THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS are also the subject of a long article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. I've read it over quickly and it looks good. Here's the conclusion:

The legacy of the scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls caused re-examination of ancient texts, leading to about 100 minor revisions, such as a word substitution, and margin notes in English translations. As research continues, that total will likely triple or quadruple, Abegg said.

"Despite the fact that there are some variations in the texts from the Qumran, the content of the Bible and its wordings are virtually the same," Schiffman said. "Its eternal message remains the same throughout the ages."

The Dead Sea Scrolls also illuminate the centuries between the Old Testament and New Testament.

Before the scrolls were discovered, Nickelsburg said, Jews largely derived their history from the fourth century B.C. to the first century A.D. from the writings of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and the Jewish philosopher and exegete, Philo of Alexandria.

"The Qumran writings are contemporary witnesses to that history, composed by the people who were living it. In them modern Jews may find aspects of their heritage to embrace and eschew," he said.

The scrolls' many parallels with the New Testament show today's Christians that "the earliest Christianity was, in fact, a Jewish messianic movement, and a better appreciation of the specific ways in which the early church both incorporated and distanced itself from aspects of its Jewish heritage," Nickelsburg said

Put another way, Abegg said, "the scrolls allow us to see that Christianity is much more Jewish than we had allowed, and they show us a Judaism that was much more varied than we had previously known. As you can imagine, there has been a major rewriting of books to account for this perspective."

That's plenty to ponder for scholars and believers and even skeptics, anyone curious about the cache of writings hidden in pottery jars in caves for two millennia.

Viewers of the scrolls may gain "a sense that something is special here -- some treasure, some ancient wisdom," Abegg said. "It may change their lives. Who knows?"

UPDATE: The same source also has an article on the exhibition that has generated all this interest:

Once restricted to scholars, scrolls on view for anyone

By MARY ANDOM
P-I REPORTER

Shrouded in mystery, the Dead Sea Scrolls remained hidden from the world; only a select few had seen them until 1991, when the first photos of them were published.

Now, 2,000 years after their creation, the scrolls are getting a breath of fresh air. An exhibit titled Discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls will make its West Coast premiere Saturday at the Pacific Science Center. The exhibit will feature 10 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, with four scrolls never before seen by the public.

[...]

A self-guided audio tour will transport visitors back in time; the exhibit, which begins with contemporary Israel, works it way back to the 1947 discovery, with a replica of the cave in which they were found, and eventually leads to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In addition, the show will include pottery, coins and leather sandals discovered near the archaeological site. These artifacts shed a light on the lives of the people living there then.

The Gallery of the Scrolls will feature 10 original scrolls with the earliest versions of the Hebrew Bible -- the books of Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Psalms -- on display. A handful of facsimiles on various subjects, including the book of Deuteronomy, also will be shown.

The Pacific Science Center wanted visitors to get a sense of the intricate and difficult task of trying to reconstruct the 50,000 pieces of scrolls, so they dumped 50 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles into a tank. Some of the pieces are damaged and contain debris.

"Try to imagine piecing the puzzle of the scrolls, with no puzzle top as a guide," Johns said.

[...]

I've been using this same puzzle analogy for many years. I hope I can find a photo of this tank.

UPDATE: Tangentially related, the techniques used to restore the Archimedes palimpsest are now being applied to a fragile, 700-year-old Hindu philosophical manuscript:

The project led by P.R. Mukund and Roger Easton, professors at Rochester Institute of Technology, will digitally preserve the original Hindu writings known as the Sarvamoola granthas attributed to scholar Shri Madvacharya (1238-1317). The collection of 36 works contains commentaries written in Sanskrit on sacred Hindu scriptures and conveys the scholar's Dvaita philosophy of the meaning of life and the role of God.

The document is difficult to handle and to read, the result of centuries of inappropriate storage techniques, botched preservation efforts and degradation due to improper handling. Each leaf of the manuscript measures 26 inches long and two inches wide, and is bound together with braided cord threaded through two holes. Heavy wooden covers sandwich the 340 palm leaves, cracked and chipped at the edges. Time and a misguided application of oil have aged the palm leaves dark brown, obscuring the Sanskrit writings.

"It is literally crumbling to dust," says Mukund, the Gleason Professor of Electrical Engineering at RIT.

According to Mukund, 15 percent of the manuscript is missing.

"The book will never be opened again unless there is a compelling reason to do so," Mukund says. "Because every time they do, they lose some. After this, there won't be a need to open the book."

[...]