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Enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll makes rare show in Jerusalem

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Black Press Media
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A fragile fragment of an enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll is on public display at the Israel Museum for the first time since its discovery 70 years ago, in Jerusalem, Tuesday, March. 20, 2018. The Genesis Apocryphon, the sole copy of an ancient Jewish text elaborating on stories from the first book of the Bible, dates to the 1st century BCE and was among the first seven scrolls found in the Judean Desert in 1947. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JERUSALEM — A fragment of an enigmatic Dead Sea Scroll has gone on public display at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum for the first time since its discovery 70 years ago.

The Genesis Apocryphon, the only copy of an ancient Jewish text elaborating stories from the Book of Genesis, is over 2,000 years old and was among the first seven scrolls found in the Judean Desert in 1947.

To protect the delicate parchment, the fragment is encased in a “smart glass” vitrine that minimizes exposure to light.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of 2,000-year-old Jewish religious texts found in caves near Qumran in the 1940s and 1950s, include the earliest known versions of the Bible and documents outlining the beliefs of a little-understood Jewish sect.