By 1952, the Useless Sea Scrolls (DSS) had been poised to revolutionize fashionable Bibles. As scroll fragments poured into Jerusalem, the Revised Customary Model (RSV) went to press in its second version. Although the total scope of the DSS was nonetheless unknown, the interpretation committee made particular point out of the Qumran discoveries within the preface, saying:
The issue of creating the proper Hebrew and Aramaic textual content of the Previous Testomony may be very completely different from the corresponding downside of the New Testomony. For the New Testomony now we have numerous Greek manuscripts, preserving many variant types of the textual content. A few of them had been made solely two or three centuries later than the unique composition of the books. For the Previous Testomony solely late manuscripts survive, all (apart from the Useless Sea texts of Isaiah and Habakkuk and a few fragments of different books) primarily based on a standardized type of the textual content established many centuries after the books had been written.
That was simply starting. Right now, any fashionable Hebrew Bible or Previous Testomony definitely worth the paper it’s printed on (or display it’s displayed on) meaningfully integrates the DSS. Why? Whether or not you understand it or not, most fashionable Bible translations are a convergence and synthesis of many manuscripts. These come from quite a lot of cultural settings, time intervals, and corpora of writings.
The DSS current each issues and prospects on the subject of the Hebrew Scriptures—the frequent heritage of the Hebrew Bible and Previous Testomony. About 23 % of the Qumran library are writings that later Jewish and Christian communities would obtain as biblical. Subsequently, the DSS invite us to see Scripture because it was then earlier than exploring what it has come to be now.
The massive query, then, is: How do these historic scrolls influence our understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures?
The textual traditions behind fashionable Bibles earlier than the Useless Sea Scrolls
The Hebrew Scriptures at Qumran revealed each exceptional continuity with different recognized biblical manuscripts and memorable variations. To understand this perception and account for its implications, we have to know a little bit bit about textual content criticism and textual traditions.
Textual content criticism is the artwork and science of evaluating and critiquing variations between manuscripts—referred to as “textual variants” or “variant readings.” Students and translators do that work so that you can present the most effective, earliest, and most genuine textual content of Scripture (and never everybody agrees on the outcomes or goals of this course of).
Textual traditions are the households of manuscripts that textual content critics seek the advice of within the means of textual content criticism. The three foremost textual traditions that allow the textual content criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures are the Masoretic Textual content (MT), the Septuagint (LXX), and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP).
The Masoretic Textual content: the muse of contemporary Hebrew Scripture
When students and translators work up a brand new version or translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Masoretic Textual content (MT) is nearly all the time their departure level. The MT household of manuscripts offers our most full copies of the complete Hebrew Scriptures.
Within the late first millennium of the Widespread Period, a bunch of Jewish scribes in Tiberias penned and preserved copies of the Jewish Scriptures, the Hebrew Bible. An important MT witnesses are the Aleppo Codex (930 CE) and the Leningrad Codex (1008/1009 CE), although the Masoretic custom is definitely older than these key codices. Right now, the Leningrad Codex is most frequently used within the type of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), printed by the German Bible Society. This version of the Hebrew Bible is the idea of most fashionable Bibles.
Relating to textual content criticism, the MT custom is foundational. Whereas this manuscript custom is from the medieval interval, the DSS revealed that, in most cases, its content material is a dependable illustration of Scripture in antiquity.
As we’ll see, nonetheless, this was not the one rendition of Scripture on supply in historic Judaism.
The Septuagint: an historic Greek translation
It’s exhausting to overstate the importance of the Septuagint (LXX) for biblical, theological, and cultural research. Just like the MT, the LXX is a little bit of a catchall for a bigger prolonged household of manuscripts.
These, nonetheless, will not be written in Hebrew however Greek. Why Greek? As Alexander the Nice swept throughout the Mediterranean and Close to East within the mid-fourth century BCE, Hellenistic tradition unfold in his wake. Coinage, gown, structure, infrastructure, sport, leisure, and, sure, language had been all a part of the bundle. From superior Greek philosophical thought to Greek graffiti, this ripple impact touched each degree of society, together with faith. Jews in and past their house turf in Judea had been now a part of this Hellenistic cultural context. This sparked the will and must render Hebrew Scriptures into Greek.
