Four Benefits of Reading Greek Manuscripts Reading biblical manuscripts, even for beginners, brings history to life and promises untold surprises along the way. Amy S. AndersonThere is nothing lovelier than a work created by the hand of a true artisan. This is especially true of ancient artifacts since they were, by necessity, hand-made. In many cases, people were not satisfied with a utilitarian object. Whenever possible, they put in extra effort to make it beautiful. This is the first of four benefits I have found in teaching students to read Greek biblical manuscripts. 1. They are beautiful The oldest copies of scripture, as we will see below, were indeed utilitarian. They were texts meant to be read. But before too long, scripture books began to be decorated and illustrated. To start with, each piece of parchment was painstakingly produced by a lengthy process, resulting in a material that was often so fine that the writing shows through from the other side, yet sturdy enough to last for thousands of years. The inks were made from various natural sources, producing brilliant colors. The pens were hand-formed. In addition, writing was not a skill that everyone possessed. We don’t always realize that the ability for normal people to read and write is a relatively modern phenomenon. To form even awkward letters would have been quite an achievement for an ancient person. To write beautifully was a treasured skill. In fact, widespread illiteracy is one reason that many ancient copies of the Bible are illuminated, some in simple ways with colored initial letters, others with entire pages portraying the Gospel writer or a scene from the text. These are not just pretty touches, but they witness to a desire to honor God and provide tools for teaching the congregation the stories of the Old Testament or the life of Jesus. Just look at this gorgeous first page of the Gospel of Matthew. The opening of Matthew in GA 2374, a 13th/14th c. copy of the entire NT except Revelation. Image (cc) Walters Art Museum via CSNTM. (1) The colorful and ornate box shape at the top is called a “headpiece,” often found at the beginning of biblical books. What looks like gold – is gold! In the center of the headpiece is the title, written in gold paint on top of red. The first word in the text of Matthew is βίβλος (biblos, or “book”). (2) In the left margin, you can see that the first letter, which corresponds to the English letter “B,” is enlarged and richly decorated. This is called an “initial letter.” Sometimes the same scribe who wrote out the text also did the artwork, but most of the time two different skilled people were at work, one copying the text and one decorating it. (3) Further down in the left margin, you can see an enlarged red letter that looks like an English “C.” This is actually the letter sigma, the first letter of the name Solomon. When beginning a new section of the text, scribes often indicated the first full line with such an initial letter, placed in the margin, enlarged, and “rubricated,” or written in red. (4) The rubricated text directly under the headpiece is a repeat of the title of the Gospel with decorative dots. This was probably added later since it is crowded into that space. (5) Did you also see the tiny, rubricated alpha (α) with a line above it in the right margin? This is the Greek number one, marking the first section of Matthew. Even though the chapters and verses with which we are familiar were inserted later, early Christians developed their own numbering system that helped readers find specific passages. Aside from their visual beauty, ancient manuscripts like this also remind us of the real people who lived long ago and read these Bibles. 2. They connect us to the ancient world We sometimes forget that the people who wrote, copied, and translated our scriptures were living, breathing human beings. The ancient manuscripts often give us glimpses of the lives of these people. What follows are two close-ups of one of the most famous ancient manuscripts. It is called Codex Sinaiticus because it was preserved in a monastery that is located on Mt Sinai. It is dated to the 4th century and is one of the two earliest surviving manuscripts to have originally contained the entire Bible. A fingerprint in Codex Sinaiticus (4th c.) on Q.68 f.4v at Sirach 8:5. Source If you look closely at just the right spot on just the right page in Codex Sinaiticus, you can see a finger print! You can also see that the whorls of the print are over top of the letters. This may have been someone who handled the parchment soon after it was written, perhaps even the scribe him/herself. A wax dripping in Sinaiticus on Q.83 f.4v at 1 Cor. 14:7. Source At another place in Sinaiticus you can see something that occurs often in the ancient manuscripts. Remember, there was no electrical lighting in churches and other buildings, so that one of the few ways to have enough light to read a manuscript indoors was to use candlelight. That, of course, would be accompanied by the likelihood of drips occurring, as you can see here. This drip occurs in 1 Corinthians 14:7, where Paul is discussing how different musical instruments have distinct sounds as part of his argument for intelligibility in the use of manifestation gifts in the gathering of believers. A final instance of the humanity of the people who made copies of scripture so long ago comes from Codex Vaticanus, the other of the two oldest copies of the entire Bible, also from the fourth century and in this case housed in the Vatican library. The last part of the New Testament has been lost, but Vaticanus is treasured for the high quality of the text it preserves. You might be able to see from the photo that a later scribe has traced over the original letters, probably because they had become faded. Also interesting is the comment in the margin. It is evidence of a disagreement between two different correctors. The start of Hebrews in Codex Vaticanus (4th c.) showing a correction in the margin. Alamy Six lines down at the left side of the column, corresponding to Hebrews 1:3, is the word φανερῶν (phanerōn, “revealing”). This reading would translate as saying that Jesus reveals all things by the power of His word. But most manuscripts read φέρων (pherōn, “upholding/sustaining”) here. The two words are quite similar, and a close look would show (1) that the color of the second and third letters (αν) is lighter than the rest of the word. Apparently, a corrector has tried to remove them in order to change phanerōn to pherōn. But a second corrector came along and added those two letters back in, returning the reading to what the manuscript first read. (2) This second corrector was irritated with the change made by the first, and comments in the margin: “Fool and knave, leave the old reading, don’t change it!”1Translation from Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 260. 3. They include the earliest copies of our sacred scriptures In fact, not only do the ancient manuscripts take us back to the early days of Christianity, they are also among the oldest surviving physical artifacts of the faith. They are at least as early as the catacombs, the mosaics, foundations of church buildings, or anything else that an archaeological dig might discover. And the manuscripts contain many clues to early Christianity—even beyond the texts that became the canons of the Old and New Testaments. In the margins are not only comments like the one above, but organizational symbols, commentary, textual variants, and historical notations. Practices of scribes and correctors reveal much about the developing theological discussions. Rahlfs 962 (3rd c.) is a copy of Genesis in Greek. This fragment is from Gen 31:5–9. Image (cc) Chester Beatty Library, photo from CSNTM. What you are looking at here are the surviving fragments of a page of Genesis. They include Genesis 31:5–9, part of the story of Jacob fleeing from Laban. The fact that this copy of Genesis is written in Greek means that this artifact is from the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. (1) In the second line from the top, the word θέος (God) is abbreviated as θς. This is a strong hint that this manuscript was produced and used by a Christian community. There are more than a dozen of these nomina sacra, or “holy names,” that early Christians commonly abbreviated, words such as “God,” “Jesus,” “lord,” or “father.” You can get an idea of what these abbreviations look like by imitating them in English. For example, God could be written as “Gd,” Jesus as “Js,” heaven as “hven.” While scholars still debate possible reasons why Christians followed this practice, any manuscript that contains the nomina sacra can be identified as almost certainly