Summary: The findings of Qumran, the scientific thriller of the Dead Sea, confirm the Biblical accounts and the Christian message. This is the first of a 2-part series.
I have stored up these words in my heart that I might not sin against you. – Psalm 119:11 (ESV)
Finding the Dead Sea Scrolls
It will always be a mystery why Muhammed ed-Dib of the Ta’amireh tribe Bedouins in the spring of 1947 climbed down the steep slope of the west coast of the Dead Sea. Was he really looking for a goat that had allegedly gone astray, as he often maintained, and that he wanted to shock by throwing stones? Or was he looking for a suitable hiding place for his smuggled goods, which the Bedouins brought from Jordan to Palestine at that time?
The reason for his throwing stones is irrelevant-the important thing is that he set a stone in motion which still fascinates the general public and scientists worldwide until today.
When Muhammed discovered a particularly small opening to a cave almost a mile north of the ancient ruin of Qumran, he threw a stone in it. He heard clay break. In the cave he discovered 50 clay jars which were carefully placed along the wall. One of the 24-inch-high jars was broken through because of the stone he had thrown.
Had he discovered a hidden treasure? But what a disappointment! Only a few terribly sticky and blackened leather scrolls were to be found in the clay jars, which he carefully examined in the camp. None of his tribal brothers were able to explain the writing on the old scrolls. The Bedouins had no idea that they held a treasure in their hands that was more valuable than any gold or silver.
Months later, they were able to sell their findings to Archbishop Athanasius Yeshue Samuel of the Syrian Orthodox Church. The price was $92. A few years later the state of Israel paid the bishop $250,000 for his scrolls.
For months the archbishop tried to find out what he had actually bought, as he could not decipher the ancient characters. When in February 1948 he bumped into the young American Bible teacher, Dr. Trever, the latter saw immediately that the scrolls were a true Biblical treasure.
Isaiah, the Largest Scroll Found
The largest of the scrolls, it was discovered, was a copy of the prophetic book of Isaiah. From the form of the characters, he concluded that the scrolls must date back to the 1st or 2nd century before Christ. This scroll was the oldest complete copy of a book of the Bible in Hebrew. The dream of all text experts was thereby fulfilled.
The dating of the Isaiah scroll to the 2nd century BC was confirmed by radioactive tests. Until today, the so-called large Isaiah scroll is considered a sensation. Up until the findings of Qumran, the oldest complete Hebrew Bible writing dated back to the 10th century AD (the so-called Codex Leningradensis). Through the large Isaiah scroll, the text could be followed back over 1,000 years further.
The Masoretes were Jewish scribes who for centuries had passed on the text of the Jewish Bible (the Tenakh, our Old Testament). It was never quite sure how reliable the usual reprinted text of the Old Testament actually was, based on these Masoretic texts. A one-thousand-year process of tradition is understandably beset with many problems.
How many scribes had copied the text in the course of the centuries? Could you ever be sure that the scribes, despite great care, had made no mistakes? With the Isaiah scroll from the 2nd century BC, they now had a complete Bible book from the Old Testament, which was around 1,000 years older than the medieval copies. This was an absolute sensation! Over 1,000 years of historical text could now be examined at one go.
Hardly was the discovery of the Isaiah scrolls made known, before the newspapers wrote, “Now it will be seen that the Bible has been poorly preserved. Now the foundations of Christianity will be shaken.”
The Isaiah scroll was so to speak the measure of the Bible tradition. It was found, however, that the text had been excellently copied.
The “Lion” Problem of Isaiah
In a few cases the “original text” of the prophetic book could be discovered. Isaiah 21:8 had given translators many problems. In the so-called Masoretic Bible text (here in the KJV) it says, “And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower…” (Isaiah 21:8). The NIV translates this, “And the lookout shouted, ‘Day after day, my lord, I stand on the watchtower.’” The Amplified Bible says, “And the lookout called like a lion, ‘O Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower by day.’”
Just how difficult it is for translators even today, if they follow the classic Masoretic Bible text exclusively, can be seen from the otherwise verbatim translation of Jewish Professor Tur-Sinai. We find in his translation, “He calls, ‘the lion is free! I stand and watch, Lord…’”
What a lion is doing here is very difficult to understand, as in verse 6 we read how God commands, “For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.”
Through the Isaiah scroll of Qumran, it then became obvious that the “lion” came through the confusing of two consonants centuries before. The scroll of Qumran offers the original text, “And he who saw it cried: on a watchtower I stand, O Lord…” Another translation says, “Then cried the seer: on a watchtower…”
The different ways of reading it come from the fact that in Hebrew the characters of the words “lion” (‘RYH) and “the one who saw it” (HR’H) are somewhat similar in sight and sound. Through the confusion of the two consonants, a “seer” became a completely invented “lion.” As the Bible text is holy for the Jewish scribe, however, the apparent mistake was never corrected!
The large Isaiah scroll from Qumran offers, in comparison to the Masoretic text, however, over 6,000 orthographic variables. The sense of the text is seldom influenced through this, but every theory of a secret Bible code breaks down here. The texts would have to be identical for this.
An intensive comparison of the Qumran scrolls with medieval copies revealed that the content of the prophetic book of Isaiah is excellent. The little differences in the text (such as lion/seer) are interesting for specialists who reconstruct the “original text” of the Bible. Basic statements of the biblical message are in no way influenced.
