Subject: - Answers from the Evidence Bible
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Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2003 16:23:52 -0400

The Dead Sea Scrolls
"The greatest manuscript
discovery of all times."

By William F.
Albright

The discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls (DSS) at Qumran in 1949 had significant effects in corroborating
evidence for the Scriptures. The ancient texts, found hidden in pots in
cliff-top caves by a monastic religious community, confirm the reliability of
the Old Testament text. These texts, which were copied and studied by  the
Essenes, include one complete Old Testament book (Isaiah) and thousands of
fragments, representing every Old Testament book except Esther. The manuscripts
date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D. and give the earliest
window found so far into the texts of the Old Testament books and their
predictive prophecies. The Qumran texts have become an important witness for the
divine origin of the Bible, providing further  evidence against the
criticism of such crucial books as Daniel and Isaiah. Dating the Manuscripts.
Carbon-14 dating is a reliable form of scientific dating when applied to
uncontaminated material several thousand years old. Results indicated an age of
1917 years with a 200-year (10 percent) variant. Paleography (ancient writing
forms) and orthography (spelling) indicated that some manuscripts were inscribed
before 100 B.C. Albright set the date of the complete Isaiah scroll to around
100 B.C.—"there can happily  not be the slightest doubt in the world about
the genuineness of the  manuscript." Archaeological Dating. Collaborative
evidence for an early date came from archaeology. Pottery accompanying the
manuscripts was late Hellenistic (c. 150– 3 B.C.) and Early Roman (c. 63 B.C. to
A.D. 100). Coins found in the monastery  ruins proved by their inscriptions
to have been minted between 135 B.C.  and A.D. 135. The weave and pattern
of the cloth supported an early date. There is no reasonable doubt that the
Qumran manuscripts came from the century before Christ and the first century
A.D. Significance of the Dating. Previous to the DSS, the earliest known
manuscript of the Old Testament was the Masoretic Text (A.D. 900)  nd two
others (dating about A.D. 1000) from which, for example, the King James version
of the Old Testament derived its translation. Perhaps most would have considered
the Masoretic text as a very late text and therefore questioned the reliability
of the Old Testament wholesale. The Dead Sea Scrolls eclipse these texts by
1,000 years and provide little reason to question their reliability, and
further, present only confidence for the text. The beauty of the Dead Sea
Scrolls lies in the close match they have with the Masoretic text—demonstrable
evidence of reliability and preservation of the authentic text through the
centuries. So the discovery of the DSS provides evidence for the following: 1)
Confirmation of the Hebrew Text 2) Support for the Masoretic Text 3) Support for
the Greek translation of the Hebrew Text (the Septuagint). Since the New
Testament often quotes from the Greek Old Testament, the DSS furnish the reader
with further confidence for the Masoretic texts in this area where it can be
tested. (Generated from Norman Geisler, "Dead Sea Scrolls," Baker Encyclopedia
of Christian Apologetics)

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