ACCURACY CONFIRMED BY DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Searches in the area of the Dead Sea have turned up numerous Hebrew scrolls written before the beginning of the Common Era. Many of these contain parts of the Hebrew Scriptures. How do they compare with Masoretic manuscripts produced some one thousand or more years later?

In one study, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah was examined both in a Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, copied about 100 B.C.E., and in the Masoretic text. Norman L. Geisler and William E. Nix give the results of this study in A General Introduction to the Bible:

“Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, there are only seventeen letters in question. Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word ‘light,’ which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly. . . . Thus, in one chapter of 166 words, there is only one word (three letters) in question after a thousand years of transmission​—and this word does not significantly change the meaning of the passage.”

Another publication notes that this scroll and an additional copy of parts of Isaiah found near the Dead Sea “proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text. The 5% of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”

[Pictures on page 190]

Beginning of Isaiah from Dead Sea Scroll of 100 B.C.E. (above) and Leningrad Manuscript of 1000 C.E. (left). Though 1,100 years apart, they show almost word-for-word agreement