The Dead Sea Scrolls Biblical Manuscripts

The Dead Sea Scrolls Biblical Manuscripts

A source-witness: the oldest Hebrew Scriptures

Among the scrolls of the Judean desert were found more than two hundred manuscripts of the books of the Hebrew Scriptures, copied between roughly the third century before the common era and the first century after — a thousand years older than the oldest complete Masoretic codices. Every book of the Hebrew canon is represented except Esther.

These manuscripts show that the text of Scripture, while substantially stable, was not yet uniform. Some scrolls agree closely with the later Masoretic Text; some agree rather with the Hebrew underlying the Septuagint; some agree with the Samaritan Pentateuch; and some preserve readings found nowhere else. The great Isaiah scroll, nearly complete, confirms the remarkable fidelity of the later tradition, while other scrolls reveal the variety that still existed.

Value as a witness

The biblical scrolls are the foundation of all modern study of the text. They allow the readings of the Masoretic, Greek, and Samaritan traditions to be tested against witnesses far older than any before known, and they show the text of Scripture at a stage before it was finally fixed.