Dead Sea Scrolls and the integrity of the Bible

[FightingFat]

Are there discrepancies between the Bible accounts and those of the DSS texts – or is this another complete fabrication? Are they actually word-for-word verbatim?

Can can we give evidence for the integrity of the canon of scripture as we hold it today?

 

[Anonymous_1]

First of all. The dead sea scrolls are old testament not the entirety of the BIble.
Second, anyone who claims they have undermined the itnegrity of the Bible is uninformed and ignorant. The Dead Sea Scrolls have shown just how accurate and reliable the textual transmission of the Old Testament really is. Being 1000 years older than any other manuscripts we have they have shown that the textual transmission from the Hebrew scribes untilt modern times(thousands of years) are AMAZINGLY accurate and reliable. A special group of scribes dedicated their entire lives to accurate transmission of the Sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament. They took painstaking efforts to make sure they were copying accuratley. This shows that what we have today is almost identical to what was written thousands of years ago.

 

[Liberian]

FightingFat:

Are there discrepancies between the Bible accounts and those of the DSS texts – or is this another complete fabrication? Are they actually word-for-word verbatim?

Can can we give evidence for the integrity of the canon of scripture as we hold it today?

FightingFat,

Anonymous1’s reply is completely on target. The Dead Sea Scrolls show just how amazingly accurate the transcription process was in transmitting the Old Testament to us.

Regarding the New Testament, we have more manuscripts that date from closer to the events than we do of any other text from before the invention of printing. I don’t have the details at my fingertips, but the short answer to your last question is a resounding Yes.

• Liberian

 

[malachi_a_serva]

FightingFat:

Are there discrepancies between the Bible accounts and those of the DSS texts – or is this another complete fabrication? Are they actually word-for-word verbatim?

Can can we give evidence for the integrity of the canon of scripture as we hold it today?

Do the DSS - Old Testament documents - contain the books of the Catholic Bible? As opposed to the ones left out in the Protestant Bible?

 

[FightingFat]

So they contain the deuterocanonical texts too?

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

The Isaiah scrolls found at Qumran closed that gap to within 500 years of the original manuscript. Interestingly, when scholars compared the MT of Isaiah to the Isaiah scroll of Qumran, the correspondence was astounding. The texts from Qumran proved to be word-for-word identical to our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted primarily of obvious slips of the pen and spelling alterations (Archer, 1974, p. 25). Further, there were no major doctrinal differences between the accepted and Qumran texts (see Table 1 below). This forcibly demonstrated the accuracy with which scribes copied sacred texts, and bolstered our confidence in the Bible’s textual integrity (see Yamauchi, 1972, p. 130). The Dead Sea Scrolls have increased our confidence that faithful scribal transcription substantially has preserved the original content of Isaiah.

apologeticspress.org/articles/266

usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/educational_site/dead_sea_scrolls/books.shtml

usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/educational_site/dead_sea_scrolls/

centuryone.com/0063-2.html#TOC some deuterocanonical here.

centuryone.com/9201-4.html#TOC more detail about what is in there.

google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=Dead+Sea+Scrolls+Isaiah+MT

 

[FightingFat]

Thanks everyone! Great help!

 

[mmortal03]

I posted this elsewhere in response to a blog, but here I will probably get a better answer.

I’ve done some reading about the Dead Sea Scrolls and their relationship to the Septuagint and the Masoretic Texts, and what I have read is that as far as the Old Testament, the discovery of the Scrolls has placed new importance and a greater trust of validity in the Septuagint over the Masoretic Texts.

I do not have knowledge as to which books contain the most differences between the Masoretic (Hebrew) Texts and the Greek Septuagint as to where this is an issue (especially with regards to anything doctrinal), but apparently there is enough of a significance in this area that work has begun recently in three separate projects to produce modern Old Testament translations based primarily on the Septuagint. (The few times that this has been done in the past are apparantly not that accurate).

So, given this, it brings up another question about the modern Catholic translations of the Old Testament, which make great use of the Masoretic Texts, and I wonder whether it is possible that the Septuagint might have been the more accurate and appropriate considering what was found with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I have also read that one of the reasons that we have not seen more of these direct translations from the LXX done sooner is that in the past, before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, conservatives placed their bets on the Masoretic Texts being quite inerrant, and that the new information from the DSS that has contradicted this has placed them in quite a situation.

Can anyone comment on any of this? Thanks

Also, see peterpapoutsis.com/volume1.htm , ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/ and lxx.org/index.htm for the recent Septuagint translation projects that I referred to earlier.

