Dead Sea Scrolls on Display in Philadelphia

On Saturday, the Franklin Institute will launch its exhibition “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times.”

The collection consists of more than 600 figurines, altars, coins, pottery, menorahs, bone boxes, and incense burners, and a giant stone from the Wailing Wall. The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, the Discovery Museum, and the Franklin Institute. It will be open seven days a week through mid-October.

The heart of the exhibit is the large, round display table of 10 Dead Sea scroll fragments, the jewel of which is a small parchment with the oldest surviving biblical account of creation: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ...”

Visitors first walk into a “pre-exhibition experience” in a room lined with six giant screens showing the Dead Sea at sunrise.