NEW YORK.- The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was one of the archaeological sensations of the 20th century. Treasured objects of ancient religious observance and intense modern scholarly debate, these parchment texts were found, starting in 1947, in caves in the Judean Desert, east of Jerusalem and near the Dead Sea. Created over 2,000 years ago, the scrolls turned out to contain previously unknown Jewish compositions as well as the oldest surviving copies of the Hebrew Bible. When biblical scholars first learned of these texts, they were electrified by their potential for new revelations about Judaism and Christianity. Over time, some 900 separate scrolls were found in neighboring caves. They are collectively called the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of the Ancient World opens at The Jewish Museum on September 21, 2008 and remains on view through January 4, 2009. This new exhibition features fragments of six scrolls, which have never been seen in New York City before. Three of the scrolls are being exhibited for the first time anywhere. Revered and revelatory, the Dead Sea Scrolls on display, together with over 30 artifacts discovered near the caves where the documents were found, provide new insights into the varied beliefs of ancient peoples and religious diversity today. A seven-minute film further enriches the visitor experience.

This exhibition represents the collaboration between the Israel Antiquities Authority and The Jewish Museum. All of the objects are from the National Treasures of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of the Ancient World is sponsored by AIG.

The exhibition at The Jewish Museum includes six Dead Sea Scrolls. These fragments of parchment documents consist of the Book of Jeremiah (225-175 BCE), one of the earliest copies of the Hebrew Bible in existence; an early example of prayers from the Words of the Luminaries; the Book of Tobit, a Jewish text that was not included in the Hebrew canon but later accepted into some versions of the Christian Old Testament (Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox); the Aramaic Apocryphon of Daniel, which mentions a son of God; the Community Rule, which lays out the regulations for joining and being a member of a sect; and the War Rule, which describes a great war at the end of days. Each represents an aspect of the diverse religious milieu in which they were created more than 2,000 years ago. In an adjoining gallery, visitors will learn that scholars still do not agree about the origins and meaning of the scrolls decades after their discovery.

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of the Ancient World was organized for The Jewish Museum by Susan L. Braunstein, Curator of Archaeology and Judaica. In assembling the exhibition, she selected texts that illustrate the diversity and transformations in Judaism during the Second Temple Period, when the written word and prayer were rivaling sacrifice in worship, as well as early Christianity’s connections to Judaism.

The Dead Sea Scrolls date from the late third century BCE through the first century CE. The texts consist of biblical books and commentary, poetry and prayers, and the communal rules and writings of one or more dissident Jewish religious groups. The scrolls were in use during a period of successive political upheavals, from the Maccabean revolt for Jewish independence to the reign of King Herod to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE. This was also a time that saw the development of two religions – early Judaism and Christianity.

At some point in the first century CE, the people who treasured these scrolls placed them in eleven caves along a five-mile stretch of cliffs in the barren Judean Desert, close to the Dead Sea. Nearby was a small settlement at Khirbet Qumran, inhabited from the late second century BCE to the first century CE. No one returned to collect the scrolls from the caves, and they lay there undisturbed until their discovery in 1947.

Since then, scholars have once again pored over these texts and over the archaeological remains from Qumran, seeking to unravel their mysteries: Who wrote and used them? What can they tell us about the development of early Judaism, the text-oriented and synagogue-based form of worship that evolved alongside the sacrificial rituals at the Temple? And can they shed light on the beginnings of Christianity in the first century CE?

Finding the answers to these questions is an ongoing process, one that has already produced lively scholarly debates. The scrolls have opened up a complex world of Jewish diversity and inquiry from which Christianity eventually emerged.

Scholars have two basic theories about who used the scrolls. The first posits that the scrolls all belonged to a single religious sect that probably lived at the settlement of Qumran. Most scholars identify this group as the Essenes described in the writings of ancient historians, although other groups such as the Sadducees and even proto-Christians have been proposed.

The second theory proposes that the scrolls were a random collection of texts reflecting the beliefs of many Jewish groups of the period. They represented either a single priestly repository or public library, or the sacred texts of various Jewish communities from Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Land of Israel. During the Jewish revolt against Rome beginning in 68 CE, refugees from further north hid their precious texts in the Dead Sea caves. This hypothesis holds that there is no connection between the scrolls and the settlement at Qumran, and that the site was a fortress, a villa, a farm, an industrial site, or a commercial center.

Some scholars remain cautious about adopting either theory, and await more information from new publications of the scrolls and the Qumran excavations.

What we know, Dr. Braunstein asserts, is that “these scrolls represent incredible voices speaking to us from a very important and fluid time in the development of the Jewish and Christian religions. I hope that their power will be felt and that our interpretation will help visitors understand them.”

Among the artifacts included in the exhibition are leather sandals, representing the footwear of ordinary citizens of ancient Israel. They serve as poignant reminders of people who may have lived in or taken refuge in the Qumran caves, perhaps while hiding from the Romans.

Also on view is a linen hairnet. One of the hotly contested issues in the debates over who used the scrolls is whether or not the sect members were celibate men. Hairnets found in the caves near Qumran, similar to the example on display, provide tantalizing but inconclusive evidence for women’s presence at the site. Were they left by Qumran residents, or by refugees fleeing the Roman soldiers?

Many scrolls were probably stored either wrapped in a cloth or placed in a jar, or sometimes both, in order to protect and preserve them. Wrapper decoration, which was rare, consisted of blue lines made from threads dyed with indigo or violet. The very fine weaving of a scroll wrapper in the exhibition, and the use of expensive, imported indigo dye, suggest a certain level of wealth on the part of those who cared for the scrolls. It is unusual for a textile to survive from antiquity, since the climate and soil of Israel are not conducive to the preservation of organic materials.

Other objects on exhibition include silver coins, cups and plates for dining, stone vessels, a scroll jar and lid, a comb, an inkwell, and tefillin (phylactery) cases (small leather boxes containing passages of scripture worn by men at weekday morning prayer). The tefillin cases in this exhibition are the earliest known examples in the world.