Clapboard - Full Frontal Nerdity

Just went and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls which happen to be at the Minnesota Science Museum across the street.  That's a bit of a misnomer, actually, since there are 500+ pages with countless fragments and the MSM only had a paltry 5 on display.   Whether it was the Israeli Historical Society (or whomever) being stingy or the museum just not having the clout to get a real exhibit's worth of scrolls is anyone's guess (and I'm sure you'd get different answers depending on whom you asked), but I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend the exhibit to anyone with more than a passing interest in the scrolls.

Given their significance as the oldest recorded notation of the early books of the bible (written between 300BCE and 70AD), I feel justified in my disappointment.  There were a lot of clay pots and stone sarcophagi (cleverly implied but never stated to be from the Dead Sea or the era of the scrolls), but precious little in terms of meat - there was almost no notation of the scrolls' text that were on display - there was a translation, thankfully, but nothing tying in the claim that over 800 people wrote the various fragments (handwriting comparisons would have been great) and no real discussion on the three languages used (Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic).  It would have been a nice touch to show us different scrolls in different languages and to talk about the ways that the language used influenced the text or reasons that the languages differ in the first place.

There are supposedly two schools of thought on the Dead Sea Scrolls' creators: first, that they were all written by a local, distinct tribe and second, that the caves were sort of a repository for the collective knowledge of the proto-jews who roamed and lived on the land in the area.  Only 13 miles from Jerusalem, the Dead Sea Scrolls' creators seem more likely (to my limited knowledge) to fall into the latter group, what with the 800 scribes, three languages and broad range of topics discussed.

I'm also interested in the non-canonical writings found in the scrolls (glossed over as "books not included in official religious text" or some shit) and in the etched-on-brass treasure list - I can see a Dan Brown-like book about the search for the riches of the Jews.  Of course, some scholars think these caches of wealth have already been discovered and no longer exist.  I'd buy that, what with the many armies that have crisscrossed that cursed land for the last 4000 years.

Anyway, it was neat to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it reminded me that I really need to pull the trigger on buying books about things that I see because I never do it when I get home (the desire fades as the experience becomes memory).  Maybe I can compromise by buying from Amazon when I get home to save money and not lug books, but also get stuff to help me retain and even extend what I've learned.  I'm currently jonesing for a Kindle, although an iPad would be a better device to view a book on, given that I'd really like to see pictures of the scrolls as well as read (and read about) them.

Happy Thursday!