The Leonardo Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah is currently hosting an impressive exhibit called “Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times.” This is a rare opportunity to see a collection of some of the 2,000-year-old scrolls alongside other rare ancient artifacts.
In connection with this exhibit, the Leonardo is also hosting a “Dead Sea Scrolls Scholars” lecture series featuring several Brigham Young University professors, including Stephen D. Ricks (Feb. 6, 2014), Dana M. Pike (Feb. 20), and Donald W. Parry (March 6).
This Thursday, December 5, at 7 PM Professor Jodi Magness will speak on “The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” This and the other lectures in the series will be held at The Leonardo Museum (209 E. 500 S., Salt Lake City, UT 84111). RSVP for this event here.
About Jodi Magness:
Professor Magness is a well-known Qumran archaeologist who holds a senior endowed chair in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism. Magness’s book The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002) won the 2003 Biblical Archaeology Society’s Award for Best Popular Book in Archaeology in 2001-02 and was selected as an “Outstanding Academic Book for 2003” by Choice magazine.
Magness has participated on twenty different excavations in Israel and Greece, including co-directing the 1995 excavations in the Roman siege works at Masada. From 2003-07, she co-directed excavations in the late Roman fort at Yotvata, Israel. Since 2011, Magness has directed an excavation project at Huqoq in Galilee.
Along with BYU’s Matthew J. Grey, Magness co-produced an article for the most recent issue of the Maxwell Institute’s Studies in the Bible and Antiquity, vol. 5 (2013), called “Finding Samson in Byzantine Galilee: The 2011-2012 Archaeological Excavations at Huqoq.” You can read more about their work here.