The LXX is the only most formidable translation enterprise of antiquity. Interval. The trouble started within the third century BCE with the Pentateuch—Genesis by way of Deuteronomy. By the flip of the Widespread Period, all the opposite writings of the Hebrew Scriptures, in addition to a number of different historic Jewish writings, had donned Greek garb, both by way of translation or composition. Right here we have to remember the fact that, just like the DSS, the LXX will not be a single assortment, object, or artifact.
Whereas now we have Greek LXX papyrus fragments at a lot of websites and amongst many collections, our most full texts of the LXX are the Christian codices of the fourth and fifth centuries CE, corresponding to Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus. Along with the New Testomony, these codices additionally embody Greek variations of the Hebrew Scriptures and writings from the Apocrypha, or Deuterocanon.
The DSS discoveries revealed that LXX traditions had been very a lot a part of the scriptural world of Qumran and Judea within the Hellenistic interval. The DSS embody fragmentary copies of a number of Greek translations of books within the Hebrew Scriptures (for instance, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets), snippets of supplies obtained within the Apocrypha, or Deuterocanon (such because the epistle of Jeremiah), and even just a few fragments of Greek translations of Aramaic literature, usually dubbed “pseudepigrapha” (like 1 Enoch). Cave 7 contained solely Greek texts.
Previous to the invention of the DSS, the translators of Greek texts had been typically caricatured. It was assumed that the place the Greek texts departed from recognized Hebrew texts, these divergences had been because of the translator being both careless or overly artistic. But the DSS embody Hebrew texts that mirror the construction, form, and content material of the kind of texts behind Greek translations. To place it one other manner, the place the LXX appears to go in its personal course, the DSS typically authenticate these readings in a now recognized historic Hebrew textual content. Such insights point out the Greek translators weren’t reckless; relatively, they had been dependable conduits for the custom.
The DSS fragments, then, give new perception into the manufacturing of Greek translations and their reception in a recognized Jewish group. Our Hebrew scriptural scrolls additionally assist us rethink the course of of Greek translations in historic Judaism.
The Samaritan Pentateuch: one other Jewish canon
The Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) refers to a specific type of scripture obtained by a specific expression of Judaism. Right now, Samaritan Judaism contains roughly eight hundred followers, dwelling largely within the Qiryat Luza area on Mount Gerizim and the city space of Hola, close to Tel Aviv.
Regardless of the small dimension of this group, their scriptural custom is important. Students debate the date of the SP as a scriptural assortment. Our earliest hints of the custom come from Origen’s third-century CE Hexapla, which nods to a Greek translation of the Samaritan Scriptures generally known as the Samareitikon, though the SP custom is probably going centuries older.
What defines the SP textual custom? Samaritan Scripture is narrower in scope than all different canons. It contains solely 5 books: Genesis by way of Deuteronomy. However the content material and construction of the SP are distinctive.
The SP has a signature theological overlay of textual variants that mirror key features of Samaritan perception and observe. For instance, Deuteronomy 27:4 within the SP says that on crossing the Jordan the Israelites constructed an altar at Mount Gerizim, not Mount Ebal. Equally, Deuteronomy 12:14 subtly swaps verb tenses from “the place that the Lord your God will select” (that’s, Jerusalem) to “the place that the Lord your God has chosen” (that’s, Shechem). In these examples, the SP reframes the scriptural foundation to help the origins and ongoing worship of God at vital websites for Samaritan Judaism.
The construction of the SP can be noteworthy. It outcomes from a artistic editorial method to Scripture: scribes of the SP custom typically thematically rearranged associated sections of Scripture to realize cogency, harmonized parallel passages to reinforce consistency, and augmented legislation and narrative to make sure coherence.
However we knew all of this concerning the Samaritan Scripture earlier than the DSS. What we didn’t know was how far again into the Second Temple interval a few of these options prolonged.
On one hand, the DSS don’t embody any sectarian variants. This implies there are not any variant readings at Qumran which can be theologically motivated to official the thought and observe of the group that penned or preserved the scrolls, whereas the theological overlay of the SP is an innovation of Samaritan tradition. But beneath this overlay, the SP contains variants that agree with the MT and the LXX, making it an vital text-critical dialog companion.
