[00:05.15]Many people are visiting a museum in Chicago, Illinois to see ancient documents called the Dead Sea Scrolls.
[00:15.44]The world famous writings will be shown at the Field Museum of Natural History until the middle of June.
[00:23.98]Museum officials say it is the most extensive exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls in North America.
[00:32.10]Officials in Israel lent the documents to the museum.
[00:36.94]The Dead Sea Scrolls were written in what is now Israel more than 2,000 years ago.
[00:45.22]They represent the oldest surviving copies of the Old Testament of the Bible.
[00:51.38]The Jewish and Christian religions consider the Bible to be holy.
[00:56.84]The scrolls were discovered in 1947 near Oumran, along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea.
[01:05.75]Experts say some of the writings describe the laws and beliefs of the people who wrote them.
[01:14.45]Many experts believe the writers were from a group called the Essenes, who lived in Qumran.
[01:21.58]Other experts believe the scrolls were written in Jerusalem
[01:25.94]and hidden in caves near Qumran to protect them from invading Roman forces.
[01:32.73]The Field Museum exhibit contains parts of fifteen of the ancient documents.
[01:39.37]They include five documents that have never been shown outside Israel. |