Israeli museum displays 2,100-year-old scroll of Book of Isaiah

Published: 2008-05-19

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- The Isaiah Scroll, the most complete of the biblical Dead Sea documents ever found, went on display for the first time in 40 years at an Israeli museum. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem put two major sections of the 2,100-year-old biblical scroll on display May 18 for a limited time in a special exhibit at the museum's Shrine of the Book in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary. The scroll contains the entire Book of Isaiah, including the well-known passage: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again." Dominican Father Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, professor of New Testament at the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem, called the Isaiah Scroll "probably the most important manuscript discovery ever." The Isaiah Scroll is one of the first seven scrolls discovered in 1947 in a cave near Qumran, on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea, by a Bedouin shepherd.

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