Then again, the Qumran supplies reveal that the SP’s editorial method has deep roots. Scrolls like 4QpaleoExodusm, 4QNumbersb, and 4QPentateuch—which predate the SP—additionally characteristic shuffled, reconfigured, prolonged, and harmonized passages. Apparently the SP inherited this intensive fashion of interplay with Scripture from earlier scribal cultures. Molly Zahn concluded that this implies the editorial methods in each the SP and our pre-SP texts at Qumran transcend “a single editorial second.” They’re half of a bigger story.
In these methods, Samaritan Scripture is integral for retracing each the formation and reception of the Pentateuch in and past the Second Temple period.
Now that we’ve met the principle textual traditions from the previous that assist us write the biography of the Bible, let’s discover some particulars in that story that have to be rewritten due to the DSS.
As an example the potential of the DSS for textual content criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures, we’ll work by way of three case research of accelerating complexity and influence. Admittedly, this can be a extremely selective pattern. There are actually 1000’s of variant readings when the DSS are in contrast with different recognized biblical traditions. Alongside this selection, after all, there may be additionally exceptional continuity.
Our journey will contain the restoration of a single but profound phrase from Isaiah 53:11 in 1QIsaiaha, the restoration of a misplaced sentence from Psalm 145:13 in 11QPsalmsa, and the renovation of a complete paragraph from 1 Samuel 10:27 in 4QSamuela. Alongside the best way, we’ll evaluate these verses in numerous historic manuscripts and observe their influence on fashionable English Bible translations. To maintain you motivated, not less than certainly one of these will contain a sadistic, eyeball-gouging king. Be in your guard.
1. “He’ll see gentle” in Isaiah 53:11
Typically a small discovery makes a giant distinction. That’s the case with a variant studying in Isaiah 53:11 discovered within the DSS. The verse comes within the final of Isaiah’s collection of servant songs (Isa 52:13–53:12). These oracles converse of a determine rising to steer the nations who’s tragically stricken, abused, and abased.
However does a single phrase—a tiny textual variant—matter in any respect within the earliest formation of this historic passage? Let’s work by way of our witnesses to Isaiah 53:11 and discover out. The MT reads this fashion:
On account of the anguish of his soul, he’ll see and be happy; by his information the righteous one, my servant, will justify the numerous, as he’ll bear their iniquities. (NASB, with slight revision)
Struggling, bearing sin, downward spiral. Nearly Stoic. Actually unhappy. After we wind again the clock, nonetheless, our earliest witnesses to this verse discover gentle on the horizon. Hope. The LXX right here reads:
from the ache of his soul, to indicate him gentle [φῶς] and fill him with understanding, to justify a righteous one who’s nicely topic to many, and he himself shall bear their sins. (NETS)
On this tackle Isaiah 53:11, the Greek Scriptures nonetheless characteristic a struggling servant—but there’s a brand new outlook. One way or the other, by way of struggling, the determine will discover illumination: “gentle.” Previous to the DSS, it will have been simple to write down off this variant as late, a mere invention attributed to the Greek translator, not the Hebrew textual content earlier than him. The DSS, nonetheless, overturned this concept.
All three of our Hebrew witnesses to Isaiah 53:11 at Qumran learn the phrase gentle. This contains each of our well-known Cave 1 manuscripts (1QIsaiaha–b) in addition to a extra fragmentary textual content from Cave 4 (4QIsaiahd). The one phrase is important. Right here’s how the passage reads within the Nice Isaiah Scroll of Cave 1:
Out of the struggling of his soul he’ll see gentle [אור] and discover satisfaction. And thru his information his servant, the righteous one, will make many righteous, and he’ll bear their iniquities. (1QIsaiaha 44:19)
As VanderKam and Flint remarked, the Qumran Isaiah scrolls present “that the early Hebrew textual content utilized by the Septuagint translator truly contained the phrase gentle, and offers a brand new studying for exegesis of the passage.” Nonetheless struggling. Nonetheless bearing sin. Nonetheless a spiral. Solely now, this particular person’s satisfaction is in seeing gentle past the current darkness.
