If you've been to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the San Diego Natural History Museum, you know the rules: no bottled water, no cell phones, no photography. No guns, no knives. Caustic material and explosives are forbidden. No animals, either.

For the next six months, the museum will house 27 (though no more than 15 at a time) of the oldest known biblical texts, making for the largest-ever public display of the scrolls.

To beef up security before the scrolls' arrival, the museum was awarded roughly $80,000 by the Department of Homeland Security's Urban Area Security Initiative for nonprofit institutions considered to be at "high risk" for a terrorist attack. Of the seven San Diego nonprofits awarded a grant in 2006, six were Jewish organizations, the seventh being the museum, which spent the money on security cameras and door locks.

Dave Dalton, head of security for the museum, said that although it's been busy ("busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs," as he put it), there've been no threats...