Sacred Scroll

 

Post Falls Woman Buys Torah from Museum

 

Not many Christians ever find tangible evidence of God’s faithfulness, his presence, his grace.

Fewer travel to the Holy Land to search for evidence of the Ark of the Covenant or retrace the steps of Paul or Moses or Jesus.

And even fewer ever have the chance to see or buy a rare and authentic Torah, a scroll written in Hebrew.

But Rhonda Sand did.

The scroll is 80 feet long, 22 inches high and consists of the first five books of the Bible — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy — also known as the first five books of Moses and collectively called the Pentateuch.

“We have been looking for one a long time, so when we found it, we jumped at the chance to buy it,” said Sand, president of TMI Tours and Cruises in Post Falls, who bought the scroll from a museum in Florida. “I don’t know why the family released it, but I know it was brought into the United States from Israel legally.”

On its almost perfect surface, 245 columns with 42 lines each hold more than 300,000 letters. Its grammatical features date back to the first temple period, in the days of King Solomon. The scroll is written on sheepskin, and is read from right to left.

“This type of scroll, the large one, is something you could only see in a museum, which is why this scroll will go on tour and be shown in churches all over the area,” said Sand, who saw her first scroll in a museum in London, which also has a postage-stamp piece of a scroll, written by the Apostle John. It is the oldest known piece from the New Testament.

The first local church to get the scroll is Coeur d’Alene Bible Church, which will have it for about a week, and then it will be passed on to others who have keen interest in its history.

The scroll will then be sent to Denver in August, followed by trips to Los Angeles and Philadelphia. It will be used in conferences by evangelical leaders.

Before books came into being, a passage of scripture would be read from a scroll in the temple. Then, when the time came to read from the scroll again, it would be rolled to the next column until all five books had been read. Then, the reader would start all over again at Genesis 1:1., In the beginning...

“When we first opened it up to display it, we couldn’t tell where one book began and the

next ended because they didn’t use ‘bullet form’ in Hebrew,” said Sand, who has had the scroll appraised and dated. Experts told her it is 400-1,100 years old.

Sand, who has been in the travel business for 25 years, said her first trip to the Middle East was not only awe-inspiring, but also the beginning of a career in which she says the Word has been reconfirmed over and over again.

Yet, it is not by the presence of scrolls or idols or Biblical artifacts that she gleans her closeness to God, but by the many Christians she travels with.

During one of the tours to Ethiopia, Sand bought a much smaller scroll for $70 from a man on the street. The scroll, only about 6 inches wide and a few feet long, is also written in Hebrew, with a drawing of Michael the Archangel on the bottom.

TMI routinely schedules tours to Israel, Ethiopia, Turkey and Greece, places in the Holy Land that believers yearn to see and learn about. Sand said Christians see the Bible come alive when they hear the Word read aloud from a scroll in the Holy Lands.

The scroll is heavy, but not fragile. It is in exceptional condition, given its origin and that it has been handled and touched by any number of people and will be again.

“It’s an amazing merging of past and present,” Sand said. “I was kind of scared and respectful when I saw it for the first time. I guess what surprised me was the wood, the dowels that hold it. Obviously, the original wood was old and fell away.”

Before printing presses, scrolls were written by scribes on sheets of parchment (skin) from a kosher animal, usually a cow. First, the skin was soaked in lime water to remove hairs, then the skin was stretched over a wooden frame to dry. Next, the scribe scraped the skin to remove excess hair. When it was dry, the parchment was cut into a rectangle.

The scribe then marked lines on the parchment using a stylus, which made a colorless mark in the skin in preparation for the ink. A feather, carved so that a pointed end was used to write scripture, was then mixed. Only fresh ink was used, which sometimes contained powdered gall nuts, copper sulfate crystals, gum and water.

“This scroll has minor staining and wear, but no tears. It must have been in a safe place,” Sand said. “Scribes were diligent when they transcribed scripture. That is why scrolls have remained accurate through the years.”

“This scroll is the exactly the same as the scroll Jesus read in the temple, the same language, the same layout. It’s a beautiful visual of our Jewish and Christian past.”

Upcoming TMI tours include trips to Ethiopia “In Search of the Ark of the Covenant” and to Egypt for “The Exodus: Retracing the Footsteps of Moses,” both in January 2006.

“I am so blessed,” Sand said. “I get to go to places where Jesus walked and stand in places Paul stood.”

“The word is the sword of Lord.”

Churches or Christian schools that have an interest to use and display the scroll can call TMI at 765-1111.

Pictures of the Scroll

 

Kristi Wilhelm

The Coeur d’Alene Press

July 29, 2005

 

The Dead Sea Scrolls

  Called the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 11 caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in 1947 through 1956, 13 miles east of Jerusalem and 1,300 feet below sea level.

  About 825 to 870 separate scrolls were found.

  Except for the book of Esther, fragments of every Old Testament book were found.

  The scrolls are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Aramaic was the common language of the Jews during the last two centuries B.C. and of the first two centuries A.D.

  The Copper Scroll, discovered in Cave 3, lists 64 underground hiding places throughout Israel. They are said to contain certain amounts of gold, silver, aromatics, and manuscripts and believed to be from the Temple at Jerusalem.

  About 40 percent of the Scrolls, mostly fragments from Cave 4, remained unpublished and were inaccessible until 1991 when photos were made public.