coming from a Christian church or community. (2) Another feature to notice are the fibers at the top and bottom, as well as the square-shaped breaks in the material. Papyrus as a writing material came from the pith of the stems of papyrus plants, grown in Egypt. The pith was cut in thin layers and then laid side by side—one layer horizontal and one layer vertical. These two layers were pressed together to form a sturdy writing material. The oldest copies of the Septuagint and the New Testament are on papyrus. Papyrus was constructed by laying slices of the papyrus plant stem at 90 degree angles. Wikipedia This copy of Genesis is dated to the late third century, making it older than most surviving copies of the New Testament, and much older than many surviving copies of the Old Testament in the original Hebrew. The handwriting is not as “fancy” as the other later hands you see in this article. It is called a “documentary hand,” as opposed to the more finely crafted “literary hand” used to copy literary works (such as Homer or Polybius), pointing to the pragmatism of early Christians. Indeed, the earliest copies of the New Testament, as well as the Greek copies of the Old Testament, would have been produced not so much as articles of beauty, but in order to make the content available as quickly and broadly as possible. This codex (book) would have been used by early Christians as they studied their scripture to understand, debate, and articulate how Jesus was both the Jewish Messiah and God himself. 4. They help us appreciate why there are differences in the ancient copies Because the New Testament was copied by hand for about 1400 years, it should not be surprising that the manuscripts differ in small ways on nearly every page, and that there are some bigger differences between them as well. This is why we need trained textual critics who study the manuscripts and offer explanations as to what occurred in the process of transmitting the text over hundreds of years. This might make it sound as if we cannot be certain of the oldest form of the text. But in actuality, you yourself can find out what the most meaningful variations are, simply by checking the footnotes of your own English Bible. Related Illustration by Peter Gurry. Image from 123rf.com Two Reasons There Are Variants in Our Copies of the BibleFor historical and theological reasons, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Bible’s manuscripts have differences. Peter J. Gurry Most modern Bibles have footnotes that alert you to significant variation that occurs between manuscripts, differences that could impact interpretation. Look for the footnotes that begin with something like “Some ancient witnesses read…” or “The oldest manuscripts read…” These are text-critical notes, supplied to you by the translators of your Bible. Don’t confuse text-critical notes with translation notes, which are about translation decisions. Translation notes would begin something like “Or…” In other words, translation notes are only offering another legitimate translation of the same Greek or Hebrew in a place where ancient manuscripts have the same word. If you go through your Bible and look at every single text-critical note, you will see that, though they are interesting and have importance for reading that passage, they are certainly not the sort of variation that would turn our Christian faith on its head. One of the places in the New Testament where scholars debate a reading is in 1 Corinthians 2:1. You can see in the footnote of your own Bible that scholars are not sure whether Paul wrote “testimony” or “mystery.” It could be a fun exercise to look through various modern translations and see which ones chose which word. There are trustworthy ancient manuscripts with each reading, and Paul uses both words in the immediate context. Both words make sense in the sentence, and the decision of which word to include will change the meaning somewhat. The correction of “mystery” to “testimony” at 1 Cor. 2:1 in Sinaiticus. Source Sinaiticus, the 4th century codex mentioned above, carries within it a witness to the fact that early Christians also debated which word Paul would have written in 1 Corinthians 2:1. When you look at this spot in the manuscript, you’ll see a word that begins in the middle of the line and finishes on the next line: ΜΥΣΤΗΡΙΟΝ. That’s mystērion, or “mystery.” The word for “testimony” would be ΜΑΡΤΥΡΙΟΝ, or martyrion. Notice how similar the two words are. You can basically trade out three letters to change one into the other. And that’s exactly what a later corrector has done in Sinaiticus. Look at the small letters written above ΜΥΣΤΗΡΙΟΝ. They are meant by the corrector to be substituted in, changing the reading from mystērion (mystery) to martyrion (testimony). The most extensive variation between manuscripts involve the ending of Mark and the story of the woman caught in adultery, or the pericope adulterae (John 7:53–8:11). Neither of these longer texts is in the oldest manuscripts, as the footnotes in your Bible will tell you, but they entered the tradition pretty early on, and then scribes dealt with them in various ways. Here is an example of how one group of manuscripts presents the pericope adulterae. GA 1 (12th c.), showing the ending of John’s Gospel (recto) and the pericope adulterae (verso). Source This is Codex 1, which contains most of the New Testament and was produced in the 12th century. It belongs to a group of closely related manuscripts called Family 1, and one of the characteristics of this family is that its manuscripts have the pericope adulterae at the end of John. What you see above are the front (recto) and back (verso) sides of one folio. Notice how the damages to the parchment are mirror images of each other. You can also see that the two sides are a slightly different color and that the recto has something like (1) light freckles in the upper right corner. That is the hair side of the parchment and the “freckles” are hair follicles. The slightly paler verso is called the skin side. What you see on the recto is (2) the end of the Gospel of John. Except for the initial letters, (3) the rubricated writing on this page was added later and mostly has to do with marking out the daily church readings. In fact, you can see (4) the end of one reading in the middle of the page where it looks like a “TE” with a line above it. That’s the abbreviation for τέλος (telos), which means “ending.” It occurs in the middle of our v. 19. (5) A new reading begins with the next red mark, the abbreviation of ἀρχή (archē), which means “beginning.” This is placed right before our v. 24. Frequently, scribes would end a book with this sort of tapering of the lines of text. (6) The last letter is an alpha from the word βίβλια (biblia), which is the plural of “books.” (You’ll remember that the author says that if everything that Jesus did were written down, the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.) After the biblical text ends is (7) a decorative cross with the nomina sacra for “Jesus” and “Christ.” So that’s the end of John. But when the reader turns the folio to the verso, there is another page of text! And it doesn’t begin with biblical text. (8) The rubricated paragraph, this time written by the original scribe, is a commentary on the pericope adulterae that must go back for hundreds of years since other, older Family 1 manuscripts also contain it. This paragraph informs the reader that the pericope adulterae is not found in most copies, providing evidence from a number of church fathers. Then comes (9) the text of the pericope adulterae in full, also ending in the tapered format with a small decoration. Knowledge of the ancient manuscripts brings the history of Judaism and Christianity to life. Just these few explorations of several pages out of our ancient copies of scripture demonstrate how much there is to be gained from a study of the early manuscripts, and how valuable such a study would be for a student of the Bible or of ancient Greek. Knowledge of the ancient manuscripts brings the history of Judaism and Christianity to life, not only in the meaning of the text itself, but in the tangible artifacts that carry the text and that have survived to share beauty, information, and inspiration with readers of the 21st century.Notes1Translation from Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 260.
