Ten Commandments Dead Sea Scroll coming to Ronald Reagan Library

The Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., will display the Dead Sea Scrolls’ Ten Commandments Scroll starting next Friday, according to a Tuesday release from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. The exhibit will mark the first U.S. display of the Ten Commandments Scroll in over a decade and its first tour in California. 

The display will begin on April 11, the Friday before Palm Sunday, and close on April 24, the Thursday after Easter, lasting about two weeks. The foundation encouraged attendees to buy tickets early due to high demand.

What does the scroll include? The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in caves near the Dead Sea in the late 1940s and early 1950s and contain some of the oldest known Biblical manuscripts. Over the span of nearly a decade, archaeologists uncovered whole scrolls and fragments written on animal skin, forged copper, and papyrus, across nearly a dozen caves. The Ten Commandments scroll was discovered in 1952 and included sections of Deuteronomy. It is now believed to be the oldest existing copy of the Ten Commandments.