Besides this large Isaiah scroll, there were further (far inferior) copies of the Isaiah scroll discovered in Cave 1. Their text hardly differs from the Masoretic text.
Ten Additional Qumran Caves
It did not stop at this finding, however. By 1956 (almost always by Bedouins), ten further caves with the remains of about 1,050 scrolls were discovered. Unfortunately, the scrolls, in comparison with the first find, were in thousands of pieces. From the 80,000 fragments of scrolls, 15,000 matching parts were reconstructed. The experts could find almost all the books of the Old Testament.
One scroll contained something sensational. Among the fragments from Cave 4 were the remains of the book of Samuel from the third century BC. It was found to be the source of the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the so-called Septuagint (LXX).
The Samuel text of the Septuagint had always shown a somewhat different text than that of the Hebrew Bible. It was thought that the translators had taken some liberties at around 200 BC. But the opposite was the case. The Qumran texts prove that the translators had worked very carefully and conscientiously.
The text variations are not limited to the translators, but due to the slightly different Hebrew text template. At the time of Jesus there were various “Bibles,” just as there are today. Before the finding of the Qumran scrolls it was believed that there was only one version of the Hebrew Bible, but the Jews used various Bible texts at the same time.
This phenomenon is shown by the two Jeremiah texts. Nine copies of the book of Jeremiah were discovered. The oldest copy, 4QJera, dates back to 200 BC; the youngest, 4QJerc, from the 1st century AD. These two fragments are very close to the Masoretic texts. In the Septuagint, however, we find a 13% shorter version of the book of Jeremiah. The fragments 4QJerb and 4QJerd offer the Hebrew text in the shorter version, with the translators of the Greek Bible used. There were two ancient versions of the book of Jeremiah, then: an earlier shorter version (4QJerb, 4QJerd, Septuagint), and a later, longer version (4QJera, 4QJerc, Masoretic text).
In all, the Qumran texts are the remains of 1,050 scrolls. The texts are mostly Hebrew, some in Aramaic, and a few in Greek. Of the Qumran texts, around 150 scrolls are copies of the Apocrypha (among others Tobit, Jesus Sirach, Psalm 151) and Pseudepigrapha (e.g. the Book of Enoch, Psalms 152-155), and 600 scrolls of non-Biblical previously unknown Jewish literature (the Habakkuk commentary, the temple, war and copper scrolls).
Around 300 of the scrolls are copies of Old Testament books (the oldest from the 3rd century BC). All the books of the Old Testament (except Esther) were discovered in the Qumran caves. The most copies are of the book of Deuteronomy (39), of the Psalms (39), Genesis (30), Exodus (30), Isaiah (22), Leviticus (22), Numbers (15), Daniel (11), and the 12 minor prophets (13). All the other books are represented by less than 10 copies. Of 1st and 2nd Chronicles and Ezra there is only 1 fragment.
Besides scrolls with Bible texts and copies of the so-called apocryphal texts, other thus far completely unknown Jewish writings made their appearance. The majority of the experts see in these scrolls the heritage of the Essenes, one of the larger Jewish religious parties from the time between the Old and New Testament. In their keeping of the Torah (Genesis – Deuteronomy) and particularly of the Sabbath, the Essenes were stricter than the Pharisees.
Qumran Myths and Lies
In recent decades there has been a flood of books on the subject of “Jesus and Qumran,” up to the claim that the Vatican hindered the publishing of the Qumran scrolls and declared them to be a classified document, as the texts contained highly explosive material for the Catholic Church about Jesus Christ. He was not the Son of God and the Messiah, but a completely normal rabbi who was married to Mary and had offspring. All of these wild fantasies are said to be in the Qumran texts. These theories were spread worldwide, read and unfortunately believed by millions from the hostile to Christianity, scandalous bestseller The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
When we published our answer to this in the book, The True Sacrilege (not available in the U.S.), which unmasked these theories as sheer lies, the publishing firm was sued for 250,000 euros. The publisher of Dan Brown did not win the lawsuit against us. The book was published and was the most successful German non-fiction book against the nonsense of The Da Vinci Code.
Unfortunately, however, the sensational theories of Dan Brown and “Classified Jesus” were sold and believed by millions. And yet their untrue claims remain a million-fold believed lie, which made the authors very rich. They have nothing to do with serious scientific research. This literature belongs in the category of trash. The fact is that the Vatican had at no time anything to do with the publishing of the Qumran texts. Since 1967, this has been exclusively a matter for the Israeli Antiquities Authority. All the texts are scientifically published today.
Conclusion
Jeremiah 32:14 in the ESV reads, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time.’ We can be thankful that two millennia ago, so many precious manuscripts were stored in a similar fashion. From them we can learn much about the people of those times and see how accurately the biblical text has been transmitted down to today. Our exploration of the history and controversies surrounding the Dead Sea scrolls will continue in next week’s Thinker Update. Until then, Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: The Scrolls Cave from the Qumran Caves. (credit: Grauesel at German Wikipedia Modifications: Cornischong at Luxembourgish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
NOTE: Not every view expressed by scholars contributing Thinker articles necessarily reflects the views of Patterns of Evidence. We include perspectives from various sides of debates on biblical matters so that readers can become familiar with the different arguments involved. – Keep Thinking!
