Israel Museum shows the Great Isaiah Scroll at full length for the first time since 1968

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem previewed a new exhibition to the press on 22 February 2026 in which the Great Isaiah Scroll, the best preserved of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is shown unrolled along its entire length of about 7.17 metres, roughly 24 feet. It is the first time the whole manuscript has been on public view since 1968. The exhibition, titled "A Voice from the Desert: The Great Isaiah Scroll" in English, is a centrepiece of the museum's 60th anniversary programme.

The scroll, known to scholars as 1QIsa(a), was found in 1947 in Cave 1 at Qumran near the Dead Sea. It consists of 17 sheets of parchment stitched together and contains all 66 chapters of the Book of Isaiah. Radiocarbon dating places it at around 125 BCE, making it roughly a thousand years older than the medieval Hebrew Bible manuscripts that were the oldest known copies before the Qumran finds. Curator Hagit Maoz told JNS that it remains the only complete biblical manuscript discovered so far.

Because parchment is extremely sensitive to light, heat and humidity, the scroll is normally displayed only in part, often as a facsimile. For this exhibition it lies in an eight-metre climate-controlled case built in Belgium. Visitors enter in groups of no more than 25 for a few minutes at a time, and photography is banned. The visit begins with a reconstruction of Qumran Cave 1 and follows the manuscript's path to the museum's Shrine of the Book.

The display was planned to last about four months. Reports indicate that public viewing was paused at the end of February because of the security situation and later resumed, so closing dates given by different outlets vary.