The Dead Sea Scrolls

My friend Carrie found out about The Dead Sea Scrolls & The Ancient World exhibit, and she invited me to go and see it with her. I already missed the Da Vinci exhibit a few months ago I didn't want to miss this one, too. So off we went to The Arts House, where the exhibit was being held.

The Dead Sea Scrolls was very interesting. It was about the discovery of ancient artifacts, like clay jars with carvings of ancient texts and the scrolls, from the place near the Dead Sea called Qumran. I don't really remember exactly when paper was invented, but I originally thought the scroll were made of paper. I was amazed to find out that they were made of animal skins. There were samples displayed of these scrolls fragments. From the lecture we were told that there were about 18000 pieces of scroll fragments, that they were able to put it all back together again into 800 (if I remember correctly) scrolls, and that out of those only 200 hundred were of Biblical texts. Isn't that amazing?

The exhibit also talked about the history of the Bible, specifically the English Bible we have today. I never knew there were many different kinds of Bible, in different sizes and from different periods. There was even a Bible made for the astronauts of the Apollo 13 and Apollo 14 Lunar Expiditions, and we got to see one displayed at the exhibit.

The exhibit chronicled how we got the English Bible today. It talked about the people who tried to translate the scriptures into English, and how they were accused of being a heretic and then executed because of it.

Question: When Ferdinand Magellan came to the Philippines to spread Christianity, in what language was the Bible they used?

Okay, enough about the serious stuff. I never really liked History when confined in a classroom, specially when it's exams time. I always prefer learning about it in documentaries and exhibits like this one. I'm so glad we went to the exhibit. We even bought a souvenir book which came with a free t-shirt. ;)