Recovering an Erased Gospel How the earliest Greek New Testament commentary manuscript has been restored by modern imaging techniques H. A. G. HoughtonTwo hundred years ago, a nobleman on the Greek island of Zakynthos presented a visiting British soldier with a handwritten copy of the readings from the Greek gospels used in church services. On his return to London, General Colin Macaulay gave this manuscript, Codex Zacynthius, to the British and Foreign Bible Society. Although the text of this lectionary appeared to have been copied in the thirteenth century, scholars soon realized that the manuscript was a palimpsest: the gospel extracts had been written on the pages of a much older document whose text had been erased in order to re-use the parchment for another book. Pages where the remains of the earlier text could be made out with the naked eye enabled it to be identified as a copy of the Gospel according to Luke. Based on the style of the handwriting, it was estimated that it had originally been copied between the sixth and eighth century, at least five hundred years before its rewriting as a lectionary. A source for early commentary The text of Luke, however, only occupied the middle part of each page. In wide margins, another text had been added by the copyist in a smaller version of the same script. This showed that the original manuscript was a type of commentary known as a catena, in which extracts from early Christian authors had been joined together to form a chain of comments explaining each passage in the gospel text. Codex Zacynthius appeared to be the earliest surviving example of a New Testament catena by at least a century. In many cases, the original writings from which these extracts were taken have been lost, and these commentaries are the only surviving source. As the only known manuscript in which both biblical text and commentary were written in majuscule script, Codex Zacynthius appeared to be the earliest surviving example of a New Testament catena by at least a century. Recovering the text Around the end of the nineteenth century, scholars began to experiment with using chemicals to make the underwriting stand out on palimpsest manuscripts. Although initial results were promising, subsequent deterioration made these pages even less legible than before. Fortunately, this was not attempted on Codex Zacynthius. Instead, after the manuscript was acquired by Cambridge University Library in 2014 following a public campaign which raised £1.1 million, it was examined through a non-invasive process known as multispectral imaging. Funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Codex Zacynthius Project engaged a specialist team which took fifty-one high resolution images of each page using different wavelengths of light, from infrared to ultraviolet. Using advanced processing techniques, different sets of images were combined in order to produce a single composite photograph on which the undertext was as visible as possible. The final result was remarkable: on the majority of pages, the erased undertext could be clearly made out thanks to an artificial coloring of this type of ink in a dark blue color, while text written in red ink appeared in a different hue. The black writing of the overtext was transformed into a light cyan color in order to enable readers to make sense of the obscured portions of the letters below. A digital edition The new images were then used by scholars at the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at the University of Birmingham to make a full transcription of every word of the manuscript. The only previous attempt to do this had been in 1950, when the American scholar J. Harold Greenlee spent a year working with the manuscript on a windowsill in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, trying to read the manuscript in direct sunlight. The multispectral images made it possible for the Birmingham team to improve significantly on Greenlee’s unpublished results, including reading large passages which he had left blank. Once the transcription had been completed, the whole text was translated into English, preserving the same layout as the catena manuscript, to make this early form of commentary available to readers without Greek. The multispectral images, the transcription and the translation have all been made openly available on the Cambridge Digital Library. This digital edition also includes a complete set of photographs of the lectionary overtext, along with a transcription of these gospel passages, showing the current appearance of the manuscript and the evidence it provides for Byzantine liturgical practices. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: The struggles of a twelfth-century scribe While examining the lectionary, members of the project team noticed an unusual feature. At the foot of many of the pages, there are a series of notes written by the copyist which have nothing to do with the biblical text. Several of these are appeals to God and to later users, such as “God be merciful to me, the sinner Neilos” or “Priests, remember Neilos in the all-night vigil.” Notes like this found in other manuscripts featuring the same handwriting have enabled us to identify the scribe Neilos as a monk active on the island of Rhodes between 1170 and 1181, providing for the first time a precise date and location where the pages of Codex Zacynthius were reused. In fact, the copyist might even be the Neilos who became Abbot of the Monastery of St John in 1174. Scribal notes in the margin allowed researchers to connect Codex Zacynthius to the island of Rhodes in the 12th century. Some of the notes, however, refer to the problems faced when copying the manuscript. After a page with many crossed-out words and erasures, the scribe has written at the bottom: “Very drowsy and foolish.” Elsewhere, he observes that “The one who writes tends towards errors,” and that a particular mistake is “The error of Theodore the squinter.” Most striking of all, at the foot of one page he exclaims “I am very tired, with a heavy head, and what I write I do not know!” These marginal asides offer an unexpectedly vivid portrait of the scribe struggling to copy a lengthy liturgical manuscript some 850 years ago. New discoveries in the ancient text The multispectral images have led to new discoveries in the original text of the manuscript. Codex Zacynthius has already been recognised as an important witness to the text of the Gospel of Luke. It preserves a series of chapter divisions which are only otherwise attested in the famous fourth-century Greek Bible known as Codex Vaticanus. At the beginning of the book, Codex Zacynthius features the earliest example of a table of capitula parallela, a means of cross-referencing the contents of the four canonical gospels. The project has identified three previously unknown places in which the manuscript attests the reading of the earliest form of the text of Luke, demonstrating the value of its biblical text. RelatedDoes the Woman Caught in Adultery Belong in the Bible?Tommy WassermanA Case for the Longer Ending of MarkJames Snapp Jr. The transcription of the catena has made this commentary available for the first time. Of the 343 extracts, no fewer than 300 preserve passages from early Christian writings which are not found in Greek outside this tradition. Half of these come from the Commentary on Luke by the fifth-century Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria. Almost fifty come from Titus, bishop of the town of Bostra in southern Syria which is now a World Heritage Site. His sermons on Luke, originally preached in the middle of the fourth century, are only preserved in catenae. Most remarkable are passages from the Christian writer Severus of Antioch. In the year 536, just before his death, Severus was excommunicated and his books were banned by the Emperor Justinian: none survive in Greek. Codex Zacynthius, however, preserves thirty-eight extracts attributed to Severus, several of them quite extensive. Many of them give details of the sermon or the letter from which they were taken, and even describe the author as “Saint Severus,” suggesting that the compiler of this commentary did not subscribe to the condemnation of Severus. Nevertheless, in a later manuscript based on this catena, the extracts from Severus were omitted or ascribed to a different author. Codex Zacynthius therefore provides the only Greek text known to survive of certain writings by Severus. This discovery will enable scholars to look for other passages by Severus in catenae and examine portions of his works in their original form. A screenshot of the digital edition, showing how the electronic transcription assists users in reading the manuscript. A study of the handwriting as revealed on the new images suggests that Codex Zacynthius was originally copied during the eighth century, confirming it as the oldest surviving catena manuscript. However, the project has also identified features which indicate that this is not the first instance of this compilation, but a copy of an even earlier catena manuscript. The research team published a volume of studies giving a full account of the manuscript and their findings. In addition, a printed edition of the catena with facing English translation has also been made available in open access. The University of Birmingham is now home to a major European-funded project which will undertake the first systematic examination of New Testament catena manuscripts and shed new light on the significance of this tradition of commentary.
