It is 1947, World War II has just ended and Israel has not yet become a modern nation. A couple of Bedouin boys are watching over their flock near the Dead Sea. One little animal wanders off, and one of the Bedouins ventures into the hills to look for it. Instead of finding the animal, he finds a cave. There are no Ipods, handheld gaming devices, or other ways to amuse yourself out in the wilderness. So, he does what any normal boy would do; he picks up a rock and throws it into the cave. I am not sure why boys love throwing rocks, but with three sons, I have learned to accept it as a force of nature. As the rock sails into the cave, he hears the sound of a pot smashing.
Curious now, the boy climbs into the cave to investigate, and finds he has smashed an old pot that has parchment inside. Every Bedouin knows that if you find something that looks old in the wilderness of Israel, that someone will give you some cash for it in Jerusalem. Bummed that his treasure is only paper, he still takes some and shows his family. Eventually the parchment makes its way into Jerusalem and to someone who can identify what they are. Many Bedouins would later claim to have made the find, and the story varies on how they were discovered. One thing is for certain, they were identified as ancient copies of the Hebrew Old Testament. Once they figured out how old they were, the race was on to find more. Eventually, multiple caves were found with hundreds of parchments. Every Old Testament book was found except for Esther (and some argue about Nehemiah). In addition, there were scrolls found with commentary and community writings from whoever made these copies.
Although most copies didn’t survive whole, this was a major find for Biblical studies. The oldest Hebrew copies of the Old Testament before this dated around 900 A.D. We know these as the Masoretic text, and it is the foundational copy used for our Old Testament today. That is at least 1,300 years after the last book of the Bible claims to be written, and over 2,000 years from the events of the Exodus (don’t even get me started on the date of the Exodus). Most liberal scholars and doubters had used this time span to say that the Bible (Old Testament here) was completely unreliable. Imagine how many changes have happened as it was copied over thousands of years. You simply can’t trust that it has stayed the same.
The oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls dated to around 250 BC, while most were from 150 BC to 70 AD. This means that they were over 1,000 years older than any Old Testament copy that we currently had! It was time to see how much the Bible had changed over the years. Many of the Dead Sea Scroll copies of Bible books were nearly identical to the Masoretic copies! Over 1,000 years and no significant changes! Of course, some of the copies had some differences such as missing verses, but there were no theological contradictions to the content of the Masoretic text (not including the extra Biblical texts). It is not uncommon to find variant readings considering the sheer number of copies found. Only later would the Masoretes institute rigorous procedures to insure no changes were made when copying.
The fact that so many were found nearly identical tells us that we can trust the transmission of the Bible over thousands of years to us. Instead of the Bible getting less accurate over time, it is getting more evidence that confirms its integrity while helping translators get each passage correct. The story of the find only serves to show God’s sovereign hand over the process, as we realize that those scrolls had been there undiscovered for about 1,800 years! A bedouin kid just happens to throw a rock into the exact cave at just the right angle, speed, and velocity to break the pot? I believe God wanted them found to bless the church and bolster our faith.
I had a chance to see the great Isaiah scroll when I was in Israel. In the darkened environment of the museum there in Jerusalem, you almost feel like you should hold your breath while looking at it. Knowing it was written in 150 BC, surviving for 2,000 years in some cave near the Dead Sea, I could feel my faith growing as I walked along the display case. God is way cool.
The Bible Nerd 