Jerusalem: Shrine of the Book
Jerusalem. The white dome of the Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum is shaped like the covers of the jars in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Opposite the dome is the black basalt wall: white against black, light against darkness. The people of Qumran, the Judean Desert sect, regarded themselves as God’s chosen people, distinct from the other Israelites, whom they regarded as the Sons of Darkness and fought them in a battle which, they believed, would end on the Day of Judgment, the battle of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. In the distance, between the white and the black, we see Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
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