Taking Stock of the “First-Century Mark” Saga What can we learn from the overzealous excitement about the earliest known copy of our earliest Gospel? Elijah HixsonThe “First-Century Mark” saga is an unfortunate series of events surrounding an early papyrus fragment of Mark’s Gospel that began publicly in late 2011 and, at the time of this writing, is still not fully resolved. The story begins with a tweet from Dr. Scott Carroll on December 1, 2011, “For over 100 years the earliest known text of the New Testament has been the so-call[ed] John Rylands Papyrus. Not any more. Stay tuned . . . .” At the time, Dr. Carroll was working for the Green family who owns Hobby Lobby, helping them to purchase the materials that would eventually form the basis of the Museum of the Bible’s collection. The news of Carroll’s “earliest known text” began to make headlines in February 2012, when Dan Wallace used a debate with Bart Ehrman to announce the existence of a fragment of Mark’s Gospel that an unnamed, world-class paleographer had dated to the first century. The announcement surprised Ehrman and the audience. Allegedly, this item was part of a private collection and was to be published shortly thereafter. Years came and went, and no first-century Mark fragment was ever published. Wallace could not give more information because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement that barred him from speaking about the manuscript until it had been published. Years came and went, and no first-century Mark fragment was ever published. It was not long before rumors about the fragment made their way to the popular level. Apologists and scholars (e.g., Dr. Craig Evans and Dr. Gary Habermas) saw it as powerful evidence for the reliability of the Christian message. After years of speculation and what seemed like leaked information, an early fragment of Mark was finally published in the Spring of 2018 in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri series—a series of papyri owned by the Egypt Exploration Society (EES)—not a private collection. The EES collection was excavated over a century ago in modern-day Al-Bahnasa, Egypt. This meant the new fragment was not part of a private collection but one that had been known and studied for over 100 years. As I quickly put the pieces together, it became clear that this tiny manuscript, designated P.Oxy. 5345 (or P137), was the “First-Century Mark.” The earlier dating was simply incorrect, and there had been confusion as to who owned the manuscript and how it would be published. It was not owned by the Greens and it was not from the first century after all. A great deal of the speculation was simply wrong. P.Oxy. LXXXIII 5345 (or P137), containing Mark 1:7–9, 16–18, measures just 4.4 × 4 cm. Wikipedia Far from resolving the issue, the publication raised new and more serious questions. Most of these revolved around the fact that P137, according to some reports, had been offered for sale to a private collection (presumably the Greens’). The serious problem with this situation is that unpublished papyri in the Oxyrhynchus Collection cannot be sold. (Early on, some of the collection’s published papyri were given away to other institutions, but this was quite different.) The EES responded to the startling suggestions by issuing a statement saying that the fragment “has never been for sale, whatever claims may have been made arising from individual conversations in the past.” We now know this is not true. It has since come to light that P137 was indeed offered for sale to Hobby Lobby along with other papyri without authorization from the EES, allegedly by someone working for the EES who had access to the manuscripts. The excavations at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt around 1900 uncovered thousands of papyri, including the now infamous P137. Wikipedia As of November 2019, the EES had “identified around 120 pieces which appear to be missing,” and in February 2021, they reported that “The police investigation in the UK is continuing into the unauthorised removal of texts from the EES collection and their sale to Hobby Lobby and others.” Someone had been trying to pawn the EES’s papyri from right under their noses. The prime suspect is none other than Wallace’s world-class paleographer. The matter has not been resolved, and a police investigation is ongoing so we are limited as to what more we could say. At the time of writing, Obbink has been living in a houseboat in England and avoiding authorities. Although the story is still not fully resolved, now is a good time to step back and consider lessons learned from the “First-Century Mark” saga. Here are four suggestions. 1. If something sounds too good to be true, it might be. Assume it is until there is an informed scholarly consensus. A consensus can be wrong, but it is the purpose and nature of scholarship to find and eliminate weak points in the argument. As the external examiner at my own PhD examination said to me as we began, “It is my job to shake this thesis as hard as I can and see if I can get any bits of it to fall out.” Such is the nature of good scholarship, and a consensus is almost always on firmer grounds than a lone objector—especially in the context of arguing a position. P137 was not the first manuscript claimed to be from the first century,1See Peter J. Gurry and Elijah Hixson, “Introduction” in Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity (2019), 14–20. and none of the others claimed first-century New Testament papyri has proven to be so. However, it’s worth mentioning that the descriptions of the person who dated the manuscript left little to the imagination with regard to his identity. There was never much doubt that the unnamed paleographer was probably Dirk Obbink, and these suspicions turned out to be correct. At the time, Obbink was among the most respected and influential papyrologists alive. Recently, I spoke to another papyrologist who described Obbink as being the LeBron James of papyrology. Dr. Dirk Obbink was a professor at Oxford and one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient papyri. (Photo) Simply put, in 2011, Dirk Obbink’s word was gospel when it came to dating papyrus manuscripts, and it would have been reasonable to take Obbink at his word. Still, good practice is to wait for a consensus. Years later, when P137 was published, the date that was always traced back to a single specialist had changed—by the same specialist. 2. Overhyped expectations can result in undervaluing the actual evidence. Once the cat was out of the bag, the popular-level response to “First-Century Mark” led to unjustified expectations from several sources. P137 is still an amazing discovery! It is probably the oldest manuscript of Mark in existence. It is almost certainly the oldest manuscript of Mark 1:7–9, 16–18. Nevertheless, because the expectation was for a first-century manuscript, some were disappointed. When we raise our expectations higher than what the facts allow, we set ourselves up to be disappointed. For example, when we teach that the Rylands fragment (or P52), which is our earliest New Testament manuscript, was written “around 125” or even “as early as AD 100,” we are setting people up to be disappointed when they find out that manuscript dating cannot be so specific. The more accurate date is the full range of the second century. Even a date in the 190s is still remarkably early, relatively speaking. But, when the expectation is significantly earlier, even a remarkably good piece of evidence backfires and leaves people feeling empty and let down. RelatedFour Benefits of Reading Greek ManuscriptsAmy S. AndersonWhat’s the Big Deal about a New Papyrus with Sayings of Jesus?Michael W. HolmesDoes the Woman Caught in Adultery Belong in the Bible?Tommy Wasserman 3. Don’t cite unpublished research. A significant problem with “First-Century Mark” was that it was unpublished for so long. Without publication, it was impossible to verify or challenge, not only the date, but also the contents, the quality of the text, and even the very existence of the fragment itself. It is true that some unpublished expertise can be extremely valuable (especially if it comes from a source with Obbink’s authority on manuscript dating), and it is also true that mere publication does not prove a theory or mean that an article is correct—and this is especially relevant in the world of self-publishing. Still, any academic publisher worth its paper and ink will have sent the research to at least one other competent set of eyes to look for holes in the arguments, to verify claims, and to see if the argument holds up under scrutiny. 