The Great Isaiah Scroll, the oldest nearly complete book from the Hebrew Bible ever found, is on display in its full length for the first time since 1968.

The scroll features over seven meters (23 feet) of ancient text that, for more than 2,000 years, has influenced the spiritual lives of millions of people.

The special exhibition was inaugurated at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on Monday in the presence of President Isaac Herzog.

The artifact is being showcased in a special eight-meter-long (26-foot-long) glass case manufactured in Belgium, which allows visitors to admire every inch of the scroll — its vellum sheets with millennia-old stitches and stains, holes and fading letters.

All of those features are signs of how much the object was used and cared for before it was deposited in a cave in the Judean Desert in the 2nd century CE, where it was left until its discovery in modern times.

“There are moments when we stand before an object, small or large, a fragment of parchment bearing ancient handwriting, and suddenly we understand that not everything begins with us,” Herzog said. “There is continuity, there is tradition, there are roots; a long chain of generations, a story written and passed down, generation upon generation, throughout most of our people’s history.”

Experts believe that the Isaiah Scroll dates to around 125 BCE. Its text largely mirrors the accepted text of the Book of Isaiah in the Jewish biblical canon, with a few exceptions related to spelling or individual words. The artifact is made of 17 sheets stitched together and is believed to have been originally divided into two parts.

As retold in a short movie screened as part of the exhibition, the scroll was discovered by Bedouin shepherds in a........

© The Times of Israel