Textual Criticism of the Old Testament: Jeremiah as Example

In Qumran, six manuscripts of Jeremiah have been found. Two of these manuscripts (4QJerb and 4QJerd) deviate from the standard text. These versions of Jeremiah are shorter. However, there are also verses that appear in a different order.

Interestingly, the text in these two manuscripts resembles the book of Jeremiah as it appears in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

The Greek translation of Jeremiah deviates significantly from the Hebrew standard text. Scholars have long wondered how those differences could have come about. The finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls finally shed some light on this: the people who translated the Bible into Greek had a different version of the Hebrew text than from the Masoretic text, one that would have been very similar to the two manuscripts found in Qumran. Unfortunately, these finds do not help to clarify which version of Jeremiah is the oldest. As mentioned before, both versions were found in Qumran.