Dead Sea Scrolls
Scriptural preservation and accuracy
Every Word of Eloah is tried; He is a shield to those taking refuge in Him.
Do not add to His Words, Lest He reprove you, and you be found a liar.
Many thousands of written fragments have been discovered in the Dead Sea area. They represent the remnants of larger manuscripts damaged by
natural causes or through human interference, with the vast majority only holding small scraps of text. However, a small number of well-preserved,
almost intact manuscripts have survived...
The texts have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second-oldest known surviving manuscripts of works
later included in the Hebrew Bible canon, along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of
religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are generally dated from around 200 B.C. to A.D. 68. This is more than 1,000 years older than any manuscripts of the
Hebrew Old Testament that we had before their discovery. Because of their age and close similarity with the
Masoretic Text, we now have an objective basis for
determining that the biblical text used in our modern copies of the Old Testament is accurate.
Despite the fact that they rank among the greatest archaeological finds of the past century,
many people today still have no knowledge of the
Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls prove the accuracy of the Scriptures. They also show that God did preserve the text as foretold
(Psalms 12:6-7). The
messianic prophecies foretold in the Old Testament were fulfilled,
to the letter and in detail, in the New Testament.
The fact that these scrolls are dated to well before the Messiah walked the earth proves that the Scriptures are inspired by
God. They confirm the truth of His Word.
The original texts are of course much older than these last surviving copies.
Isaiah scroll
Part of the Isaiah Scroll
"As for Me, this is My covenant with them," said YHWH:
"My Spirit that is upon you, and My Words that I have put in your mouth, shall not be withdrawn from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants,
nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," said YHWH, "from this time and forever."
The Isaiah Scroll ... is one of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls that were first recovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1947.
The scroll is written in Hebrew and contains the entire Book of Isaiah from beginning to end, apart from a few small damaged portions.
It is the oldest complete copy of the Book of Isaiah known, being 1100 years older than the
Leningrad Codex, and the most complete scroll out of the 220 found at Qumran.
Pieces of the Isaiah Scroll have been carbon-14 dated at least four times, giving calibrated date ranges between 356-103 BC.
The Isaiah scroll is dated to well before the Messiah walked the earth. All the prophecies concerning the Messiah were fulfilled to the letter.
The Dead Sea Scrolls also show that the text as we know it from other manuscripts and our modern Bible versions was preserved accurately with time.
On top of that they contain God's Name YHWH throughout.
Psalms scroll
Part of the Psalms Scroll
The Words of YHWH are clean Words, Silver tried in a furnace of earth, Refined seven times.
You guard them, O YHWH, You preserve them from this generation forever.
The Great Psalms Scroll ... is the most substantial and well preserved Dead Sea Scrolls Psalms manuscript of the thirty-seven discovered in the Qumran caves...
The primary body of the manuscript consists of "5 sheets of leather, still sewn together", and is 4.253 meters in length.
The Psalms scroll copy is dated to 1—68 CE.
It uses the paleo-Hebrew script for the Name of God YHWH.