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Reconstructing the Old Testament: Dead Sea Scrolls
Nearly everyone has heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). Television specials and magazine covers are riddled with vivid portrayals of the texts. There is a palpable air of enigma surrounding this collection of ancient writings. Sadly, these two realities have led to many uninformed, underinformed, and misinformed conclusions regarding the Bible. Most notably, many genuinely believe that the discovery of the DSS undermines the reliability and also the canon of the Scriptures. This could not be further from the truth! As we briefly discuss reconstruction of the Old Testament, we hope to put to rest false ideas about this discovery and also explain how the DSS provide us with clear confirmation of the text underlying our modern Old Testaments.
In November of 1946, three Bedouin cousins went searching for a lost goat in the hills near the Dead Sea. As they searched, they thought to explore a cave in part also prompted by rumors of hidden treasure in the area. One of the men, Muhammad edh’Dhib, discovered one of the greatest finds in Bible archaeology, clay jars containing 7 ancient scrolls. The men took the scrolls out of the cave and sold them for 7 Jordanian pounds (about $330 today). Shortly after this, intense civil unrest arising from Arab/Jew disputes over control of Palestine, created a delay in anyone realizing the significance of the finds. In the midst of ensuing war, American biblical archaeologist John C. Trever uncovered the true nature of these manuscripts and one month before the bloody Civil War of 1948, the discovery of the DSS was formally announced. In 1949, in the shadow of armistice and in the absence of specific details regarding the location of the cave of the scrolls, a joint excavation campaign was launched by the Palestine Archaeological Museum, the French École Biblique, and the American School of Oriental Research. After years of scouring these, and later, researchers uncovered 11 caves containing nearly a 1,000 texts!
Included among this ancient library are a litany of different works, likely collected by the third largest sect of Judaism in Jesus’ day, the Essenes. Approximately 30% of the collection includes scrolls of the Old Testament. Every book of the Old Testament, except Esther, is represented in this collection. Esther was originally considered an antilegomena (i.e., a debated book) due to a total lack of reference to God in the text. Discussions regarding its inclusion in the canon lasted quite some time, but the text was eventually included for an assortment of convincing reasons (perhaps a subject for a future article). The Old Testament books best reflected in the DSS are Psalms (34 scrolls), Deuteronomy (30 scrolls), Isaiah (21 scrolls), Genesis (20 scrolls), Exodus (16 scrolls), and Leviticus (12 scrolls). The remaining books are reflected in <10 scrolls per book or per grouping (e.g., the 12 Minor Prophets are all included in a single scroll). Altogether, there are about 225 copies of biblical texts in the DSS. Other books in the collection include exegetical Bible commentaries called pesherim, apocryphal books like Tobit and the Book of Enoch, and sectarian manuscripts like the War Scroll and the Copper Scroll. Many of these manuscripts are incredibly preserved in near entirety due to the arid climate around the Dead Sea and as a result of the conscientious preservation methods used by scholars.
The significance of the DSS for reconstructing the Old Testament is paramount. These scrolls and fragments consistently date from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD, a MILLENNIUM before the Masoretic Text, or Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible. Despite the false and sensational claims of the uninformed, these scrolls possess only minute differences from the later Masoretic Text and validate in exceedingly clear detail the conscientious preservation of the Old Testament. Digital collections of many of these manuscripts are now openly accessible to the public. In this respect, two resources are especially worth noting. In 2012, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and Google teamed up to share high-quality images of the DSS in the public domain. These images may be accessed at www.dss.collections.imj.org.il. Another online library is the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls website, launched in 2021 by the Israel Antiquities Authority. This website is: www.deadseascrolls.org.il.
As with anything of great value and massive interest, some have attempted to profit off these texts by creating forgeries. The most noteworthy of these forgeries seems to be the 16 fragments acquired by the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Since 2002, some 70 new fragments claiming to be DSS have entered the antiquities marketplace. While research is still ongoing, these are nearly universally rejected as forgeries. Conscientious students of the Bible need to realize that only genuine texts that pass through rigorous validation checks should be considered the legitimate DSS. When this is done, the Old Testament text is confirmed in entirety despite the passing of hundreds of years, human error, and Satan’s best efforts to eliminate the word of God. We should marvel at God’s oversight of this faith-building truth!
