Five Breakthroughs from the Dead Sea Scrolls
How Ancient Fragments Illumine Our Understanding of Biblical Texts and their Ancient Contexts
In this guest blog series, Dr. Andrew Perrin explores key topics and texts from his new book Lost Words and Forgotten Worlds: Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls. Follow him on YouTube for more insights into ancient scribes, scrolls, and scriptures.
New Texts and Fresh Contexts
The Dead Sea Scrolls and site of Qumran are among the most significant manuscript finds and archaeological discoveries for biblical research. They provide both new texts and fresh contexts for exploring the life, thought, and history of ancient Judaism at a formative time for scriptural traditions. Of the many lessons learned from the Dead Sea Scrolls—and the still more we are yet to discover—there are five essential insights that reveal the inarguable importance of these materials for how we think (or need to rethink) the words and worlds of, in, and around the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a Millenium Older than Our Best Biblical Manuscripts
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a rich collection of ancient Jewish writings from the mid- to late-Second Temple period. This was a period when scribes were preserving and passing along the Hebrew Scriptures, some of which were later received in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. (Spoiler alert: there are no New Testament texts among the scrolls. When I refer to “biblical” scrolls in this article, I’m using it as a loose shorthand to scroll texts that include Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek materials of books later canonized in Judaism and Christianity).
Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, our most complete and best copies of the Hebrew Scriptures dated to the late 10th (Aleppo Codex) or early 11th (Leningrad Codex) centuries CE. These important manuscripts are part of a scribal legacy known as the Masoretic tradition. With biblical scrolls like 4QJeremiaha dated to as early as 225-175 BCE, these texts wound back the clock more than a millennium in the history of the biblical text and hundreds of years before the Masoretic scribal tradition in the 7th century CE.
This means the Dead Sea Scrolls come from a time of scribes and scriptures before the Bible existed as a canonical construct (a canon) or a media form (a codex). This is crucial to keep in mind when we’re exploring what scripture was before asking what the Bible is. Because of the date of the manuscripts, the Dead Sea Scrolls increased our data for the words of Hebrew Scripture as well as sparked a revolution in how we understand the scribal processes that shaped it.
New Readings of the Hebrew Scriptures Recovered from the Dead Sea Scrolls
On the one hand, there is a remarkable fidelity between many Qumran texts and later, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek witnesses to the biblical texts. On the other hand, the scrolls include thousands of differences ranging from spelling variations, words, phrases, sentences, and full paragraphs (these differences are called “textual variants”) as well as multiple editions of several books. The task of understanding these differences is complex yet presents the opportunity to recover lost, forgotten, or unknown readings for modern Bibles and text-critical research.
We see this, for example, in two copies of the book of Isaiah found in the very same cave of the Judaean wilderness, known as Cave One. The scroll of 1QIsaiahb is a near exact consonantal version of the Hebrew text that was copied down through the generations and eventually surfaced in medieval manuscripts, like the Leningrad Codex. The scroll of 1QIsaiaha, at times referred to as the “Great Isaiah Scroll,” also reflects this general shared text but includes hundreds of textual variants! Most are minor and don’t affect the meaning of the text (think spelling differences or scribal corrections). Others are words or phrases that do convey a new or different meaning. At times these textual variants are independent to the scroll. In many instances, however, they agree with readings in other Isaiah manuscripts at Qumran or find parallels in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Isaiah 53:11 is perhaps the most famous (and disputed) textual variant in these manuscripts. Here 1QIsaiaha, 1QIsaiahb, another manuscript from Cave 4 (4QIsaiahd), and the Greek Septuagint include a single suggestive word at a low point in Isaiah’s “Servant Song.” We can see this in comparison:
Masoretic text: As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see and be satisfied; by his knowledge the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he will bear their iniquities. (NASB, with slight revision)
Septuagint: …from the pain of his soul, to show him light (φῶς) and fill him with understanding, to justify a righteous one who is well subject to many, and he himself shall bear their sins. (NETS)
Dead Sea Scrolls: Out of the suffering of his soul he will see light (אור) and find satisfaction. And through his knowledge his servant, the righteous one, will make many righteous, and he will bear their iniquities. (1QIsaiaha, also attested in 1QIsaiahb and 4QIsaiahd)
This “new” (actually, very old) reading is now included in the CSB, NIV, NRSV and footnoted as a possibility in the ESV, HCSB, LEB, NASB, and NKJV. Today, nearly every modern Bible translation engages and incorporates the scrolls to provide fresh insight into ancient scripture—just keep an eye on your translation’s notes at the bottom of the page and you’ll see where and how the biblical scrolls come into play.
New Backstory for the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
Many books within the Apocrypha or modern collections of Pseudepigrapha reflect the history, culture, and ideas of ancient Judaism. The Dead Sea Scrolls also revealed the backstory of many writings in these collections well before they were canonized by some Christian traditions (the Apocrypha) or loosely collected much later by scholars or publishers (so-called Pseudepigrapha).
