Textual Criticism of the Old Testament: Qumran

In Qumran, sections of all the books of the Old Testament have been found, apart from Esther. Of some books only fragments have been found, but of others nearly the entire text has been found, such as Isaiah.

The biblical manuscripts of Qumran are more than a thousand years older than the standard text of the Old Testament, the Masoretic text.

Why are these Finds Important?

The version of the books of the Old Testament that were found in Qumran are important for textual criticism for a number of reasons:

The texts from Qumran confirm the age of the Masoretic text.
They contain differences with the Masoretic text at word level.
They contain differences at the level of phrases, clauses, pericopes and even chapters.

Dead Sea Scrolls Confirm Reliability

The Dead Sea Scrolls show that the standard text is very reliable. The Masoretic text already existed in broad strokes in the time before AD 70. Some versions of the books of the Bible that were found at Qumran differ remarkably little from the standard text. The Masoretes were therefore very precise when they copied the texts from this tradition.

Different Versions of the Text

However, the Dead Sea Scrolls also show that there were other different versions of the Old Testament texts around the start of our era. Not only the Masoretic tradition could be found in the texts at Qumran, but also other versions of the books of the Bible have been found there as well. Many scholars think that this variation in manuscripts at Qumran is representative of Judaism at that time. That means that there was not yet a standard text of the Bible before the year AD 70.