Dead Sea Scroll Exhibit at SDNHM

False advertising. There are only a few actual fragments of the scrolls in the exhibit. They are random short lined prayers with no elaboration on the secretive protected activity of the scrolls. Every other aspect of the exhibit is focused on Jerusalem history and artifacts. The movie and exhibit has a blatantly, blind condescending attempt at convincing people the three religions are co inhabiting and happily intwined in each others history, with little to no mention on the perpetual hate and blood shed. The set up is scattered in my opinion and definitely overcrowded, children should not be admitted they help ruin the experience. Be ready for a crowd of bumbling fools in awe of nothingness. The artifacts are very special but i bought a ticket for the scrolls not jewish history. It is a scam.

I like. I like! Ok, to be fair, I am a Christian and a history major so this is right up my alley. Seriously, how can you not freak out when you’re standing in front of something that is 2000 years old, has contribute to our modern world, and reveals so much information? I don’t know what keep me from fainting. The exhibit is about 30 dollars (not the most alluring thing, I know) and you have to go underground to a dark room with this remote digital recorder thing that feeds info about each item in the exhibit. It is really cool! If you don’t enjoy that so much, you can always go outside to Balboa Park which has lots of other educational, beautiful, and fun things to do.

Like Bora K said, it’s one of those things you do before you die! This is not a traveling exhibit so once it’s gone, it’s gone. The last day the exhibit will be available is this Sunday, January 6^th. I had a really enjoyable time at the exhibit probably b/​c of reviews from Unilocalers (thanks merrill, anita, bora!). Got my tickets in advance and with that, will call was a breeze to pick up tickets. The security line was pretty quick and detailed (note that you will need to lay aside knives, flashlights, highlighters– they took mine). Once you are inside, my girlfriend and I were starving and proceeded downstairs to the small café– the smoked salmon wrap looked questionable so we got the $ 3.50 chicken enchilada soup (drank water not hansens. hehe) which was surprisingly delicious and hearty enough to last my two hours in the exhibit. Skipped the boring Qumran film and entered the exhibit. I admit it is a lot of educational reading and learning but definitely a good for those who want to prevent brain atrophy. The exhibit sets the tone and the background by introducing why it’s in SD (similar climate to Israel which I found fascinating), how the dead sea scrolls were discovered by the shepherds ($ 250K for 4 scrolls published in the newspaper… that must have been $$ back in those days) and the process to preserve (mistakes of using tape) and interpret the scrolls. So all of this is on the upper level before you reach the lower level where you see the scrolls. It is dark to preserve the scrolls and it is crowded! The scrolls are in bits and pieces depending on which ones you see. The Copper Scroll does look the coolest with the light reflecting it but my favorite was seeing the entire text for Psalm 131– to see the word of God preserved over ages and ages shows how powerful it is! The audio was cool to listen to and the entire exhibit took me about 2 hours (just pushed my way to see each of the scrolls rather than wait in line). Definitely a must to see!!! Afterwards checked out the tarantulas and lizards in the next room– eeeks…
Happy New Year Unilocalers!

Seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls has been on my ‘Things to do before I die” list for some time now so I was happy to finally be able to cross it off this past weekend. What I wasn’t so happy about was the amount of time it took to get into the exhibit and all the other people who seemed to be there to cross it off their lists at the same time I was.
Buy your tickets online and show up at the appointed time that is given to you when you purchase the ticket. Do not go on the weekend if you can help it. You will have to stand in line for over half an hour just to buy your tickets and then you’ll have to wait for another 2 hours before you can even go in to see the damn things. Do not go watch «Ancient Qumran: A Virtual Reality Tour» playing at the the Kaplan theater inside the museum unless you like being lulled into a deep sleep. I ended up thinking deep thoughts with my eyes closed throughout the majority of the film.
The exhibition itself is pretty interesting if you can get through the crowds. Mind you, there are no lines for anything inside the actual exhibit, people are just being lame and standing around in front of the cases and listening to their audio devices. Just push through the crowds muttering «Move, please!» like I did and you’ll be able to see everything in a timely fashion. Make sure you have some antibactieral hand wipes so you can clean off the audio device that is given to you as part of the tour. You have no idea who might have used it before you.
No matter how thirsty you are, do not under any circmstances, buy a can of Hansen’s Diet Grapefruit Soda at the café downstairs.

I’d been wanting to see the Dead Sea Scrolls ever since we visited the Museum back in December 2006 and it was advertised. I can’t believe we waited until almost the last month before going, but I’m glad we went with the people we went with.
We arrived at 3pm and were told that the next availability was at 5pm. WHAT? 2 whole hours? We’d been to this museum before and I wasn’t all that excited about being in there for 2 hours since the museum itself wasn’t all that to begin with. But then again, who wanted to go back out and stand in line to go through security again. Security? Yeah, that’s what I said — SECURITY!!!
We stood in line to get through security. They rifled through my bag and took out my Sharpie and my super duper flashlight Frank K got me for my birthday. I was like ‘you’ve gotta be kidding me! you’d better not lose that”. So reluctantly, I gave it up (I didn’t care about the Sharpie) and went inside only to find that we had to pay $ 28/​person (or $ 24 if you have student or military ID) and even lil guy had to pay $ 15.
Now back to the scrolls. By the time we actually went inside, we were so tired from roaming around boring exhibits, sitting through the stupid virtual reality tour which I fell asleep watching and making the mistake of buying a disgusting can of Hansen’s sugar free grapefruit drink which I felt compelled to drink since I paid good money for it.
I had to squeeze through a bunch of eager senior citizens who just hovered over the scrolls and wouldn’t budge one bit. By the time I got close enough to see, the scrolls were just scraps of paper (which looked like old wax paper) housed in these huge glass cases with dim lighting (so not to damage them even more). It was barely visible.
There were one or two which were still rather well preserved. Weirdly, no one was looking at those. We waited 2 hrs, but were done in less than 20 mins.
Like Bora said, it’s one of the things I wanted to see before I die and now that I’ve seen it, I’m not so sure it was worth the money I paid or the time I waited to see them. Still, I had a wonderful time because I spent it with people I seriously enjoy hanging out with. And oh, I got my flashlight and Sharpie back too. If not, they would’ve gotten a 0 star rating. I love that flashlight!