4. Show integrity at earliest possible opportunity. Although he has been rightly criticized for announcing the unpublished and unverifiable “First-Century Mark” at a debate, Wallace was right to admit his mistake once the fragment was published and he was no longer bound by the non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Wallace apologized for his actions, both to Ehrman “and to everyone else for giving misleading information about this discovery.” The Museum of the Bible has also owned its mistakes and expedited the process of returning items known to be acquired for their collection under the seller’s pretense. Claims that P137 had been offered for sale were not initially taken seriously by the EES (and not without reason). It wasn’t until Michael Holmes, acting on behalf of the Museum of the Bible, shared with them the purchase agreement for some papyri and a handwritten list describing their contents in June 2019 (first publicized by Brent Nongbri on his blog) that these claims were taken seriously. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: The EES quickly confirmed that the fragments described in the handwritten list were indeed P137 and other Oxyrhynchus Papyri in their collection. Once a representative from the Museum released evidence that there was something shady going on, an investigation was undertaken. One of the results is that thirty-four papyri in the Museum collection were identified as having been “taken without authorisation from the EES” and were returned to the EES. Should the Green Collection/Museum of the Bible have been more diligent to determine legal provenance before purchasing the papyri? Absolutely. However, regardless of what other criticisms one might have for the Museum of the Bible, this is one way they did the right thing. They had items that they suspected had been stolen, and they worked to make it right. Not every institution is willing to give back stolen artifacts, but in this case, the Museum was not only willing to do so, but they also had to convince the EES that the papyri had been stolen in the first place. Would that we also would have such a zeal for the right thing that we would pursue it even when it costs us to do so. In neither case did the offending party try to quietly put away their wrongs. They didn’t silently delete evidence of their wrongs or give a quiet, half-hearted apology and move on—they publicly took responsibility for their wrongs and did what they could to make them right as much as possible. That’s a good lesson for all of us.Notes1See Peter J. Gurry and Elijah Hixson, “Introduction” in Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity (2019), 14–20.
How Much Can the Most Famous Dead Sea Scroll Prove? The Great Isaiah Scroll is a crucial piece of the Old Testament puzzle, but it doesn’t give us the whole picture. Anthony FergusonThe Dead Sea Scrolls are famous. Very famous. Unlike other archeological discoveries like Hezekiah’s Siloam Tunnel inscription in Jerusalem or the discovery of the Elephantine Papyri in Egypt, the term “Dead Sea Scrolls” is a household phrase that can draw crowds to museums unlike any cuneiform tablet. Almost everyone has some knowledge of this discovery and significance, and rightly so. The most famous—and substantial—of these biblical manuscripts is, without a doubt, the Great Isaiah Scroll (a manuscript scholars designate as 1QIsaa). The factors that justify this manuscript’s notoriety and fame include the timing of its discovery, its size, its contents, and its closeness to the Hebrew text behind our English Bibles known as the Masoretic Text (MT). Given these facts, 1QIsaa furnishes a solid starting point for one’s study of these intriguing texts from the Dead Sea. But these facts sometimes lead one to unhelpful conclusions about the biblical texts from the Dead Sea, if 1QIsaa is all we know or we assume that every biblical manuscript from the Dead Sea is like it. In this article, we’ll survey the importance of this manuscript while also nuancing its impact on our understanding of the biblical text as preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its Claim to Fame The timing of the manuscript’s discovery rightly contributed to its fame since it belonged to the first batch of manuscripts discovered in early 1947. When Bedouin first journeyed into Cave 1 to explore the sound of breaking jars, they retrieved three or four manuscripts wrapped in cloth from a jar. One of these manuscripts was the now famous 1QIsaa. This discovery encouraged the Bedouin and scholars to further explore this region so that over the next fifteen years roughly 1000 manuscripts would be discovered. The cascade effect of this initial discovery was truly immense. Unlike most manuscripts from the Judean Desert, 1QIsaa is preserved almost in its entirety. This is due to its being stored in a jar covered with pitch. By God’s grace, it sat for millennia in a sort of sealed time capsule. Because this manuscript is well preserved, the various problems associated with fragmentary manuscripts like calculating column heights and hypothesizing about what words have been lost to the harshness of the desert are almost nonexistent when studying 1QIsaa. One of the remarkable features of the Great Isaiah Scroll is how well it’s preserved, including the very beginning (right) and end (left) of the scroll. Photo from Wikipedia The very first words and the last words of the manuscript are all preserved, and the text consists of only a few holes (i.e., lacunae). Stitching holes exist in the right-hand margin of column 1 which indicates that leather once existed to the right of the first words of Isaiah. There was probably once a handle sheet to the right of the first column to protect the text of this manuscript. The handle sheet has done its job since, although it has since been lost to time, the beginning of the document remains. The contents of this manuscript have also brought it a level of notoriety since it preserves the text of Isaiah, one of the more famous books of the Old Testament. This book appears to have been quite popular among the works found in the library of the Dead Sea since many copies of Isaiah were found there. The New Testament quotations of Isaiah suggest the same as does the amount of attention paid to this important book by contemporary scholars. Christians sometimes refer to Isaiah as the fifth Gospel because of how much it tells about the coming hope of the Messiah. Although Bedouin discovered other texts alongside 1QIsaa such as a commentary to Habakkuk, 1QIsaa became more popular. This may be, since it was a biblical text, not a commentary, but it is also likely due to the fact that it concerned Isaiah. RelatedAppreciating the Diverse Evidence from the Dead Sea ScrollsAnthony FergusonRecovering the Resurrection in Isaiah 53: Textual Criticism and EasterJohn D. MeadeWhat We Know about the People behind the Dead Sea ScrollsAnthony Ferguson The popularity of this manuscript is also due to its relationship to the Masoretic Text. The consensus among the first generation of scholars who analyzed this text was that 1QIsaa preserved a popular version of the Masoretic Text. Since the analysis of these scholars, the trend has shifted. Whereas the original scholars who studied 1QIsaa noted its similarities to the Masoretic Text, current scholars tend to highlight its differences. These differences are real, but often minor. Emmanuel Tov, for example, indicates that 1QIsaa is non-aligned but regarding minor details such as a different approach to spelling.1Emanuel Tov, “A Didactic and Gradual Approach toward the Biblical DSS,” in Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected Essays, Volume 3 Vetus Testamentum, Supplements (Brill: Leiden, 2015), 303. (The term non-aligned refers to texts that are inconsistent in their agreement with the Septuagint, MT, and Samaritan Pentateuch while preserving unique readings).2Emanuel Tov, “Groups of Biblical Texts Found at Qumran,” in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls, ed. Devorah Dimant and Lawrence H. Schiffman, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 16 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 98. We could synthesize the conclusions of scholars this way: early scholars tended to emphasize the similarities between 1QIsaa and the Masoretic Text. The trend, now, is to emphasize the differences. Regardless of one’s emphasis, when one removes the minor differences such as spellings, the text of 1QIsaa is quite close to the Masoretic Text, and this feature is a major reason for its notoriety. The Limits of 1QIsaa to our Understanding of the Biblical Text 1QIsaa contributes immensely to our understanding of the Old Testament text. On the one hand, it is strong indirect evidence to the antiquity of the Masoretic Text. That is, in the cases where 1QIsaa and the Masoretic Text disagree, scholars most often view the reading of the Masoretic Text as more original, and this is for good reason, since most of the differences preserved in 1QIsaa appear to derive from common scribal tendency or from scribal error. Thus, although the Masoretic Text as we know it is best represented by medieval codices dating to around 1000 AD, the parent text of 1QIsaa appears to be a text close to these medieval codices. