The purpose of my trip to San Diego was to see an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park. My sister was volunteering at the exhibit, so she took me to the park early in the morning and we planned to meet for the tour late in the afternoon. I spent the day visiting many of the different museums found in the park, including the art museum, the photographic museum, the model railway museum, the Japanese friendship garden, the Museum of Man and the horticultural building. It was a wonderful day.
Balboa Park is a wonderful place to visit. There are gardens and beautiful architecture, along with so many different kinds of exhibits. I could not visit every museum or see everything I wanted to see. If you do go, I suggest you get a passport, which gives entry to most of the museums for a week. The savings are extraordinary. My favorite exhibit was called, "Impressionist Giverny." The paintings were done by men and women who had been disciples of the master Monet. They weren't really disciples, as Monet often did not have anything to do with them and they were jealous of Monet. They traveled to Giverny to paint the same sights and to replicate the style of Monet. I love Monet's work, have always had an interest in Impressionism, so the exhibit was especially enjoyable to me.
In the Photographic Museum, I saw one photo of my hometown in the winter. I could imagine myself in the snowstorm that was seen through the car windshield in that photograph. The Horticultual building, pictured to the left is absolutely beautiful, filled with tropical plants, including orchids. It would have been nice to just spend an hour sitting there, enjoying the plants and taking pictures, but there were too many things to do. I did manage to get photos of the reflecting pond, as well as photos of flowers throughout the park. You might recognize the building from a current commercial on the television.
The scrolls will be in San Diego until December and it is a marvelous exhibit. If you are going to be in San Diego soon, I highly recommend taking the time. The exhibit begins with a comparison of the landscapes found in Israel and in San Diego. They displayed pictures of each place side by side and asked the viewer to guess which was which. It was a difficult task, the landscape is very similar. The exhibit took us through information about the changes that have occurred in the Dead Sea, then then we took through the story of the scrolls. We learned about how they were found and how they were preserved. We learned that there were many bad decisions made in the beginning, so some of the scrolls are quickly decaying from the atmosphere, the use of scotch tape, and overhandling.
I did not know what to expect when we came to the room where the scrolls were on display. It was a very dark room, since light is also causing decay. The scrolls were fragments, some not very large, but interesting to see. The selection of scrolls was interesting, showing us more than just the ancient documents. Each scroll was chosen to show us some aspect of life in the community from which they came. There were scrolls written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Some of the scrolls were from books that described the rules of the community. Other scrolls were biblical texts or commentaries about the texts. At the end of the exhibit they had other antique manuscripts, showing the visitors how the words on those ancient texts had endured for millennia. It was a fascinating look at a community of faith, of how they lived and how they shared their knowledge of God.
