For those of you are close enough to make a trip to Ft. Worth, TX between now and January 13, I highly recommend the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit!

In past blogs, I’ve mentioned the Seeds music with Scripture set to song.  While watching the informational video at the exhibit, I was almost brought to tears as the following verse that we learned this summer through one of the CDs was referenced…

For, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” 1 Peter 1:24-25

What an incredibly moving experience for our family to see tangible evidence of that truth through the faithful passing on of God’s Word through the centuries!

For what ages is the exhibit appropriate?
I’d say it depends on the child.  It took about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to go through the exhibit and our 2nd and 4th graders enjoyed it.  One caution is that they discourage touching any of the display cases because of the need to maintain climate control of these precious artifacts.  However, there are many ways they have made the exhibit child-friendly.  The area where you wait for the tour to start has several hands-on experiences to help kids understand the painstaking process of piecing together archeological finds.  The experience ends with a visit to a replica of a dig site from Qumran.  Kids get to dig for artifacts (all sorts of fun things are buried) using real tools and can keep a piece of genuine 2000 year old pottery when they find one (they are abundant!) that the Smithsonian Institute donated!  To help our children get more into the experience, we read the book recommended below the week prior to the visit.  Also, we made a binder with some of the fun and educational resources from the exhibit website.  My 4th grade daughter even thought of adding notebook paper and a pencil to her binder so that she could take notes and draw sketches during the tour.

Official website:  http://www.seethescrolls.com/

Educational resources including a word find and maze:
http://www.seethescrolls.com/educational-resources

This is a book that our family found helpful for giving background in a child-friendly way (and to help us parents who didn’t know much about this subject either!).  Be aware that the book is written from the Jewish standpoint.  However, it was a great basis of knowledge and then the exhibit perfectly filled in the Christian perspective.  (Click book to be linked to Amazon for more information.)

Replica of Qumran dig site…kid-friendly archeological digging experience!