birth of Jesus.
The exhibition includes portions of three of the most symbolic of the Dead Sea Scrolls: the War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness (War Scroll), the Community Rule and Isaiah B (a copy of the Book of Isaiah). This is the first time that the War Scroll and the Isaiah scroll have left Israel. The Community Rule scroll has not been outside Israel since 1954, when it was purchased from an American collector.
The Scrolls join rare artifacts, dating from 1200 B.C.E. to the seventh century, unearthed at major sites such as Jerusalem, Masada, Arad and Beit Shemesh. They depict daily life during the First and Second Temple periods. The exhibit closes April 12.
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