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: This is where Christian scholars and apologists can make a mistake. 1QIsaa is the most popular biblical Dead Sea Scroll and for good reason. It was one of the first manuscripts discovered and it preserves almost all of Isaiah in a form close to the Masoretic Text. All of this is true. Based on this information, it is tempting to assume that just because 1QIsaa aligns closely to the Masoretic Text, we can therefore be confident that our Old Testament text is a reliable copy of the original. I agree that we should be confident, very confident in this fact, but the problem is that 1QIsaa is not sufficient proof, and this is for a few reasons. First, 1QIsaa is a copy only of Isaiah, not the entire Old Testament. Thus, we can’t conclude that 1QIsaa proves that the entire Old Testament has been copied carefully. It is only a copy of Isaiah. Extrapolating from this one manuscript of this one book to the full copying of the entire Old Testament is dangerous. Second, scholars date 1QIsaa to the second century BC, which makes it our oldest copy of this book. Yet, it is still hundreds of years removed from the original copy of Isaiah. As important as 1QIsaa is, it doesn’t completely close the gap for us. Third, although 1QIsaa remains close to the Masoretic Text, other ancient texts are further removed. There is a spectrum of how close the Dead Sea Scrolls align with the Masoretic Text: some are almost identical while other diverge more significantly. My point is simple: since the Dead Sea Scrolls represent a spectrum of more or less agreement with the Masoretic Text, the Great Isaiah Scroll does not represent the entire picture. One (Important) Piece of the Puzzle 1QIsaa does not single-handedly prove that the Old Testament has been carefully copied from antiquity. Its contribution is still important, but less extensive. In short, I would say that 1QIsaa is a popular version of a text very close to the Masoretic Text, and thus, it attests to the antiquity of the Masoretic Text of Isaiah long before our earliest copies from the Middle Ages. The copies we have of the Old Testament are a reliable guide to the original, but this conclusion depends on more than one very famous manuscript. The copies we have of the Old Testament are a reliable guide to the original, but this conclusion depends on more than one very famous manuscript. It depends on a variety of data such as the practice of textual criticism, the study of manuscripts, scribal habits, various early translations, the nature of a covenant, and the evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls. This conclusion also depends on our view of God and what the Bible attests about itself. As we do textual criticism, let’s not forget that the Old Testament testifies to the God who sovereignly controls all things. We make best sense of the biblical data when we carefully consider the evidence while remembering that the evidence we have is not by accident, but according to God’s plan.Notes1Emanuel Tov, “A Didactic and Gradual Approach toward the Biblical DSS,” in Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected Essays, Volume 3 Vetus Testamentum, Supplements (Brill: Leiden, 2015), 303.2Emanuel Tov, “Groups of Biblical Texts Found at Qumran,” in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: Papers on the Qumran Scrolls, ed. Devorah Dimant and Lawrence H. Schiffman, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 16 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 98.
The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife Fiasco Lessons from the headline-grabbing forgery that duped Harvard’s oldest endowed professor and enthralled the media Christian AskelandDan Brown famously spun his Da Vinci Code yarn in which Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor, demonstrated that Jesus Christ actually married Mary Magdalene. In a tale stranger than fiction, Brown’s dream came true through the now-infamous Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, which ironically was promoted through a Harvard professor. Inscribed in Coptic, the ancient Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet, this papyrus fragment became the most recent in a series of spectacular fakes designed to shock faithful Christians and churn the mainstream media with fantastic headlines. This is the story of the attempted ruse and what we can learn from it. The Story Breaks In 2012, I attended the International Coptic Congress in Rome, Italy, a normally staid event tragically marred on this occasion by media sensation and disinformation about what came to be called the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife fragment. Public relations staff at Harvard University had coordinated a news blitz at our conference of two hundred scholars without first consulting the conference organizers. No scholar at the conference could produce a viable comparison for the fragment’s ugly writing in a known, authentic manuscript. Nobody wanted to defend its authenticity, and most people ridiculed the thing openly. The Vatican hosted several of our events, and the major theme of the congress suddenly became this obvious forgery of a Coptic fragment in which Jesus alludes to his wife. In English, the fragment reads: … My mother she gave to me L[ife] …… The disciples said to Jesus …… denies. Mary is [not] worthy of it …… Jesus said to them “My wife” …… she will not be able to be a disciple to me and …… Let a man the which bad let no T[?] …… I myself am with her concerning …… an image … The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife papyrus was written in a very crude Coptic script. Photo from Wikipedia Because the forger did not employ a modern equivalent to ancient cedar oil, the ink lacked viscosity, running to-and-fro like a failed pastel painting from your childhood. Unlike real papyrus-inscribed text, which is made with reed pens, this writing resembled that of a paint brush. The character forms did not parallel ancient literary styles like one would find in a biblical manuscript or ancient documentary styles like a business document or private correspondence. The papyrus, which could easily have been purchased from eBay, seemed ancient, but the text had all the appearances of a cheap fake. But why let facts get in the way of a good story! None of the reporters seemed to care about our concerns, except to the extent that they had been prepped for a shocked response from religious conservatives. The expectation was that this discovery would potentially overthrow patriarchal views on celibacy and on women-in-ministry, and would further demonstrate that the orthodox tradition suppressed a distinctly feminist Christianity. The expectation was that this discovery would … further demonstrate that the orthodox tradition suppressed a distinctly feminist Christianity. Of the two hundred scholars at the conference, perhaps fifty specialized directly or indirectly in manuscripts and ancient writing. The reporters had not really come to hear our opinions, though, since their articles were already written, based solely on feedback from select sources. The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Smithsonian broke the story, highlighting the Harvard credentials of the lead scholar and the supposed vetting by various other experts. Not by accident, the announcement occurred a stone’s throw away from Vatican City, seemingly with the support of the gathered scholars. Get new articles and updates in your inbox. Leave this field empty if you're human: Problems Emerge for Jesus’ Wife In reality, two world class specialists (Bentley Layton and Stephen Emmel) had already identified this papyrus as a probable