LAIE, Hawaii — A special traveling Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit on display in the Laie Hawaii Temple Visitors Center until March 23 is drawing high interest among members and attracting some Oahu residents who had never taken the time to tour the center before.
"We're having a very positive response," said Elder Jay R. Geddes, director of the Laie Temple Visitors Center, who described the effect of the display that opened Jan. 19 as an "ice breaker. One man, who's been on the island for years, said he didn't even know this (the center) was here until he heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and decided to come out."
Elder Geddes noted the exhibit stands next to the Visitors Center Book of Mormon display. "It's kind of a natural lead-in for the sister missionaries," he said. "So far it's been fairly effective."
"The exhibit is doing a lot of good for the Church," he continued, explaining that the BYU-Hawaii Religious Education Department requested the display about two years ago. It was most recently in Europe for more than a year.
The BYU-Hawaii Department of Religious Education, in conjunction with the visitors center and the Hawaii Honolulu Mission, sponsored a lecture series. Dr. Donald W. Parry, an associate professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at BYU in Utah and a member of the international team of Dead Sea Scrolls translators, spoke Jan. 19 at the university and again on Jan. 20 at the visitors center on the significance of the biblical texts.
