thedrifter
07-30-07, 08:10 AM
Sharing ancient history
ANTONIO VELARDE
July 30, 2007 - 12:23AM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
It has certainly been through a lot over the years.
After first being transcribed in Poland about 200 years ago, a Torah scroll managed to survive the Holocaust and eventually made its way to Israel, where it was thought to be beyond repair.
The Torah scroll, which was to be placed in ganiza - or mausoleum - and later burned, faced a dismal future before it was saved by groups trying to preserve such "unkosher" scrolls as a part of Biblical history.
Now, those groups have given Camp Lejeune a page of that history.
During a Sunday morning service at the main Protestant Chapel aboard Camp Lejeune, Gary Zimmerman of Sh'ma Ministries and the Creation Evidence Museum presented the base with a page of the scroll containing the Ten Commandments and other Deuteronomy passages.
Zimmerman presented the framed page, to be placed in the foyer of the chapel, to base commanding officer Col. Adele E. Hodges as a gesture to honor the Marines.
Zimmerman, a Jewish Christian and a former Marine, said the scroll and others like it are "one of the greatest treasures that the Jews have."
For years, Zimmerman and the two groups - along with a Tennessee family - have scoured the globe looking for similar traditional Torah scrolls and other Hebrew manuscripts as they attempt to piece together the Old Testament in its entirety, he said.
The $300,000 effort, which has found all but five scrolls, will amass the collection of scrolls and manuscripts at the Creation Evidence Museum, though manuscripts are often donated to universities and other institutions around the world.
Some of the scrolls in the collection were written between the 1300s and the 1500s, he said.
Torah scrolls are written on cow, deer or lambskin, he said, with lambskin being the most high-quality.
Scrolls containing the Ten Commandments, he said, are especially reserved, with the governor of Saipan to receive one along with Camp Lejeune.
"We save the Ten Commandments for a place that is very well respected," said Zimmerman.
Zimmerman said the page was donated to Camp Lejeune after a base chaplain found out about the manuscripts and scrolls, asking him to speak at the base. Zimmerman added that the groups donate manuscripts as well.
He said it just snowballed from there.
"We never expected anything like this," he said.
But lambskin or not, he said, these scrolls are valuable for another reason.
"It is the word of God, and that is what is valuable," he said.
At the Sunday morning service, Zimmerman gave a brief presentation about the history of the scroll and several others, including a scroll page that survived Kristallnacht - "Night of Broken Glass" - in Nazi Germany, he had on display for the congregation.
During the service, Zimmerman stressed that the scrolls are the starting point for modern translations of the Bible.
They are, he said, "benchmarks for the world."
Torah scrolls must be 100 percent accurate when they are created, which can only be done by Jews, Zimerman said, and that means all 305,485 letters in the Torah must be exact.
Hodges said she felt honored the base would be receiving a piece of biblical history.
"I think it's a great honor," Hodges said. "Not many places are going to receive this type of presentation."
Contact Antonio Velarde at avelarde@freedomenc.com or 353-1171, ext. 8464. To comment on this story, go to www.jdnews.com.
Ellie
ANTONIO VELARDE
July 30, 2007 - 12:23AM
DAILY NEWS STAFF
It has certainly been through a lot over the years.
After first being transcribed in Poland about 200 years ago, a Torah scroll managed to survive the Holocaust and eventually made its way to Israel, where it was thought to be beyond repair.
The Torah scroll, which was to be placed in ganiza - or mausoleum - and later burned, faced a dismal future before it was saved by groups trying to preserve such "unkosher" scrolls as a part of Biblical history.
Now, those groups have given Camp Lejeune a page of that history.
During a Sunday morning service at the main Protestant Chapel aboard Camp Lejeune, Gary Zimmerman of Sh'ma Ministries and the Creation Evidence Museum presented the base with a page of the scroll containing the Ten Commandments and other Deuteronomy passages.
Zimmerman presented the framed page, to be placed in the foyer of the chapel, to base commanding officer Col. Adele E. Hodges as a gesture to honor the Marines.
Zimmerman, a Jewish Christian and a former Marine, said the scroll and others like it are "one of the greatest treasures that the Jews have."
For years, Zimmerman and the two groups - along with a Tennessee family - have scoured the globe looking for similar traditional Torah scrolls and other Hebrew manuscripts as they attempt to piece together the Old Testament in its entirety, he said.
The $300,000 effort, which has found all but five scrolls, will amass the collection of scrolls and manuscripts at the Creation Evidence Museum, though manuscripts are often donated to universities and other institutions around the world.
Some of the scrolls in the collection were written between the 1300s and the 1500s, he said.
Torah scrolls are written on cow, deer or lambskin, he said, with lambskin being the most high-quality.
Scrolls containing the Ten Commandments, he said, are especially reserved, with the governor of Saipan to receive one along with Camp Lejeune.
"We save the Ten Commandments for a place that is very well respected," said Zimmerman.
Zimmerman said the page was donated to Camp Lejeune after a base chaplain found out about the manuscripts and scrolls, asking him to speak at the base. Zimmerman added that the groups donate manuscripts as well.
He said it just snowballed from there.
"We never expected anything like this," he said.
But lambskin or not, he said, these scrolls are valuable for another reason.
"It is the word of God, and that is what is valuable," he said.
At the Sunday morning service, Zimmerman gave a brief presentation about the history of the scroll and several others, including a scroll page that survived Kristallnacht - "Night of Broken Glass" - in Nazi Germany, he had on display for the congregation.
During the service, Zimmerman stressed that the scrolls are the starting point for modern translations of the Bible.
They are, he said, "benchmarks for the world."
Torah scrolls must be 100 percent accurate when they are created, which can only be done by Jews, Zimerman said, and that means all 305,485 letters in the Torah must be exact.
Hodges said she felt honored the base would be receiving a piece of biblical history.
"I think it's a great honor," Hodges said. "Not many places are going to receive this type of presentation."
Contact Antonio Velarde at avelarde@freedomenc.com or 353-1171, ext. 8464. To comment on this story, go to www.jdnews.com.
Ellie