The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Tanakh’s Reliability

We previously looked at the basic principles used in the discipline of Textual Criticism. We then applied these principles to the Brit Chadasha. By these measures its reliability exceeds that of any other ancient book.

But what about the books of the Tanakh? How reliable are they? What role do the Dead Sea Scrolls play in this?

The Tanakh: An Ancient Library

The Tanakh’s uniqueness comes in several ways. First it should be thought of more as a library since many authors wrote its various books. Second, they wrote them a very long time ago. To appreciate the immense antiquity of the Tanakh, we compare them in a timeline with other ancient writings:

The timeline above places Abraham, Moses, David and Isaiah in history. They are the major characters in the Tanakh. Compare where they sit on the timeline with Thucydides and Herodotus, whom historians consider the earliest ‘Fathers of History’. Herodotus and Thucydides only lived when Malachi wrote the last book of the Tanakh. Herodotus and Thucydides only looked back about 100 years before their time to conflicts between Greek city states, and between Greece and Persia. Other important historical persons and events like the founding of Rome, Alexander the Great, and the Buddha all come much later than these principals in Tanakh. Essentially, the rest of the world only woke up to history when the Tanakh added its final books to its rather extensive collection.

Textual Criticism of the Masoretic Text

The authors of the Tanakh wrote between 1500 BCE and 400 BCE. They wrote in Hebrew with small portions in the later books written in Aramaic. The blue band shows the 1100 year period when these various books were written (1500 – 400 BCE):

These original writings are preserved today in Hebrew manuscript copies known as the Masoretic Text. Modern Bible translators use the Hebrew Masoretic Text to translate the Bible’s Old Testament into the modern languages of today’s world. So, using the principles of Textual Criticism (see here for details), how reliable is the Masoretic Text?

The Earliest Existing Masoretic Copies

Extant Manuscripts of Masoretic Texts

You can see that the earliest existing Masoretic manuscripts date only starting from 895 CE. If we put these manuscripts in a timeline with the original writings of the Tanakh, we are given the following:

You can also see that the interval between the date of composition and the earliest existing copies (the primary principle in Textual Criticism) exceeds 1000 years. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls

In 1948, Palestinian shepherds discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls hidden in caves by the shores of the Dead Sea in Qumran. A shepherd boy had thrown some stones into the mouth of a cave higher up in the face of a cliff. He then heard the sound of clay jars breaking from the impact of the stones. Intrigued, he climbed up the cliffs and found the sealed clay jars with the Dead Sea Scrolls inside. The Dead Sea Scrolls contained Hebrew manuscripts of all the books of the Tanakh, except the Book of Esther. Scholars date their composition between 250 and 100 BCE.

Significance of Dead Sea Scrolls for Textual Criticism

With the discovery and publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-twentieth century the whole world witnessed a monumental event in Textual Criticism. In basically one instant, the Dead Sea Scrolls pushed the Hebrew text of the Tanakh 1000 years further back in time. This raised the intriguing question: Had the Hebrew text changed during this 1000 year period from 100 BCE to 900 CE? The West at this time had built its civilization over the preceding 1500 years based upon the Old Testament. Had that text been changed or altered during its history? The Dead Sea Scrolls could shed light on this question. So what did they find?

“These [DDSs] confirm the accuracy of the Masoretic Text… Except for a few instances where spelling and grammar differ between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text, the two are amazingly similar.”M.R. Norton. 1992. Manuscripts of the Old Testament in The Origin of the Bible.

Scholars found almost no change in the Hebrew between the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls, though they jumped back 1000 years. In comparison, consider how much the English language has changed in the last 700 years, yet the remarkable Hebrew text remained static over such a great length of time.

Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the Bible’s Integrity

The Dead Sea Scrolls support the Bible’s primary claim to authenticity. The Brit Chadasha claims that Yeshua fulfills G-d’s Plan announced since the beginning of human history in the Tanakh. The many prophecies fulfilled by him provides a central proof, or evidence, for this claim. The reasoning is as simple as it is logical.  No human, no matter how clever, educated, or knowledgeable knows the future, especially when looking hundreds of years ahead. But G-d does know, and even sets up, the future. So if we find writings that correctly prophesy minute details of monumental events hundreds of years into the future they must have been inspired by G-d rather than merely thought up by wise men. You can think of the prophecies of the Tanakh forming a lock, waiting for a key to ‘fit’ into the lock to open it. Yeshua claimed to be that key.

However, before the Dead Sea Scrolls, we did not have definitive proof that these prophecies were actually in writing before the events that they foresaw. Some dismissed them by arguing, for example, that perhaps these prophecies of Yeshua were ‘inserted’ into the Tanakh say in 200 CE. Since no Hebrew text before 900 CE existed, that objection could not be quickly refuted. But with the Dead Sea Scrolls we find these prophecies had indeed been written down at the very latest by 100 BCE, 130 years before Yeshua changed history with his teachings, miracles, and resurrection. 

The Tankah Prophecies in the Dead Sea Scrolls

So the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the prophecies were in print before Yeshua fulfilled them. The prophecies found in the Dead Sea Scrolls include:

• The coming Seed of the Woman
• The location of Yeshua’s sacrifice in the binding of Isaac
• The day in the Hebrew calendar of Yeshua’s Passover sacrifice
• The day in the Hebrew calendar pointing to Yeshua’s resurrection
• The details of Yeshua’s crucifixion, including the piercing of his hands and feet
• The significance of Yeshua’s sacrifice as one who will carry our sins
• The resurrection of Yeshua
• The coming virgin birth
• The name of Yeshua predicted
• The year that Yeshua would be revealed as the Messiah
• The daily events of Passion Week
• The coming ‘Son of Man’

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Israel

The world discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948. This was the same year as the modern revival of Israel into a nation after almost 2000 years of Jewish exile. The timing of these two central events of the 20^th century, being the same year, makes their remarkable re-entry to our world even seem scheduled by a Higher Power. Even just in their discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls hint that The Mind foreordaining Yeshua’s coming thousands of years ago seems to be still organizing events today.