The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls have contributed a great amount of evidence for the Biblical record. Today I want to share with you the story of how the Dead Sea Scrolls were revealed to us, and what implications they have for reliability of the Biblical text. Since this blog is written for the purpose of spreading a Biblical perspective, it is important that I show you proof of God's Word being a reliable text to build a worldview from. I am hopeful that today's article will do just that, or at least cut close. If, after reading this article you have questions or doubts as to the Biblical text's reliability, please e-mail them to me at calvinlyman@rocketmail.com, or post them in a comment here at Biblical Perspective. Questions are always welcomed, especially critics. I will do my best to answer your questions as fast as possible and as accurately as possible.


One day in 1947, Mohamed Dib, a Bedouin shepherd from the tribe of Ta Amireh went looking for a lost sheep in the rocky ravines on the North shore of the Dead Sea. As he was searching for the sheep, he stumbled upon a cave in which he found several ancient pots. Expecting these pots to be full of treasure, he went back and got a couple of fellow tribesmen to search the cave with him. After breaking the pots, the tribesmen found that they contained bits and pieces of what is now called the Dead Sea Scrolls. Disappointed that there was no gold or jewels in the jars, the threw them aside and carelessly trampled on them. Once it dawned on them that these manuscripts could be worth something, they took a few of the best looking manuscripts with them. The manuscripts were then smuggled into Bethlehem via the black market, and passed into the hands of antique dealers. Some of the scrolls were bought by Jewish and Arab collectors, also a bundle of four came into the possession of the Orthodox archbishop of Jerusalem, Yeshue Samuel. The archbishop had no idea how valuable the manuscripts were until experts from the American School of Oriental Research examined the documents and became convinced that these were Biblical documents of an extraordinarily early date. At this point archaeologists started to look for the Dead Sea Scrolls, trying to trace them from their original discoverer to their current location. Their long and tedious search eventually led them to the archbishop in 1947. After the archbishop handed over the documents, the pots in which the scrolls had been discovered were revealed to be Graecio-Roman, dating from 30 B.C. to 70 A.D.

Now that you know how the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, let's talk about the consequences that they have for biblical literature and it's reliability. The oldest biblical text that we possess in the Hebrew language is the Massoretic Text. It dates from the 9Th-10Th century A.D. The chief sources for our modern day translation of the Bible come from this translation, as well as from the Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate. For a long time these translations were are only sources of biblical knowledge, but the Dead Sea Scrolls changed that. The Dead Sea scrolls provided a Hebrew Text 1,000 years older than any of the later texts. All of the manuscripts found in the cave in Qumran are in perfect agreement with other translations. Of the 600 fragments left behind in the cave of Qumran, Hebrew transcripts of Genesis, Deuteronomy, and the book of Judges were found. Once again, every manuscript discovered was in perfect agreement with the other texts that are from a much later date.

The story of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a remarkable one, and also one that I have only touched on today. In addition to the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the cave mentioned earlier, there have been discoveries of many others in the surrounding region. These scrolls have provided historians with a lot of insight on the times following Jesus Christ's resurrection.

I hope this post has provided you with more reason to trust the Bible as God's authoritative Word. Yet again, if you have any questions on this topic, or any other topic covered in this blog, please post a comment.-Calvin