However does this new perception into Isaiah 53:11 change what the verse means? Maybe. For instance, in view of different historic Jewish texts associating gentle imagery with divine presence (corresponding to 1 Enoch 92:3–4), Klaus Baltzer commented that, if Isaiah’s servant “can see the ‘gentle,’ he has been judged worthy to enter into the quick presence of God; he has been obtained into the corporate of the heavenly beings.” In impact, the once-downward spiral has grow to be an elevation.
This historic variant has had a up to date payoff in lots of fashionable English translations. A number of have adopted and built-in the “gentle” studying as unique (CSV, NIV, NRSV), whereas others nod to it as a potential studying for consideration (ESV, HCSB, LEB, NASB, NKJV)—all because of the DSS and LXX. Within the case of Isaiah 53:11, the surprising discovery of a single phrase in our Isaiah scrolls without delay authenticated the Hebrew textual content behind the traditional Greek translation and enhanced many fashionable Bibles by restoring a time period that had been misplaced or ignored for 2 thousand years.
2. Recovering a full sentence in Psalm 145:13
If a single phrase issues, certainly a full sentence would make an excellent higher influence. That is the case for Psalm 145:13 in 11QPsalmsa, a fragmentary textual content dated to the mid-first century CE.
Within the MT, this psalm is an incomplete acrostic. The place we might count on a verse beginning with the Hebrew letter nun (the equal of the English N), there merely isn’t one. It’s lacking. Our Cave 11 Psalms scroll, nonetheless, offers a extra full image, one which was already hinted at by a fuller verse within the LXX and not less than one medieval manuscript (Kennicott manuscript 142). 11QPsalmsa contains the misplaced verse—precisely the place we’d count on it. This historic textual content presents Psalm 145:13 as follows, with the recovered nun line introduced in italics within the translation beneath:
Your kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and your dominion endures all through all generations. Blessed be the Lord and blessed be his title perpetually and ever. God is devoted in his phrases, and gracious in all his deeds. (11QPsalmsa 17:1–3)
What does this element do for us? Psalm 145 paints a superb theological portrait of God. The primary half highlights his lofty repute. Verse 13, nonetheless, marks a shift. Our nun verse is the ultimate assertion on the divine character earlier than a bit affirming God’s guarantees, provision, and preservation of the devoted. Psalm 145:13, subsequently, hinges towards content material that underscores God’s reliability. Or, as Goldingay put it, the extra full divine portrait supplied by the DSS and LXX reassures us of “the ethical qualities of this being who’s reliable … and dedicated in phrase and deed.”
The newly found sentence has been accepted in additional fashionable Bible translations than another variant studying in the complete DSS assortment. To present a way of the scope of this acceptance, the variant of 11QPsalmsa has discovered a house in the principle textual content of the ESV, CSB, NAB, NIV, NJB, NLT, NRSV, REB, RSV, and TNIV. A number of others give the variant studying honorable point out within the footnotes.
This updating-Scripture-to-make-it-more-ancient, nonetheless, will not be solely a couple of restored textual content. It’s about recovering the total theological imaginative and prescient of Psalm 145—a imaginative and prescient that existed earlier than the invention of the DSS as however a minority report in just a few minor medieval manuscripts. We must always have a good time this textual discovery. It’s a giant deal. However not larger than the theological actuality it factors towards. Scripture is all the time about greater than the phrases on the web page. The invitation of this variant is to reestablish the textual content to open new vistas of its theology.
We must always have a good time this textual discovery. It’s a giant deal. However not larger than the theological actuality it factors towards. Scripture is all the time about greater than the phrases on the web page.
3. A story hole crammed in 1 Samuel 10:27
Our remaining instance comes from 1 Samuel 10:27 in 4QSamuela. This primary-century BCE manuscript features a full paragraph of beforehand unknown materials—the most important and longest distinction discovered within the Hebrew Scripture texts at Qumran. Given its scope, the studying can be controversial.
