The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS)
The most significant Hebrew Old Testament manuscripts are those of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date from the third century b.c. to the first century a.d. They include one complete Old Testament book (Isaiah) and thousands of fragments, which together represent every Old Testament book except Esther.[1]
Mohammad El-Dhib (“The Wolf”), a shepherd who was searching for a lost sheep; threw a stone into a cave, thinking that the sheep might be in there and be scared and come running out. But instead of bleating sheep, he heard the cracking of pottery. When he went in, he discovered pottery jars in which were some ancient scrolls. The settlement at Khirbet Qumran was a community that had broken with the authorities in Jerusalem. Despite the hostility of the members of this sect (Essenes) to the religious establishment in Jerusalem, they also claimed the authority of the OT. Hence, they were involved in copying and preserving the biblical manuscripts. However, their sensibility does not reflect that of Israelite copyists in official Jewish circles.[2]
These ancient texts, hidden in pots in cliff-top caves by a monastic religious community, confirm the reliability of the Old Testament text. They provide significant portions of Old Testament books—even entire books—that were copied and studied by the Essenes. These manuscripts date from as early as the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. and so, give the earliest window so far found into the texts of the Old Testament books and their predictive prophecies. The Qumran texts have become an important witness for the divine origin of the Bible. They provide further evidence against the negative biblical criticism of such crucial books as Daniel and Isaiah. [3]
They consist of two types: “biblical” manuscripts—books found in today’s Hebrew Bible, and “non-biblical” manuscripts—other religious writings circulating during the Second Temple era, often related to the texts now in the Hebrew Bible. Of this second category, some are considered “sectarian” in nature, since they appear to describe the religious beliefs and practices of a specific religious community. While Hebrew is the most frequently used language in the Scrolls, about 15% were written in Aramaic and several in Greek. The Scrolls’ materials are made up mainly of parchment, although some are papyrus, and the text of one Scroll is engraved on copper.[4]
Many biblical manuscripts closely resemble the Masoretic Text, the accepted text of the Hebrew Bible from the second half of the first millennium C.E. until today. This similarity is quite remarkable, considering that the Qumran Scrolls are over a thousand years older than previously identified biblical manuscripts. A quarter of these non-biblical manuscripts are labeled “sectarian,” and are composed of material that seems to reflect the life and philosophy of a specific community. These core texts consist of eschatological biblical commentaries, apocalyptic and liturgical works, and regulations that govern community life. In the early days of Scrolls research, scholars attributed all of the Qumran scrolls to the Essene community, one of three main Jewish sects described in ancient sources. [5]
Dating the Dead Sea Scrolls
Using Carbon 14 by Dr. W. F. Libby of the University of Chicago in 1950 gave a general idea of the age of the collection. Results indicated an age of 1917 years with a 200–year (10 percent) variant, which left the date somewhere between 168 b.c. and a.d. 233.
Paleographical and Orthographical Dating. Paleography (ancient writing forms) and orthography (spelling) were more helpful, indicating that some manuscripts were inscribed before 100 b.c. [6]
Archaeological Dating. Collaborative evidence for an early date came from archaeology. Pottery accompanying the manuscripts was Late Hellenistic (150–63 b.c.) and Early Roman (63 b.c. to a.d. 100). Coins found in the monastery ruins proved by their inscriptions to have been minted between 135 b.c. and a.d. 135. The weave and pattern of the cloth supported an early date. Evidence also came from the Murabba’at Discoveries south of Bethlehem, where self-dated manuscripts were discovered in 1952. Bearing dates from a.d. 132–35, these proved to be paleographically younger than the DSS. In the end there was no reasonable doubt that the Qumran manuscripts came from the century before Christ and the first century a.d. Thus, they are 1000 years older than the Masoretic manuscripts of the tenth century. Before 1947, the Hebrew text was based on three partial and one complete manuscript dating from about a.d. 1000. Now, thousands of fragments are available, as well as complete books, containing large sections of the Old Testament from one millennium before the time of the Masoretic manuscripts. [7]
Confirmation of the Hebrew Text. The scrolls give an overwhelming confirmation of the faithfulness with which the Hebrew text was copied through the centuries. By the tenth-century Masoretic copies, few errors had crept in. Millar Burrows, in The Dead Sea Scrolls, writes, “It is a matter of wonder that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration. Gleason Archer observes that the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 “proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling” (Archer, 19). [8]
[1]. Norman L. Geisler, “Old Testament Manuscripts,” Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 549.
[2]. Mark F. Rooker, Ch. 7 The Transmission and Textual criticism of the Old testament. “The World and the Word.” pp 116
[3]. Norman L. Geisler, “Dead Sea Scrolls,” Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 187.
[4]. https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/learn-about-the-scrolls/introduction?locale=en_US
[5]. the study of the handwritings of the past, and often the manuscripts as well, so that they may be dated, read, etc, and may serve as historical and literary sources. It is the study of ancient and historical handwriting (that is to say, of the forms and processes of writing; not the textual content of documents).
[6]. Norman L. Geisler, “Dead Sea Scrolls,” Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, , 187.
[7]. Norman L. Geisler, “Dead Sea Scrolls,” Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 187.
[8]. Norman L. Geisler, “Dead Sea Scrolls,” Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, 187.