MORE ON THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT AT THE HOUSTON MUSEUM OF SCIENCE (Houston Chronicle), including comments from Professor Mattias Henze of Rice University and other local scholars.

"Advance ticket sales have been phenomenal," said Lydia Baehr, public relations director of the museum. More than 13,000 tickets have been sold, the most in the museum's history, she said.

Also, The San Marcos Daily Record has an article on Randall Price and the recent Qumran excavation. As I've said before, it sounds to me as though he's overreading the evidence, but it's hard to say what it all means until a formal report comes out.

This sounds exciting:

A series of DNA tests is set to be performed on the bones found by Price and his team, because the Dead Sea Scrolls were written on the animal's skin. A test could confirm that the DNA of the skin matches that of the bones - thus showing that the same community that buried the bones also posessed the scrolls.

And so does this:

While this mode of work is significant in uncovering pieces of world history, Price would like to bring this world to his native community of San Marcos.

Price said he's considering the idea of bringing a museum to San Marcos. This museum could contain many of the discoveries found in the Middle East by Price and his colleagues - pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Egyptian artifacts were offered as possible examples.

You can find more on the debate over recent excavations at Qumran here.