were dated earlier than the ninth century A.D. For 336 years, from 1611 to 1947, practically no new evidence to correct already available sources on the Hebrew text came to light. Then in 1947 came what one archaeologist called “a phenomenal discovery.”

Two Bedouins were out searching in the wild and stony desert toward the Dead Sea for a strayed goat. They tossed a rock into a small opening in a cliff and heard sounds that suggested a room. They found a cave; inside they saw three large jars. Peering inside they saw long, round objects in a linen wrapper. Hoping for treasure, they tore off the wrappings and to their disappointment found scrolls instead of jewels. In time they sold them to the archbishop of the monastery of Saint Mark in Jerusalem.

But the 1947 discoveries were just the beginning. In 1949 the cave was rediscovered and explored. Hundreds of scroll fragments were found. In 1952 to 1953 other caves were explored. So many manuscript fragments have been found that every book of the Hebrew Scriptures, with the possible exception of Chronicles, was represented.

Most important of all the scrolls was a complete scroll of Isaiah from about the second century B.C. There was also a commentary upon the book of Habakkuk; it gives us the oldest text of that book that we have. Indeed, the scrolls are about a thousand years older than the Hebrew manuscripts on which the King James Version is based.

The scrolls have already been put to use. For example, thorough study of the Isaiah scroll enables today’s translators to correct a copyist’s error at Isaiah 3:24. The King James Version says: “There shall be . . . burning instead of beauty.” Modern translations made before 1947 often use the word “branding” instead of burning. Still it is not clear. As the 1956 edition of The Encyclopedia Americana explains, the word “branding” “assumes a meaning for the common Hebrew word ki, . . . which it has nowhere else in the Bible. The Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah contains an additional word to the last line, which makes it possible to render it as follows: ‘for instead of beauty (there will be) shame.’”

Some questions now confront us: Are we to take advantage of all this amazing wealth of new knowledge about the Bible? Is it to be brought to bear toward a better understanding of God’s Word? How, then, can we individually discover this better-understood Bible?

Much of the new knowledge has already been applied. Modern-speech translations not only use the common language of the people today, but they also are providing us with more accurate Bibles, and that means more understandable ones. So you can discover the better-understood Bible by obtaining a modern-speech translation for your own Bible study. Do not let a supposed desire for familiar words or a poetical effect bind you to the exclusive use of the King James Version. In the words of the King James translators themselves, to quote again from their almost-forgotten preface—“Is the kingdom of God become words and syllables? Why should we be in bondage to them when we may be free?”

Insight into the World’s Woes

Historian Arnold J. Toynbee made a statement a few years ago that was apt then but even more apt today, as we see the world blazing with the fires of nationalism. “One of the reasons why our times are dangerous,” Dr. Toynbee said, “is that we have all been taught to worship our nation, our flag, our own past history. Man may safely worship only God.”—Look, August 17, 1948.