We went to a small area of the Israel Museum where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept on display. Well, some of them. I am sorry to say that we were not allowed to take pictures of any of the scrolls that we saw because camera flashes degrade the parchment, so we weren’t even allowed to use our cameras at all inside the museum part with the scrolls.
There was a pretty cool 1:60 scale model of Jerusalem outside though. At this scale, people would be about as tall as a match stick. This is the southern steps of the Temple Mount. Very cool.
This is the pools of Bethesda north of the temple.
King Solomon’s temple and the Antonia Fortress with it’s 4 towers on the right…north end of the Temple Mount. This model really brings the city how it was in Jesus’ time to life.
This is the top/outside of the museum with the scrolls in it. I must say, seeing the actual scroll pieces was pretty impressive. The entire book of Isaiah was found in a jar, along with other books and writings about the Levitical code for worship and even some secular, non-scriptural writings. These were found at Qumran, if you remember from the earlier blog. We visited there, where they were found.
They had some other cool stuff on the grounds.
Trim work sculptures, neat.
Column tops.
This pic shows better the size of the 1:60 model. Very cool and helpful.
Next up is the Garden Tomb, the end of day 7.