Well, it was optional but available to go to the Israel Museum, so I figured what the heck, and went. The Dead Sea Scrolls are there. Quick history lesson. The "Old" testament, before the 40's, was actually newer than the "New" Testament, that is to say that there existed an older version of the Christian texts than the Hebrew scriptures, for whatever reasons. Some Bedouin shepherds were mucking around in some caves one day and found some old scrolls, took it to the nearest town, where a person there actually recognized them for what they were, ancient Hebrew scrolls, and bought them. Translation of the texts was given to a priest and his crew of about 7 people, who did good work, but kept everything very hush hush and didn't like to publish his translations. In the 80s and 90s, after he died, control was handed over to a much larger panel more capable of translating such a volume of information and with much more liberal publishing standards. Since then, various translations have become available, if you're interested, you can check them out from your local library. Interesting reading.
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