NOBTS Displays Items Alongside Dead Sea Scroll Exhibit
The New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Adds Personal Collections with Dead Sea Scroll traveling exhibit scheduled to start in Mobile, Alabama.
The Dead Sea Scroll Traveling Exhibit is scheduled to start January 20 at the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center Mobile, Alabama. The exhibit will showcase a collection of 12 authentic Dead Sea scrolls on loan from the Israeli Antiquities Authority. In addition to sponsoring the event, the NOBTS will display artifacts from its own collection alongside the Dead Sea scrolls.
The traveling exhibit will be arranged in a timeline showcasing the scrolls alongside archaeological artifacts according to the scroll’s historical content. Visitors will see each of the scrolls place according to a timeline stretching from the height of the Abraham to the height of the Egyptian empire, from the era of King David to the era of Socrates, and from the era of Constantine to the era of Muhammad.
Exhibit curator Ellen Herron commented about NOBTS’ generosity in lending items from their collection to augment the exhibit. “[NOBTS] has some lovely things, I was pleasantly surprised,” Herron said to BP. The artifacts on loan for the exhibit were part of a collection from the seminary’s Bible Lands Museum at the Center for Archaeological Research.
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Commenting to BP, NOBTS Director of the Center for Archaeological Research Steven Ortiz said, “This is an honor for the seminary to loan some of our collection to this exhibit. It highlights the work of the seminary by displaying portions of our unique collections.” Ortiz shared that previously many of the NOBTS pieces about to be placed on display were previously kept in storage due to lack of space at the seminary.
Items on loan with the exhibit include 4th millennium B.C. clay cups, Egyptian bronze statues, cuneiform tablets, mosaic fragments, clay figurines, and pieces of Roman pottery from the era of Jesus.
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The exhibit will also feature seven 2,000 year-old biblical scrolls and five sectarian documents discovered in the Qumran site in Israel. The scrolls contains, to this date, the oldest surviving copy of the book of Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.
On an interesting note, one of the 29 Deuteronomy fragments soon to be placed on display is the only known copy of all Ten Commandments dating to the biblical period.
In addition, Herron created a part of the exhibit to include a section concerning the history of bible translation. Herron expressed hopes that the section will inform visitors countless efforts over the centuries in preserving and passing down the biblical traditions.
“I wanted to give people an idea of the history of this text that is so central to the lives of so many people,” she said. “I wanted to show some significant translations of the Bible through history. I can take what people have just learned about the scrolls and say, ‘Here is how that carried forward after the scrolls.’”
The sub-section will also feature items on loan from the John T. Christian Library such as a 12th-century Psalter, a Guttenberg Bible leaf, and several early English translations.
