Ancient Treasures and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Dr. Adolfo Roitman

Curator of the Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Dr. Adolfo Roitman is curator of the Shrine of the Book, which houses the remarkable Dead Sea Scroll collection at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, one of the world's leading archaeological museums.

A senior lecturer at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, Dr. Roitman lectures widely on early Jewish literature, the history and significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls and biblical interpretation. He has also served as a visiting scholar at universities across the United States and Central and South America.

Dr. Roitman is the author of numerous books about the Dead Sea Scrolls including The Sectarians from Qumran: Daily Life of the Essenes (Barcelona: Ediciones Martínez Roca, 2000, in Spanish) and A Day at Qumran: The Dead Sea Sect and Its Scrolls (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1997).

In 1997, to mark the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Dr. Roitman produced A Day at Qumran, an exhibition that explores the daily life and rituals of the strict Qumran sect, the people believed to have copied and stored the 2,000 year old Dead Sea Scrolls. It is now a permanent exhibition in the Shrine of the Book. This year, in addition to collaborating with the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Montréal Museum of Archeology and History to produce Ancient Treasures and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Dr. Roitman is curator of Envisioning the Temple Scrolls, Stones and Symbols, currently on display at the Israel Museum. The exhibition examines the place of the Temple in Judaism and features as its centerpiece the Temple Scroll, one of the longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Roitman is also the author of Envisioning the Temple. Scrolls, Stones and Symbols (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 2003) which accompanies the exhibition.

An ordained conservative rabbi, Dr. Roitman earned his Ph.D. in Ancient Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1993. His fields of research include comparative religion, anthropological science and art history. Dr. Roitman is a member of the World Union of Jewish Studies and the Society of Biblical Literature.