Yesterday, I met The Backyard Professor at the Media Conference introducing the new exhibit coming to the Museum of Idaho during the dates, February 16-May 28, 2007.

We listened to the frontline scoop of program director, Nick Gailey, and executive director, David Pennock. David showed us slides of proto cuneiform clay tablets, cuneiform clay tablets, the Marzeah Papyrus, a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls (the museum exhibit will include fragments from Genesis, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, and Jeremiah), Septuagint fragments from Leviticus and Exodus, the Oxyrinchus Papyrus, facsimiles of Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, a 15^th Century edition of Jerome’s Letters, Byzantine Illuminated Leaves, Armenienne Bible Leaves, a 13^th century Parisian Bible, a handwritten Wyclif Bible, 1455 Gutenburg Bible Leaves, a 1551 Luther New Testament, a 1536 Tyndale New Testament, a 1576 Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, a 1560 Geneva Bible, a copy of the 1611 King James Bible, and the 1782 Aitken Bible, among other things, etc.

When Nick opened the bank safe, I enjoyed seeing the female museum worker handle in white gloves a Qumran Cave inkwell. When the Geneva Bible was pulled out, my heart skipped a beat as she leafed through a few pages of what we know to be Genesis. Remarkably, this is all just a mere taste.

After David had me salivating over things to come with all the slides, Nick shared the 2007 distinguished speaker program for this exhibit.

__________

February 16—Dr. William Noah, Public Presentation

February 21—Don Parry, PhD, BYU Provo, UT, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Great Isaiah Scroll

March 14—Peter Flint, PhD, Trinity Western University, Langles, BC Canada, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the DaVinci Code

March 15—Peter Flint, same

April 4—Andrew Skinner, PhD, BYU Provo, UT, The English Bible

 

May 10—Bruce Zuckerman, PhD, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, Bringing the Dead Sea Scrolls Back to Life

 

May 11—Bruce Zuckerman, same

__________

 

For your information, both BYU professors have quite extensive bios.

Don Parry

Donald W. Parry, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brigham Young University, is married to Camille Mills, from
Las Vegas, Nevada; they have six children.

Professor Parry has served as a member of the International Team of Translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls since 1994. He is also a member of several other professional organizations, including the International Organization of Qumran Studies, Groningen, The Netherlands, the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Society, Princeton, New Jersey, the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Groningen, The Netherlands, Society for Biblical Literature, Atlanta, Georgia, and the National Association of Professors of Hebrew, Madison, Wisconsin. Parry has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Brigham Young University’s Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts.

Parry has authored or edited more than twenty-seven books. These include: A New Edition of the Great Isaiah Scroll: Transcriptions and Photographs (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1998), a volume that pertains to the famous Isaiah scroll. With Frank Moore Cross, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, volume XVII (Oxford: Oxford University Press), a volume that pertains to the Dead Sea Scrolls books of Samuel. His Dead Sea Scrolls Reader series (with Emanuel Tov, 2004, published by E. J. Brill, Leiden), comprises six volumes.

Parry’s articles, which have appeared in the Bulletin of American Schools of Oriental Research, Revue de Qumran, Textus, and other journals, encyclopedias, and festschrifts.

Andrew Skinner

Andrew C. Skinner was born and raised in Colorado. He attended the University of Colorado where he earned his B.A. degree in history. He then earned an M.A. degree from the Iliff School of Theology in Jewish Studies and a Th.M. degree from Harvard in Biblical Hebrew. He did graduate work at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. His Ph.D. was awarded from the University of Denver in Near Eastern and European History, specializing in Judaism.Andrew Skinner taught four years at Ricks
College, and has filled three assignments at the BYU Jerusalem Center where he served as a faculty member and taught Near Eastern Studies. Since September 2000 he has served as the Dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. Prior to his current appointment, he served as chair of the department of Ancient Scripture at BYU. He is the author or co-author of over 100 publications including Jerusalem: The Eternal City; New Testament Apostles Testify of Christ; Discoveries in the Judaean Desert: The Unidentified Fragments from Qumran Cave 4 (which is an analysis of all the unidentified Hebrew and Aramaic Dead Sea Scroll texts); Scriptural Parables for the Latter Days, and Gethsemane.

He served a full time mission for the LDS Church from 1970-72 in the California Central Mission and served as Branch President at the Missionary Training Center in Provo. He has also served as a bishop in Colorado and Utah and currently serves as a member of the Correlation Evaluation Committee of the Church.

He and his wife Janet Corbridge reside in Lindon, Utah, and they are the parents of six children.

Hopefully, I plan on attending all the speaker sessions. Kerry Shirts was so excited, he might podcast or blog speaker sessions live. I am sure you will probably see on his blog, the replica Gutenberg press (arriving at the museum) in action, “printing pages daily from the Gutenberg Bible and the first edition of the King James Bible.”

 

Ink and Blood is bringing to town “more than 100 authentic and renowned biblical artifacts,” “with estimated worth of over $15 million, and archaeological finds that are so rare as to be the only ones in existence.” Incredible. Idaho Falls is truly blessed to scrutinize and rejoice over such God-breathed (theopneustos) riches—the written Word.

 

For all LDS friends, I plan on interjecting various experiences and things that I have learned in studying the Ink & Blood trail on my blog. Feel free to offer comments or questions. And don’t be surprised as I post future questions on hi4lds toward the LDS perspective on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Passionate for truth, I like shaking up culturally comfortable paradigms in the corridor.

 

I would love to give a personalized group tour (if ok’d) at the Museum of Idaho for any who are interested. You may email me, elonwood@juno.com, or post your comments in this thread. I can custom design the tours: exciting stories for school children’s classes, friendly chats for families and church groups, and educated sessions for those in academia. Your only financial charge would be the group price of your museum ticket (hopefully discounted). My remuneration would be the simple thrill of discussing the indestructible Book from Mt.Sinai to Plymouth Rock.

 

I desire to tell you all my vivid tales of personally visiting and exploring the Qumran Caves in Israel, St. Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt, the Vatican in Rome, the stomping grounds of Luther in Germany and especially, the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, the sites in England rich with political and religious turmoil, and finally the shores of Plymouth as Puritans brought the Geneva Bible to America.

 

For those curious, I preach and teach with the King James Version of the Bible, a Concord 8vo Wide-Margin Cambridge edition that carries a full 20-page preface and all the original senses and cross-references in the margins. I do have a 1611 printed copy and enjoy the challenge of trying to read it from time to time. The morphing of the English language is a separate, unique study of its own, full of colorful, brilliant nuances.

 

Friends, young and old, an adventure awaits us at the Museum of Idaho in 2007! Come join me. You will absolutely love it.