This exhibition closed January 6, 2008.

Exhibition Details

Copper Scroll Fragment Courtesy IAA. Click on image for larger view.

This scroll, inscribed upon a sheet of copper originally about eight-feet long, is unlike any other Dead Sea Scroll. Researchers sliced the copper scroll into small sections to photograph it and decipher the text.

The most puzzling of all the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Copper Scroll lists 64 locations where over 100 tons of gold, silver, scrolls and priestly items were supposedly hidden. Scholars, bewildered by this mysterious list of treasures, do not agree regarding the purpose of the text. Is it fact or fiction, real or metaphorical? Does the cryptic text refer to specific locations?

Despite efforts to crack the code and treasure hunting which scandalized the scholarly community, no one has found the hidden riches described in the Copper Scroll. In addition to its baffling content, the Hebrew language of the Copper Scroll differs from all the other texts discovered in the Dead Sea Scroll library.

Learn more about this unique scroll in a recent article by Dr. Risa Levitt Kohn.

2. Testimonia

Testimonia 4Q175 Courtesy IAA. Click on image for larger view.

This scroll contains a collection of five quotations from the Hebrew Bible and one passage not included in the standardized Bible. The first set of quotations come from Deuteronomy 5:28-9 and 18:18-9. The second is from Numbers 24:15-7, and the third begins with Joshua 6:26. Another passage, from the Psalms of Joshua, is only found in the scrolls at Qumran.

Scholars believe that the Testimonia served as a source of texts for the Qumran community's views concerning the end of times. This genre of writing, using biblical excerpts to illustrate a particular view or interpretation, is also seen in early Christian literature.

Isaiah Pesher 4Q162 Courtesy IAA. Click on image for larger view.

Like other Judaic communities at the time, the Qumran community interpreted the Bible through their unique set of beliefs. In this community of learned scribes, they recorded their interpretations on scrolls as commentaries on biblical excerpts. After copying each biblical verse, the authors of the commentary provide interpretation of the text's meaning, often related to events of their time and place.

The community at Qumran believed that the Bible contained hidden messages and esoteric secrets concerning the future, and that their righteousness empowered them to reveal these secrets. The biblical Book of Isaiah, a very popular book in the Qumran library which foretells the end of time, inspired numerous commentaries, or pesherim.