AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan’s tourism minister says the kingdom is seeking the help of Western nations to regain possession of the Dead Sea Scrolls Israel seized from a Jerusalem museum during the 1967 Mideast war.
Maha Khatib said Thursday Jordan has given up hope that Israel would directly give back the more than 2,000-year-old scrolls and now hoped Western nations would return them when they host them in exhibitions.
The scrolls have shed important light on Judaism and the beginnings of Christianity. Their origin is the subject of an insular, but notoriously heated, academic debate.
They will next be exhibited in Milwaukee, WI, starting Jan. 22.
In Israel, an antiquities spokeswoman said Israel was studying the new strategy by Jordan.