forgery, formally rejecting an article submitted to the Harvard Theological Review weeks before the Rome conference. The journal editors simply ignored the peer reviewers’ opinions and pushed forward. Within days of the Rome announcement, however, the blogosphere caught on fire with specialized experts from Europe and North America tearing the forgery into metaphorical shreds. Although the forger had not yet been identified, Andrew Bernhard, an independent researcher who had formerly studied at Oxford, created the “Patchwork Hypothesis,” demonstrating that the forgery had created the Gospel of Jesus’ text by using a 2002 PDF of the Coptic Gospel of Thomas he found online. In only a few weeks, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife debacle seemed to have imploded, and authenticity no longer seemed defensible. Headlines from the initial announcement sensationalized the idea that Jesus had a wife. For many, Christmas and Easter involve remembering Christ’s Advent and his resurrection. For the secular media, these seasons too often represent an occasion to float absurd theories about Jesus. The Harvard Theological Review partnered once again with the Smithsonian, The New York Times and The Boston Globe to resurrect Jesus’ wife fragment from the dead. How, you might ask, could they do such a thing, when the papyrus had so conclusively been proven a forgery? In the context of a dedicated issue of the Harvard Theological Review as well as a professional webpage, Harvard PR executed a two-fold strategy. First, the publications completely and totally ignored the Patchwork Hypothesis just as they had previously ignored the peer reviewers. Second, the scholars used their various networks to produce a variety of scientific results which in retrospect were misconstrued to demonstrate authenticity. Two weeks before Easter, the world would see a Smithsonian documentary demonstrating that science had validated the scholarly opinions from Harvard. RelatedWhat Are the Apocryphal Gospels?Markus BockmuehlPutting the New Papyrus of Jesus’ Sayings in ContextIan N. MillsWhy There Are Just Four Gospels in the BibleC. E. Hill Although carbon dating did place the papyrus roughly between 600–800 AD, skeptics had never argued that the papyrus material was anything other than ancient. Ultra-high resolution showed that the character Alpha which represented the my in “my wife …” was not altered, yet no scholar had ever suggested as much. Raman spectroscopy demonstrated chemical similarity between the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife ink and the ink on a Gospel of John fragment from the same collection. It showed the presence of soot (or graphite) in both inks, a feature expected in the case of a modern forgery. Somehow, several pictures of this Gospel of John fragment, later known as the Harvard Lycopolitan John, appeared on the Harvard website, and, because of these pictures, Jesus’ Wife was once again proven a forgery. Cracking the Related Case Because I wrote my doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge on the Coptic versions of John’s Gospel, I’ve had a longstanding interest in this accompanying John fragment. Harvard did not respond to requests for an image of the Coptic John fragment which had been mentioned in the original presentation. The fragment would have been useful to a colleague of mine who was constructing a critical edition of the Sahidic Coptic gospel of John. When the pictures appeared on the website, naturally my interest was piqued. The vowels were all wrong, immediately alerting me to the Lycopolitan dialect of the Coptic. Normally, one expects the Sahidic dialect in Coptic papyri, and only two papyri preserve John’s Gospel in Sahidic. The Qau Codex contains most of John’s Gospel and is easily accessible online, especially if one googles “earliest Coptic manuscript.” The Lycopolitan John fragment showed even clearer signs of forgery. Image source This new forgery, the Harvard Lycopolitan John, had been directly copied from the internet PDF of the Qau Codex, duplicating every line break and erring conspicuously at the turn of a digital page. Where the editor of the Qau codex had restored text with impossible suggestions, the forger reproduced these same impossibilities. The Harvard Lycopolitan John preserved the same ink and the same handwriting as the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. None of this had occurred to the scholars affiliated with the Harvard publication, nor had they considered that Lycopolitan had disappeared no later than the sixth century. Lycopolitan should not appear on a piece of papyrus harvested in between 600–800 AD. If this second papyrus was a fake and used the same ink and scribe, then most papyri must be fakes. Other scholars rightly referred to this new discovery as the “smoking gun.” In 2016, Ariel Sabar identified the forger in an explosive piece for The Atlantic. His subsequent book tells the whole sordid tale in gripping detail. Lessons Learned According to satirical comedian Stephen Colbert, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Conservatives, the feeling sometimes goes, rely on pseudo-science and are skeptical of climate change, evolutionary theory, and big government’s role in solving society’s problems. Liberals, however, are thought to act as servants of reason and the envoys of human progress who advance their mission for the common good, even the good of those conservatives who tragically cannot accept reality. This is, at least, how some present the matter. The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife story is a tragic tale of confirmation bias, this time on the liberal side. Colbert’s notion arose as a joke at the 2006 Correspondent’s roast of President Bush, but today it has too often metastasized into overt policy at secular colleges in North America which are designed to exclude conservatives by painting them as beyond the pale. The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife story is a tragic tale of confirmation bias, this time on the liberal side. Unfortunately, it seems to be part of the larger echo chamber of liberal apologetics at secular private and public colleges that too often marginalize religious and social conservatives.
Appreciating the Diverse Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls Taking the evidence of the Dead Sea Scroll seriously means putting the differences—and the similarities—in proper context. Anthony FergusonThe Dead Sea Scrolls have fascinated a broad audience of Bible scholars, lay Christians, and the general public for nearly a century. This discovery’s timing adds a level of intrigue since they were discovered in the tremulous days immediately after World War II in a place undergoing great transition. The recent announcement of Greek fragments of the Minor Prophets from Naḥal Ḥever and the thought that technology such as drones may yet yield more manuscripts further stokes our imagination and excitement about these caves in the Judean Desert. Few discoveries from the ancient world have captivated our imagination like the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is hard to overestimate the importance of these manuscripts, especially for those interested in the history of Old Testament text, not simply because of the timing and place of the discovery or because the future may still unlock more manuscripts for us, but because of four important characteristics of these manuscripts: 1) These manuscripts are the oldest biblical manuscripts we possess; 2) many of the biblical manuscripts were written in the Old Testament’s original languages; 3) many of these manuscripts align closely with the canonical Jewish text known as the Masoretic Text or MT, and 4) many others do not. Focusing on these four characteristics helps us better appreciate how important they are for the history of the Old Testament text. The Age of the Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest biblical manuscripts that we possess, dating from 250 BC to 115 AD.1See TCHB3, 99. Before this discovery, we possessed some Hebrew texts from this era and some from even earlier, but these were not biblical scrolls. We did possess numerous biblical manuscripts, but these dated to a much later time. The biblical manuscripts from Qumran have changed this reality. We now possess over two hundred biblical manuscripts from the Second Temple period (c. 500 BC–70 AD). The age of these manuscripts makes them especially important. The Language of the Scrolls Although some of the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls are translations, the vast majority are written in Hebrew and Aramaic, the Old Testament’s original languages. When scholars approach the