KCC: The Dead Sea Scrolls are coming to Kansas City � their only Midwest stop on the current tour? � and Union Station is going to make the most of it.

The Israel Antiquities Authority will allow Union Station to display parts of six of the scrolls, which date back more than two millennia and resound with the words of the Old Testament books of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Job and Psalms.

Anticipating high popularity for the Feb. 8 to May 13 exhibit, Union Station will issue time-stamped tickets in advance, beginning today. Because of the nature of the exhibit and the high cost of mounting it, tickets are premium priced at $19.95, although some will be discounted.

�You can�t put a price on these scrolls, that�s how precious they are,� said retired Rabbi Morris Margolies of Congregation Beth Shalom. Margolies has a doctorate in Jewish history and is helping Union Station as scholar-curator for the exhibit.

Union Station will formally announce the exhibit at 2:30 p.m. today in the H&R Block City Stage Theater. In addition to pieces of six original scrolls, there will be replicas of four others, and more than 100 scroll-related artifacts such as pottery and coins.

The scrolls coming to Kansas City are among those found in caves in the Judean desert, beginning with the 1947 discovery by a Bedouin boy. Their translations are remarkably close to the biblical texts we have today that are sacred to the Judeo-Christian world. They give insight into the development of Judaism, and are contemporary to the time of Jesus and John the Baptist.

Molly T. Marshall, president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kan., said the scrolls shed light on the Bible�s Old and New Testaments.

�This is a big deal because these manuscripts illumine the first century Palestinian world and give insight about manuscript transmission dating back several centuries,� Marshall said.

The seminary has an enormous collection of material concerning the scrolls, amassed by the late Dean Fred Young. The Kansas Qumran Collection has �almost everything that has been published in the world about the Dead Sea Scrolls, either in article or book form,� Marshall said.

The Israeli government is very protective of the fragile scrolls and sent representatives to check out Union Station before agreeing to the exhibit. Some of the pieces of the scrolls have never been seen in the United States before.

Kansas City will be the sixth U.S. city to get the exhibit. Union Station stepped forward when a planned exhibit in Milwaukee fell through…….