 

[CactusJack]

One thing that I find remarkable about the DSS is
that God, in His infinite wisdom, knowing how
the future would unfold, led certain men to squirrel
away manuscripts which would be so useful in
proving the validity of the scriptures we are
using in this day.

I have heard people say to me, over and over…
“Oh … the bible has been translated and
re-translated so many times and has so many
errors in it that it is meaningless and irrelevant.”

I never argue with those who bring up this
objection. I simply ask if they’ve ever heard of the
DSS. If they are open to discussion I usually
point them to Isaiah, because the Gospel is so
clear in Isaiah 53.

Bottom Line: God is very economical in His
revelation. Near the end of John’s Gospel we
find these words: “Many more miracles did
Jesus perform among us that are NOT written in
this book, but these are written that you might
believe on Jesus Christ and have Life in His
Name.”

To a seeker John’s Gospel is enough information
to become a believer.

To a skeptic it doesn’t matter how many words,
books, volumes, arguments, etc, you present… The
skeptic will remain a skeptic.

Jesus said: “No one comes to me unless the
Father draw him.” If this is true, and we are
dealing with unbelievers, we need to pray for their
souls, that God might draw them to the Son.

Paul said: “I am nothing and Apollos is nothing.
I planted and he watered but it is God who brings
forth life.”

From my own experience I know that the bible was
meaningless jibberish to me until God began to
really draw me to Jesus. That was over 33 years
ago. I am now 61. The scriptures became real to
me and full of God’s wisdom and light. They were
no longer an intellectual exercise, but the very
words of Life, breathed of God, pointing to the
Living Word, Jesus Christ.

I still struggle with many things in scripture,
especially eschatalogical things, but I trust that
God will open my spiritual eyes when the time
is right, if ever.

Praise be to our Lord, Jesus Christ…

bro jack

 

[anawim]

malachi_a_serva:

Do the DSS - Old Testament documents - contain the books of the Catholic Bible? As opposed to the ones left out in the Protestant Bible?

The only book missing from the DDS is Esther.

 

[FightingFat]

mmortal03:

Can anyone comment on any of this?

A bit!

mmortal03:

As far as the Old Testament, the discovery of the Scrolls has placed new importance and a greater trust of validity in the Septuagint over the Masoretic Texts’

Yes, though to be honest most of the time this makes little practical difference.

mmortal03:

I do not have knowledge as to which books contain the most differences between the Masoretic (Hebrew) Texts and the Greek Septuagint as to where this is an issue (especially with regards to anything doctrinal),

doctrinal stuff, probably nothing to be honest. Theology is walking on snow shoes not stilettoes - if we lose one text there are always others… Main books are jeremiah, Samuel and Exodus (though many show differences)

I know of a number of projects which translate LXX- NETS in english, La Bible d’Alexandrie in French and I think there is a German one. Older english translations are not safe.

Translation of OT into english is the same across all denominations - we use MT as the basis and the correct it according to DSS and LXX. Some people want to say that we should just translate LXX or even use LXX as bas and correct it with DSS and MT, but I don’t favour that - the LXX text is often not that good.
It used to be that prostestants in the C 17th saw the vowel points as inspired (orig the vowels were not written but oral), but that position is not seriously held any more - though many of the points that the vowel point people were trying to make were actually (ironically) what scholars now believe about the age of the vocalisation of MT (in case you didn’t know Hebrew written orig without all the vowels, and these were indicated from 5 or 6th cent AD by extra marks on the text)
The info that allegedly the DSS brings up which sends people into a tail spin has been around since the early C17! DSS just makes ‘possible’ into ‘probable’ or ‘definite’.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

FightingFat:

Are there discrepancies between the Bible accounts and those of the DSS texts – or is this another complete fabrication? Are they actually word-for-word verbatim?

Can can we give evidence for the integrity of the canon of scripture as we hold it today?

If we were to reconstruct the Bible using just the surviving manuscripts of the Early Church Fathers we would be able to reproduce 99.999% of the New Testament. Yes, our New Testament canon is reliable.

 

[mmortal03]

FightingFat:

Translation of OT into english is the same across all denominations - we use MT as the basis and the correct it according to DSS and LXX. Some people want to say that we should just translate LXX or even use LXX as bas and correct it with DSS and MT, but I don’t favour that - the LXX text is often not that good.

Can you expound upon this point, that the LXX text is often not that good?

