FARMS Web Site Features Information on the Dead Sea Scrolls

The FARMS Web site now offers a link to material on the Dead Sea Scrolls. To access it from the Member Services section or the Free Services section of the FARMS Web site, click on the heading "Dead Sea Scrolls," found under "Links of Interest." Nine topics will appear, covering general information on the scrolls as well as information on the scroll exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago and the traveling scroll exhibit currently touring Latter-day Saint stake centers in the Midwest.

This link is a good beginner's guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Visitors to the site will learn about the discovery of the scrolls, the people who wrote and kept them, the contents of the scrolls, the contributions of LDS scholars in scrolls research, and other topics. One sublink explains how the scrolls were prepared to be written on. Tanners cut strips from the skins of kosher animals, soaked them in water until they swelled, scraped them clean, stretched them out to dry, and shaved them to an even thinness. Then the skins had to be soaked in a special solution, stretched and dried again, and even polished smooth with a pumice stone.

Link topics also discuss Latter-day Saint interest in the scrolls, conferences sponsored by BYU and FARMS, scroll publications by BYU scholars, and projects like the Dead Sea Scrolls on CD-ROM: The FARMS Electronic Database. The scrolls are of great interest to Latter-day Saints for several reasons. As one sublink explains, "The Latter-day Saints view the scrolls" discovery as part of a wider pattern of increasing knowledge about the Bible lands and their people that the Lord is making available for study in this day. . . . For the LDS faithful, such manuscript finds are a significant part of the fulfillment of prophecy, even if the finds are but prelude to greater discoveries and revelations to come."

To visit this Web site, please click here.