Israel Museum Displays Ancient Book of Isaiah

[notfullofit]

(IsraelNN.com) The oldest existing Book of the Bible is on display in the Israel's Museum Shrine of the Book, through mid-August.

For the first time in 40 years, in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary, the Israel Museum has put ancient scrolls of most of the Book of Isaiah on display. Entitled, "It Will Come to Pass in the End of Days," the exhibit features a 2.6-meter-long (8.5 feet) scroll of Chapters 1-28, and another 2.38-meter-long scroll of Chapters 44-66.

The scrolls, which were discovered in the Qumran Caves in the Judean Desert in 1947 along with more than 200 others, will be on display through the end of August. Most of the Dead Sea scrolls in the Shrine of the Book are not exhibited for the public for more than a few months at a time, in order to enable their preservation in ideal conditions.

The scrolls of the Book of Isaiah, assumed to have been written somewhere around 120 BCE (only a few hundred years after he lived), are the oldest existing Biblical book in the world. They pre-date by some 1,000 years the oldest scrolls of the Book of Isaiah that had been extant until then.

The exhibit also includes archaeological artifacts from the times of Isaiah concerning his visions and prophecies, including an ancient sword-shaped plowshare reminiscent of the famous verse, "They will beat their swords into plowshares" (2:4).

James Snyder, Director of the Israel Museum, said, "This unique exhibit gives visitors a rare opportunity to study one of the most complete, preserved and ancient of the Dead Sea Scrolls."


Awesome!!!

[Zebedeo]

1. Yes, that is awesome

and as I recall, the discovery of the Book of Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls was a huge disappointment for skeptics who had been claiming that the Bible is like a game of "telephone," where it is hearsay upon hearsay upon hearsay and is therefore unreliable.

The Book of Isaiah found among the Dead Sea Scrolls was found to be identical in all material respects to the Book of Isaiah from 1000 years later that had been the oldest known Book of Isaiah.

[Meshuga]

2. Why would it be a disappointment for skeptics?

It only shows that the book of Isaiah is old, not that it is accurate. One could see that the book is even older than the 120 BCE date (given to the scroll in question) by analyzing the age of the language used in the book.

[Zebedeo]

3. Because

a major argument of skeptics is that the Bible can't be trusted because it was re-transcribed numerous times over thousands of years, which would have introduced profound error.

Contrary to this claim, it turns out that the transcription was accurate over thousands of years. As you know, the Hebrews took great care (to put it mildly) to ensure that transcription of the Torah was done accurately.

[Meshuga]

4. There has been a lot of care to keep the integrity...

...of the written Torah as its final product. But there is no doubt that the final product was put together as a mixture of different sources with the intention to create a context.

[pegleg]

7. There is always doubt.

[Book Lover]

8. More context, pelase

Doubt that the Torah was created to form a final coherent product? Or what?

[Meshuga]

9. There is always doubt for those who instead of looking in...

...the literary analysis, archaeological evidence, political interest from each source, etc. choose to ignore these things in order to stick to their beliefs. When people choose to remove their heads out of their own asses these doubts go away.

[pegleg]

10. the problem is those who can't accept any other conclusions which

differ from their own. These people are as guilty of narrow-mindedness as those who adhere to archaic religious beliefs.

[Meshuga]

11. I don't understand what you mean

who here can't accept any other conclusions which differ from their own?

[Viva_Daddy]

6. So?????

Okay, so the Isaiah we have in our bibles is a fairly accurate version of the most ancient scroll of Isaiah yet found. So What???

The three so-called "great prophets" (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekial) all made prophecies about Nebuchadnezzar that were WRONG! He did not conquer and destroy Tyre as they said he would. He did not conquer Egypt as they said he would.

[StateRed]

12. link

link please?

[The Night Owl]

13. I am skeptical of the Bible because there is no evidence that...

...the supernatural claims made in it are true, not because of errors in transcription. I consider the Bible and other religious texts to be a bunch of mumbo jumbo regardless of how accurately it has been transcribed.

[zeemike]

14. Well finally some honesty

It is perfectly appropriate to doubt for the supernatural claims.
But what is dishonest is to claim that those documents could not possibly be accurate because they have been transcribed so many times and that each time the writer puts his own little pet idea in there and changes it all around.
As is all people in religion had no integrity.
The Dead Sea scrolls proved that not to be true at all, and that those generations of monastic monks did copy it accurately.
But that being debunked will only lead them to use other methods to discredit it like linguistic analysis or some other guess work that is held as truth.

[notfullofit]

5. I only wish I could see it for myself! nt