ADOLFO ROITMAN, curator of the Shrine of the Book, will be giving a lecture in Springfield, Massachusetts, next week.

Scrolling through history
Saturday, January 28, 2006
By RONNI GORDON [The Republican]
rgordon@repub.com

In 1947, young Bedouin shepherds, searching the cliffs in Israel along the Dead Sea for a stray goat or possibly for treasure, found a cave containing jars filled with manuscripts.

The shepherds removed seven scrolls that led to the discovery of several more scrolls and thousands of fragments from the surrounding area, called the Qumran ruin. Archaeologists and other researchers determined that the scrolls were ancient and authentic.

"The Dead Sea Scrolls are the most outstanding archaeological discovery of the 20th century," according to Adolfo Roitman, an expert who will present a lecture at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Roitman is curator of the Shrine of the Book, which contains the Dead Sea Scroll collection and other ancient manuscripts at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The topic of his lecture is "From Serpent to Satan: The Story of Paradise in Literature and Art."

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