THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION at the New York Jewish Museum is reviewed by Jerome A. Chanes in The Forward. Excerpt:

The Jewish Museum’s exhibition is different from other displays of the scrolls; it does not plant the flag in the soil of any one theory of the scrolls’ provenance, but concentrates on their messages. In this tiny and exquisitely curated exhibition, fragments of but six scrolls — out of the 900 found, and tens of thousands of other fragments — were chosen, each one very different from another. There is a fragment from the book of Jeremiah, one of the earliest copies of the Hebrew Bible in existence; there is an early example of Hebrew prayer, from Words of the Luminaries; there is a fragment from the Apocryphal Book of Tobit, a text not included in Hebrew Scripture but accepted into some versions of the Christian Bible; there is a text from the Aramaic Apocryphon of Daniel, and there are fragments from two books of regulations: the Community Rule, on the ordering of the affairs of the community, and the War Rule, on how a great war at the end of days should be conducted.

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And this is the ultimate goal — and the nuanced message — of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of an Ancient World. In curating the exhibition to focus on the texture of the scrolls’ language rather than on the controversies surrounding the scrolls themselves, The Jewish Museum is not just avoiding conflict. It is showing that it has a keen understanding of the difference between taste and politics when it comes to the fields of archeology, art and literature. In freeing the art from the politics, this exhibition sensitively bridges the gaps between art and politics, between questions of artistic taste and those of religious sensitivities. In the dim light of the scrolls gallery, the viewer is able, after two millennia, to converse with Jeremiah, Tobit and Daniel.

And Huliq News has a review as well. Excerpt:

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of the Ancient World is on view at The Jewish Museum through January 4, 2009. This new exhibition features fragments of six scrolls, which have never been seen in New York City before. Three of the scrolls are being exhibited for the first time anywhere. Revered and revelatory, the Dead Sea Scrolls on display, together with over 30 artifacts discovered near the caves where the documents were found, provide new insights into the varied beliefs of ancient peoples and religious diversity today. A seven-minute film further enriches the visitor experience.