BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

New Dead Sea Scrolls US Exhibit

Exhibit at Reagan Library showcases scrolls and more

Great Psalms Scroll fragment. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum.

Through September 2, 2025
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum
Simi Valley, CA
reaganlibrary.gov

For the first time in nearly a decade, the Dead Sea Scrolls are being exhibited in the United States, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum. The traveling exhibition, which will also make stops in other cities across the US, is dedicated to the scrolls and their wider historical context.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves near the remote site of Qumran in the Judean Desert. The collection contains the oldest known copies of almost all of the books of the Hebrew Bible as well as many nonbiblical writings. They were likely produced at Qumran—probably home to a reclusive Jewish sect between the second century BCE and the first century CE. One of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, the scrolls are written mostly in Hebrew and are immensely important for the study of the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism.

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Along with two dozen Dead Sea Scrolls, the exhibit showcases more than 200 other artifacts from the Second Temple period, all on loan from Israel. Among the highlights are the Great Psalms Scroll (see photo) containing several psalms not found in the canonical Hebrew Bible; the Magdala Stone, whose sculpted decoration seems to evoke the Jerusalem Temple; a reconstruction of the Sea of Galilee Boat—a fishing boat from the time of Jesus recovered almost complete from the waters of the Sea of Galilee; and several objects from Masada, the Herodian fortress that was the final strong-hold of Jewish rebels who faced the Roman army after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The “Original” Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament

The Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Josephus on the Essenes

Dating the Copper Scroll

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