In Front | Workbook: Facsimiles, Part 1

Grab your Workbook Journal!
[Record your answers in the workbook provided at the beginning of this course.]

The largest and most complete of the Dead Sea Scrolls is known as the Great Isaiah Scroll. You are looking here at a genuine section of that scroll. The Great Isaiah Scroll contains all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah and measures over 24 feet long. It is also one of the oldest Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to 125 BC, and is now the prized possession of the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. At the heart of the museum, in the center of the room dedicated to its display, in a sealed circular glass case you would see . . . a replica. 

The actual Isaiah Scroll is in a locked vault under the museum. Replicas of this type, of written or printed material, are known as facsimiles, from the Latin for “make alike.” Facsimiles are exact copies of valuable texts displayed or distributed in place of the original. The finest facsimiles, like the Isaiah Scroll on display in Jerusalem, achieve an extremely high degree of accuracy to the original, reproducing not only the text but also its size, color, condition and physical materials. 

Facsimiles are created for the purpose of both study and display. Since the best facsimiles are accurate in all visible aspects, right down to details like handwriting, they are invaluable to scholars as they study texts from a distance. These same reproductions can be displayed publicly, and in multiple places at once, to give popular access to rare and treasured items. 

3. With all of this in mind, explain the way that facsimiles are different from forgeries.