Who can touch the Dead Sea Scrolls?

CONSERVATION: Meet the only person in the world who can touch the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hidden in the caves of the Judean Desert for over 2,000 years, the artifacts include some of the most ancient manuscripts of the Bible, as well as other religious texts (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

Her name is Tanya Bitler.

I was able to touch the Dead Sea Scrolls back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I was writing my doctoral dissertation (on manuscripts of Genesis and Exodus from Cave 4) and revising it for publication. That was back in the transition from the "glass plate" era to the "cardboard plate" era.

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