Enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll makes rare show in Jerusalem

A fragment of an enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll has gone on public display at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum for the first time since its discovery 70 years ago.

The Genesis Apocryphon, the only copy of an ancient Jewish text elaborating stories from the Book of Genesis, is over 2,000 years old and was among the first seven scrolls found in the Judean Desert in 1947. The Associated Press previewed the exhibit Tuesday.

To protect the delicate parchment, the fragment is encased in a “smart glass” vitrine that minimizes exposure to light.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of 2,000-year-old Jewish religious texts found in caves near Qumran in the 1940s and 1950s, include the earliest known versions of the Bible and documents outlining the beliefs of a little-understood Jewish sect.

— AP