Dead Sea Scrolls

Many people are visiting a museum in Chicago, Illinois to see ancient documents called the Dead Sea Scrolls.The world famous writings will be shown at the Field Museum of Natural History until the middle of June.Museum officials say it is the most extensive exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls in North America. Officials in Israel lent the documents to the museum. The Dead Sea Scrolls were written in what is now Israel more than 2,000 years ago. They represent the oldest surviving copies of the Old Testament of the Bible. The Jewish and Christian religions consider the Bible to be holy. The scrolls were discovered in 1947 near Oumran, along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Experts say some of the writings describe the laws and beliefs of the people who wrote them. Many experts believe the writers were from a group called the Essenes, who lived in Qumran. Other experts believe the scrolls were written in Jerusalem and hidden in caves near Qumran to protect them from invading Roman forces. The Field Museum exhibit contains parts of fifteen of the ancient documents.
They include five documents that have never been shown outside Israel.