Dead Sea Scrolls

On Tuesday, Shannon and I went to the Milwaukee Public Museum to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Their version of the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit only lasts until June 6th.

At the beginning of the exhibit, there were many artifacts, including pots, coins, (chest) ossuaries, medical tools, makeup tools, oil lamps, and probably some more things that I am forgetting. My favorite were the coins (because there were probably the type of shekel mentioned in the Bible) and a particular ossuary. The display said that the ossuary probably belonged to Alexander Son of Simon of Cyrene, the man who carried the cross of Jesus. Upon reading Wikipedia about Simon of Cyrene, it says

A burial cave in Kidron Valley discovered in 1941, belonging to Cyrenian Jews and dating before AD 70, was found to have an ossuary inscribed twice in Greek "Alexander Son of Simon." It cannot, however, be certain that this refers to the same person.

There was also a model of Jerusalem accompanied by a few aerial photographs.

After a few displays about finding the scrolls, we got to see a facsimile of the of the Great Isaiah Scroll. Created circa 100BC, it predates the previous oldest copy of Isaish by 1000 years. Finally, the next room contained actual dead sea scrolls. They were pieces ranging in size from a softball to a fingernail and set between glass. After this room, there were a couple more hallways with other examples of old copies of the Bible.

The model of Jerusalem reminded me of a thought that I have had before. I think that people should make famous buildings, such as the temple at Jerusalem, into virtual worlds (not unlike World of Warcraft or Second Life) that can be explored via computer. What better way to learn what the temple looked like than to explore it?!