For example, the book of Tobit is well known among the Apocrypha largely due to its Christian reception starting in Greek editions in the Septuagint. The Dead Sea Scrolls, however, included multiple copies of the work in its likely original Aramaic form as well as one ancient translation into Hebrew! Other texts, like the Aramaic Book of Giants, were known in outline from later Manichaean literature, references in rabbinic tradition, or in still later forms discovered at the site of Turfan in northwestern China. Yet the Dead Sea Scrolls offered up remarkable Aramaic fragments of the work in its earliest form, providing insight into ancient scribal imaginations on the problem of evil, apocalyptic thought, and expanding on the profile of Enoch as a righteous seer, otherworldly sojourner, and source of revelatory knowledge.
Such discoveries not only provide new insight into the religious practice, theological outlooks, and even debates among ancient Jewish groups, they also reveal important insight into the development of influential ideas and formation of literary traditions. These examples demonstrate how the Dead Sea Scrolls illumine the backstory of writings that were written, read, and received in wider Judaism.
Insights into the Essene Movement from Community Oriented Texts
The site of Qumran was home to a scribal community that was likely part of a larger Essene movement. The tandem discovery of manuscript evidence (the scrolls themselves) in close proximity to the community home of the group that penned or preserved them (the site of Qumran) is a remarkable and rare occurrence in biblical research. Because of this, a core part of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection consists of what are often described as “sectarian” writings, which provide insight into the community structures, practices, and beliefs of the group that lived at Qumran.
We know something of the various groups of ancient Judaism—like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, or Zealots—in writings of Josephus and Philo as well as references to some of these in the New Testament. In general, scholars agree that the group that lived at Qumran were most likely Essene, an Essene-like group, or were part of a wider Essene movement. When we read the “sectarian” texts and keep an eye on the archaeology of the site of Qumran (more on that below) we learn a lot about this specific expression of Essene life, belief, and practice.
Scrolls like the Community Rule, for example, include descriptions of both community ideas and ideals ranging from prayer and liturgy, to community ceremonies and calendars, to a stark dualistic theology, messianic hopes, and penalties for a range of community infractions…like strolling about naked (trust me, the Community Rule is a fantastic read).
Other writings, like the War Scroll, are steeped in apocalyptic thought and anticipate a final showdown between “the sons of light” (the Qumran good guys) against the army of darkness (including the “Kittim,” a codename for the Romans). In addition to details on battle formations, the War Scroll also touches on purity practices, liturgy, and angelology.
Other materials, like the Temple Scroll, the longest scroll of the collection (measuring 26.7 feet), is a rewriting of sections of Exodus and Deuteronomy in the first person voice of God—which may seem bold or brazen today. However, this was a well-established scribal practice known as of “pseudepigraphy.” This is but one example of how the Dead Sea Scrolls also provide new insight into the earliest scribal approaches and genres of scriptural interpretation.
In various ways, these writings illustrate that the Dead Sea Scrolls are as much about new texts as they are uncovering new contexts for understanding patterns of thought, group identities, and religious practice and thought in the ancient Judaism. As hinted above, an important part of this contextual picture is not words in scrolls but the rocks, rubble, and archaeological remains of the site of Qumran.
Qumran Archaeology: The Intersection of Artefacts, Identity, and Practice
The archaeological excavations of Qumran and the nearby caves included numerous, diverse, and invaluable artefacts hinting at the lives lived in this Essene community off the northwest shores of the Dead Sea.
Take, for example, the advanced and complex aqueduct that channeled seasonal flood waters into the community and through a series of waterways and pools. This system appears to have served a range of purposes from practical (fresh drinking water is tough to come by in the wilderness) to ritual purity. Several pools, like the one in locus 48/49 of the site, appear to have served as ritual immersion pools (known in Hebrew as miqveh in the singular, or miqva’ot in the plural). This one, however, has a plaster partition running down the middle.
We know from reading the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls that practices of ritual purity were paramount for the Qumran community. In this case, presumably one would descend unclean down one side into the waters and return on the other side ritually pure. This miqveh also bears the scars of a regional earthquake that struck in 31 BCE (see Josephus’ comments in War 1.370-80; Antiquities 15.121-47), which damaged the stairs and likely resulted in a short hiatus of community life at Qumran.
And who could forget, the toilet(s) of Qumran. When it came to practices for relieving oneself, the Essenes apparently had various approaches. Josephus, for example, tells us that each Essene was given a small hatchet to dig and cover their business out in the boonies (War 2.137; 2.148). The War Scroll (1QM 7:7) placed latrines well outside their idealized battle camp as a measure ensuring a high level of purity in the eschatological end of days. The archaeological record at Qumran, however, has a humble terra cotta one seater, complete with its own basic piping. This brief insight into a universally common human experience (we all go) reveals how even the most basic of human functions connects into wider ideas of religious practice, group identity, and even eschatological expectation.
Unlocking More Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls have sparked both excitement and debate, revolutionizing our understanding of Hebrew Scripture and the life, history, thought, and culture of the Second Temple period. I invite you to dive deeper into these remarkable materials and explore more in my new book, Lost Words and Forgotten Worlds: Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls, and by subscribing to my YouTube channel.
Just finished this one. I figured it would be a typical intro to the DSS, but it was so much more. I’ve read a few of Perrin’s books and have found his work on the Aramaic scroll corpus fascinating.
What a well-written, if not beautiful, mini-commentary on the value of the Dead Sea Scrolls in understanding the ancient Hebrew Text. I have always been enamored with this subject since it was introduced to me in 1971 in bible college and later expounded upon in seminary.