ancient translations like the Greek translation, popularly referred to as the Septuagint, the Targumim, the Old Latin and Vulgate, and Peshitta, scholars have to judge carefully about whether a difference between these texts is a genuine variant. That is, scholars first have to decide if this difference arose from the translator (i.e., translation technique or scribal error) or the difference was in the text he was translating. What makes the Dead Sea Scrolls so important is that translation technique is not an issue for most of them because they are not translations. RelatedHow Much Can the Most Famous Dead Sea Scroll Prove?Anthony FergusonThe Extraordinary Hebrew Text behind Your English BibleKim PhillipsWhat We Know about the People behind the Dead Sea ScrollsAnthony Ferguson The value of this fact, however, can be overstated. These manuscripts have not passed into a new language, but many were still copied according to updated standards of spelling and grammar. Thus, some of the tendencies involved in translation technique must be accounted for when analyzing these manuscripts. Of course, the fact that these were mainly written in the original languages means fewer such factors need to be considered. What the Scrolls tell us about the history of the Old Testament text Many scholars and apologists have highlighted those Scrolls that preserve a high level of unity with the Masoretic Text which is largely behind our English bibles. The codex known as Codex Leningrad is the best-preserved manuscript preserving this textual tradition. This fact comes into focus, especially when one analyzes the manuscripts discovered in sites other than Qumran. Qumran is only one site in the Judean Desert where Bedouin and scholars discovered manuscripts. Other locations include Masada, Wadi Murabba’at, Wadi Sdeir, Naḥal Ḥever, Naḥal Arugot, and Naḥal Ṣe’elim (wadi and naḥal both refer to streams). The manuscripts from these sites date from 50 BC to 115 AD and preserve the same tradition as preserved in codex Leningrad which was copied in 1008 AD. Unity among these manuscripts is, at times, remarkable, as illustrated by a Leviticus manuscript discovered at Masada dating from 30 BC to 30 AD. This Leviticus manuscript agrees with codex Leningrad even regarding peculiar spelling. This unity illustrates that this tradition was copied with precision since at least the turn of the era.2See TCHB3, 29–31. Nearly half of the manuscripts discovered at Qumran also demonstrate this unity, although not to the degree as the manuscripts from the other sites. For example, 1QIsaa has traditionally been cited as clear evidence of proof of the antiquity and high-quality of the Masoretic tradition, and this notion is correct. Yet, this manuscript preserves thousands of differences when compared to Leningrad, and these differences led Emanuel Tov, the world’s preeminent Scrolls scholar, to label it as “non-aligned,” meaning it does not agree closely with the text of the MT. A portion of the Great Isaiah scroll (1QIsaa). Image credit. We should note that the majority of these differences are minor; they often concern a different spelling practice.3Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 303). Of course, that is not to say there are not important variants preserved in this manuscript; instead, my point is that, overall, it preserves a text close to the one preserved in Leningrad. Another Isaiah scroll discovered at Qumran, known as 1QIsab, preserves an even higher degree of unity with Leningrad than 1QIsaa. This manuscript, however, is less popular because it preserves less content. To give us a bird’s eye view of the evidence from Qumran, we can observe how Emanuel Tov classifies these texts: he classifies 56 as MT-like, 57 as non-aligned, five as close to the Samaritan Pentateuch, and seven as close to the Septuagint.4N. David and A. Lange, eds., Qumran and the Bible: Studying the Jewish and Christian Scriptures in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 49–50). Overall, the Dead Sea Scrolls show that the Masoretic Text has been copied with precision for over a millennium and that a sizable amount of manuscripts reflect this text. Overall, the Dead Sea Scrolls show that the Masoretic Text has been copied with precision for over a millennium. The Scrolls that don’t agree with the Masoretic Text Tov, and many other scholars, have pointed out that half of the Hebrew manuscripts discovered at Qumran preserve textual diversity never before seen in Hebrew biblical manuscripts. This is true, strictly speaking. However, when one analyzes the nature of the variants preserved in these manuscripts, one can see that most of these differences result from common scribal tendencies such as interpretation, harmonization, updating, and normalizing a text’s grammar. Moreover, many of these manuscripts can be adequately described as scribal innovations. For example, 4QGenk, in my opinion, tends to normalize the grammar found in the Masoretic Text, and thus, can be understood as a normalized manuscript; 4QPsx is likely a writing exercise; 4QDeutn is an excerpted text; and 4QQoha is an updated text. Therefore, although half of the manuscripts preserve a level of textual diversity, this diversity is often minor. Some manuscripts that Tov and others label as non-aligned are more challenging to explain. Tov identifies seven of these manuscripts with an exclamation mark in appendix 8 of his book Scribal Practices. Remember that Tov classifies 56 Scrolls as MT-like, 57 as non-aligned, five as close to the Samaritan Pentateuch, and seven as close to the Septuagint.5N. David and A. Lange, eds., Qumran and the Bible: Studying the Jewish and Christian Scriptures in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 49–50). However, only seven of these 57 manuscripts are identified with an exclamation mark. This confirms, in my mind, that the other 50 non-aligned texts are non-aligned only in minor details.6For more on this topic, you can see my doctoral dissertation. Space prohibits a description of these manuscripts, but suffice it to say that the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls do contain a level of textual diversity. Most of this diversity, though, is relatively minor, and, although some of it is more extensive, none of it calls into question the trustworthiness of the Old Testament as God’s word. Related Illustration by Peter Gurry. Image from 123rf.com Two Reasons There Are Variants in Our Copies of the BibleFor historical and theological reasons, we shouldn’t be surprised that the Bible’s manuscripts have differences. Peter J. Gurry Making sense of all the evidence Scholars have long understood scribes as approaching their task of copying the Old Testament from two general perspectives: some scribes came to their text with a desire to reproduce it precisely, while others approached their task with the desire to resignify it. Moreover, some scribes took their biblical text and used it to make a new document that was not understood as biblical. An example of this would be a liturgical text. This new document was not understood as “biblical” but contained only an excerpt of the Bible. We make these types of changes today. For example, some translations are incredibly literal, while others tend to be more dynamic. Both approaches seek to communicate the word of God to a people far removed from the original audience. Similarly, when the Bible is used in liturgical contexts, we make all types of changes to it. I am the pastor of a local church. When I stand before God’s people with God’s word, it is not uncommon for me to change it. For example, I might stop mid-verse and explain something briefly to the church; I might repeat a word for emphasis; I might even substitute a word for clarity. An example of this last category may be me replacing a pronoun, like “he,” with the proper noun, “Moses.” In my mind, the textual diversity preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls parallels the practices of many pastors. We should certainly take the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls seriously while being confident that the word of the Lord is trustworthy and true.Notes1See TCHB3, 99.2See TCHB3, 29–31.3Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Qumran, Septuagint: Collected Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 303).4N. David and A. Lange, eds., Qumran and the Bible: Studying the Jewish and Christian Scriptures in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 49–50).5N. David and A. Lange, eds., Qumran and the Bible: Studying the Jewish and Christian Scriptures in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 49–50).6For more on this topic, you can see my doctoral dissertation.