Let’s get a little bit of backstory on the passage earlier than we recuperate a brand new perception from an previous manuscript. Although God is reluctant—in spite of everything, he is their king—1 Samuel 8:7–9 relates how God relents and provides the twelve tribes a king: Saul. Nonetheless, as Saul emerges, the response is blended. Some proclaim, “Lengthy reside the king!” (1 Sam 10:24). But the chapter ends on a somber and disapproving notice:
However sure ineffective males mentioned, “How can this one save us?” And so they despised him and didn’t convey him a present. However he stored silent about it. (1 Sam 10:27 NASB)
Then, with out lacking a beat, 1 Samuel 11:1–2 reads:
Now Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead; and all the lads of Jabesh mentioned to Nahash, “Make a covenant with us and we are going to serve you.” However Nahash the Ammonite mentioned to them, “I’ll make it with you on this situation, that I’ll gouge out the correct eye of each certainly one of you, and thereby I’ll inflict a shame on all Israel.’” (NASB)
Wait, what? How did we go from present-less social gathering crashers to a sadistic, eyeball-collecting Ammonite king? The narrative because it stands in most manuscripts is glitchy and jarring.
However 4QSamuela tells a distinct story—a extra full story. Proper between 1 Samuel 10:27 and 11:1, this Cave 4 manuscript contains the next interlude:
Nahash king of the [A]mmonites oppressed the Gadites and the Reubenites viciously. He put out the correct [ey]e of a[ll] of them and introduced fe[ar and trembling] on [Is]rael. Not one of many Israelites within the area be[yond the Jordan] remained [whose] proper eye Naha[sh king of] the Ammonites did n[ot pu]t out, besides seven thousand males [who escaped from] the Ammonites and went to [Ja]besh-Gilead. (4Q51 10a:6–9)
This part definitely makes for a extra intelligible sequence.
And certain, it’s historic. However is it unique? 4QSamuela is the solely recognized manuscript to incorporate this paragraph-long passage. It’s additionally our oldest copy of the guide.
Typically essentially the most illuminating insights on biblical texts come from non-biblical sources. On this case, it’s our previous good friend, Josephus. When in Antiquities of the Jews Josephus retells the story of Saul’s ascendancy to the throne and his eventual overthrowing the Ammonites, he contains an intensive introduction to Nahash and an account of his eyeball-collecting covenant (Ant. 6.68–72). Apparently Josephus’s scriptural sources within the first century CE additionally included this misplaced paragraph. It is a highly effective tag staff. Our earliest manuscript attests to the paragraph on this passage, and certainly one of our earliest interpreters of the passage can be conscious of its existence.
So it was a part of scriptural traditions then. However ought to it influence Bibles now? With a variant of this scope and significance, not everybody agrees. At current, solely the NRSV and NLT embody this paragraph in translation.
Conclusion
The DSS have modified, and can proceed to vary, the textual content of the Hebrew Scriptures. Whether or not it’s a restored phrase, recovered sentence, or renegotiated paragraph, the text-critical advances and updates made potential by the DSS make our fashionable Scriptures extra historic. These adjustments are akin to inventive restoration. They’re constructive and undertaken with nice care, research, and discernment. If Scripture issues, we must always rise to the problem of creating the correct restorations thoughtfully, fastidiously, meaningfully.
However on the subject of the potential of the DSS for the Hebrew Scriptures, we will’t underscore adjustments with out affirming continuity. Historically, textual content criticism emphasizes variations between manuscripts and traditions. But it’s simple to lose sight of the exceptional consistency that defines a lot of the transmission historical past of biblical manuscripts from antiquity down by way of the medieval interval. As James VanderKam commented, the variations between the DSS and different recognized manuscript traditions, just like the MT, “are certainly quite a few although steadily very slight, typically ones that don’t have an effect on the which means of the textual content for many functions (e.g., spelling adjustments, omission or addition of a conjunction).”
Variant readings may make us suppose in another way concerning the formation of texts and even trigger us to see variations within the data in texts. However what we aren’t seeing is a wholly completely different textual content. Most frequently, our manuscripts agree. If something, the case research above underscore the worth of the DSS for supplementing new particulars to the bigger image we already knew about from numerous different witnesses to the Hebrew Scriptures. Continuity is definitely a part of the equation.
This text is customized from Andrew B. Perrin, Misplaced Phrases and Forgotten Worlds: Rediscovering the Useless Sea Scrolls (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Tutorial, 2025).
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