the enduring word

by complete non-accident this afternoon, i glimpsed a billboard reminding me that there is a Dead Sea Scroll exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Natural History. I had seen the ad in Biblical Archaeological Review months ago but had completely forgotten about it. So i made a few (nearly-illegal) turns to see the billboard again and headed in the general direction of the museum. found a spot right in front of the building and went in (after the security checkpoint...what would one actually try to do in or to something that's part of a natural history museum? heist a cast of a dinosaur jaw? use a sledgehammer to try to get into the exhibit on the second floor...which goes through a tremendous exhibit (which reminded me greatly of the wonderful posters i got to put together using Zev Radovan's photos. He would send slides from Jerusalem...in plastic sheet protectors...which i would lay onto a light table and taking a loupe to my eye, would be transported to see some of the most amazing artifacts known to man, for Zev is old enough to have photographed a great deal before there were issues about intellectual property rights and such).
after a great deal of photographic information about Qumran and about the geography and ecology of Israel (this was a $28 gig, so they had to make it worthwhile, i guess), we were directed to the basement, where there was more about the scrolls (with an audiotour seemingly designed to make all things astounding appear trivial, by its tone and interpretations of what was being shown), and a faux cave and more about Qumran and its other artifacts.
Finally, another corner is turned and behold: fragments in heavy plexiglass, scraps of leather written upon in the tiniest of handwriting (if it were type, it looks to be between 3 and 5 point)...perhaps the most amazing part is that there were people (unaccidentally, again) who were not only eager to try their hands at putting together this puzzle but eminently qualified to do so! Above each fragment is a hugely magnified photograph and an explanation/interpretation along with a translation of the passage. Based on their selection of texts (Book of Enoch, War book, the revelation of Messiah, a piece from a possible prayer book that features the 10 Commandments, an interpretive piece on Genesis 6, Leviticus, Job, 1&2 Samuel, Haggai and Zechariah, another prayer book segment that seems to feature bits of several passages, a copper scroll fragment that gives very precise locations for treasure that had been hidden, and Psalms) it appears that there was a desire to keep any reference to Jesus, to prophecies that have been fulfilled, etc. to an absolute minimum. Hence the other focuses on ecology, geology, etc. and not a breath about Isaiah, which is the most complete scroll they have found, as i recall. then a lot of other things about sacred texts and how they are copied, printed, illustrated...anything to keep us from asking the big questions!
but after walking through the scroll section again, without the voice of the interpreter in my ear, simply looking at what IS, i was struck again with the monumental nature of what we were seeing before us.
These scrolls are from days before Jesus came to the planet. In Matthew 11, John was in prison and sent his disciples to ask, "Are you the One to come or should we look for another?" Jesus quotes from the very passage up on the wall from the Apocalypse of the Messiah: "the sick are healed, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news preached to them." So this was obviously a document that John recognized...perhaps the one before our prying eyes was a copy he himself had held when he was out in the desert--possibly with the Essenes. That fragment was worth the price of admission. the other beauty was some of the thoughtful, true and God-focused statements from people who had seen the exhibits and left their comments on cards which were placed in a book...plastic sheet protectors with bigger spaces than Zev's slides, many with words that pointed out how God, Jehovah, YHWH, has preserved His word and how this is simply proof for it, no matter how politically correct stagers of the exhibit wanted to slice it.
it was a day of silence, a day of contemplation, a day in which the resounding song was "our God is an awesome God; He reigns from heaven above with wisdom, power and love: our God is an awesome God!"
thanks, Rich. You may have never seen the scrolls. But you now see the One whose power has kept them through all time.