Thanks

 

[mmortal03]

mmortal03:

Can you expound upon this point, that the LXX text is often not that good?

Thanks

To add to this discussion, quoting Wikipedia:

All the codices of the Septuagint do not differ in any substantive detail, and it is surprising that there are perhaps but two thousand instances of typographical error in such a lengthy collection of hand-copied ancient documents. However, there are many small, yet substantive differences with the newer Masoretic texts written in Hebrew.

Like the New Testament, the LXX is a particularly excellent text when compared to other ancient works with textual variants. To reject the existence of a Septuagint on the grounds of typographical error and other variants is a questionable opinion. Moreover, in many of the places where the LXX differs from the Masoretic Text, the same variants exist in the Dead Sea Scrolls, showing the antiquity of some of these variants and the reliability of the LXX.

 

[FightingFat]

No offense mmortal03, but Wikipedia was written largely by the Smurfs.



LXX was multiple translations (most books by a different translator, with the main exception of the 12 minor prophets), some good, some bad, some horrid. However, they were working with no dictionaries, some of them felt free to just stick extra bits into the text (e.g. in Proverbs, where some greek proverbs get added as the translator clearly thought that they were making the same point at the Hebrew text).
Rarely, if ever, does it utterly change the idea, but there are some places where it comes pretty close, and others where it is plainly guessing at what the text might mean.

 

[NotWorthy]

FightingFat:

So they contain the deuterocanonical texts too?

If I’m correct, they (the DSS) have some of the deuterocanonicals in Hebrew! This was a Big Deal!

One of St. Jerome’s biggest arguments against including the deuterocanonicals in his Latin Vulgate was that he felt they were all written in Greek. He later submitted to Papal authority and included them, but this would have further blown away his argument.

Notworthy

 

[mmortal03]

FightingFat:

No offense mmortal03, but Wikipedia was written largely by the Smurfs.



LXX was multiple translations (most books by a different translator, with the main exception of the 12 minor prophets), some good, some bad, some horrid. However, they were working with no dictionaries, some of them felt free to just stick extra bits into the text (e.g. in Proverbs, where some greek proverbs get added as the translator clearly thought that they were making the same point at the Hebrew text).
Rarely, if ever, does it utterly change the idea, but there are some places where it comes pretty close, and others where it is plainly guessing at what the text might mean.

This doesn’t follow at all with the studies that have found that the Septuagint follows closer to the DSS than the MT. Even if it was translated by multiple translators, that still doesn’t decide whether they were more accurate or less. And, the DSS show that it is quite probable that they were MORE accurate than the multiple scribes that passed the MT down through the ages.

Further, you have given no examples tp confirm the “some good, some bad, and some horrid” statement. Also, what were the “extra bits” that they included, and which codices where these added to?

Finally, the “smurfs” at wikipedia also happened to include sources: biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_dss.html and triumphpro.com/a_new_look_at_the_lxx____the_dead_sea_scrolls_and_the_septuagint.htm .

 

[FightingFat]

This doesn’t follow at all with the studies that have found that the Septuagint follows closer to the DSS than the MT. Even if it was translated by multiple translators, that still doesn’t decide whether they were more accurate or less.

OK. there are two sorts of things I could be talking about (1) the basic shape of the text (number and order of verses) (2) the details of how words are translated/understood. Often LXX appears closer to some (but not all) of the DSS in (1), but in terms of (2) it is often quite poor (at least as a textual witness - the ‘mistakes’ are very interesting in themselves for what they tell us about the theology etc of the translator.

And, the DSS show that it is quite probable that they were MORE accurate than the multiple scribes that passed the MT down through the ages.

Err, 60% of DSS biblical manuscripts were the same type of text as MT (thogh not identical in every detail)

Further, you have given no examples tp confirm the “some good, some bad, and some horrid” statement.

Oh, I don’t know: in terms of modern standards somethin like Psalms was good, something like Isaiah was bad (leaves out verses, sqaushed them down, paraphrased a lot) and Job or Proverbs was ‘horrid’ - i.e adds foreign elements, omits things etc

Also, what were the “extra bits” that they included, and which codices where these added to?

Pre codex - we are talking about the original translations. Often these are fairly small (in terms of theology), but big in the detail obsessed world of text criticism. They might add an extra few words to clarify (like Luther!) or things like that. IN the big scheme we are talking not much difference.

Finally, the “smurfs” at wikipedia also happened to include sources:

Well you stick to your sources and I’ll stick to mine (Cambridge University).