Review of Milwaukee DSS exhibition

THE MILWAUKEE DEAD SEA SCROLL EXHIBITION is reviewed by Jackie Loohauis-Bennett in the Journal Sentinel. Excerpt:

The exhibit offers plenty of spectacles to get visitors into an epic mood. Enter the exhibit through the monumental re-creation of Jerusalem's 1st century B.C. Robinson's Arch, for instance, and you expect Charlton Heston to pop up and lead the way.

Rooms filled with rare artifacts from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem quickly whisk visitors into the same time and space as the scrolls. Some of these artifacts - medical instruments, oil lamps - almost never leave Israel, and they provide insight into the culture that gave birth to the Old Testament.

A limestone plaque made to scare off the devil if he looked in its mirror reveals just how closely the people of Jerusalem lived to the supernatural world every day.

To open up the exhibit even more, the museum quickly gives the scroll saga a human face with a series of amazing artifacts. A sandal and comb were probably owned by one of the legendary Jewish rebels who committed suicide during the Roman assault of Masada. An ossuary box brings to life the biblical figure of Simon of Cyrene, said to have carried Jesus' cross.

The Dead Sea Scroll fragments, of course, star in the exhibit, and they're bound to send shivers down the back of any Bible student. Visitors can follow the English translations of texts from Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus line for line on the scroll fragments as they were set down 2,000 years ago.

The Isaiah text, "Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks," packs a new punch when read in the handwriting of a scribe who believed he was communicating a warning directly from God.

The scrolls' fragments range from the size of a stamp to a book page-sized segment. Here again, the museum staff conquered a difficult exhibition problem: the physical display of such ancient, tiny texts. Specially-built cases and lights make the fragments easy to see and experience.

Like the scrolls themselves, the exhibit does have its share of controversy. Does the Jeselsohn Stone really refer to a Messiah rising from the dead after three days? If so, does the stone itself date from before, during or after the time of Jesus? The museum gives visitors enough information to seek out the answer on their own.