Dead Sea Scrolls Visit

Thirteen members of First Presbyterian Church of Henderson traveled in our own pilgrimage caravan of cars from Henderson to Raleigh to take in the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the North Carolina Museum of Science. The exhibit gives us all a rare look not only at the fragments of the Scrolls themselves--fragments from Genesis, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and the rules of the Essenes community--but of the very Essenes community that lived in Qumran on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in Israel. We both considered the recent journeys of the Scrolls since its discovery in the 1940s, but the story of this religious community itself and how it lived and thrived in its Dead Sea area. The exhibit showed how they found water and brought it up to their community, the pottery collection, and the scrolls themselves.

What was important for us to consider not only how the Scrolls were found today, but to ask the question: what is the Bible, the historic and sacred texts to not only Christians but Jews as well? Is there "the Bible" that is real, and everything else is a variation of a theme? How doe we understand the creation of this sacred texts from the oral tradition from which it was born?

We all left amazed and wondering!

Peace,

Pastor Brett