Last Sunday we looked at the Old Testament text, its scripts and how it was transmitted. (See The Transmission of the Old Testament.) In this Sunday essay we look at the Old Testament manuscripts themselves, describing the oldest copies available to scholars.
The Old Testament writings cover thousands of years of history and were likely written across a number of centuries, possibly a millennium. During that time the language and writings of the main characters changed, from a proto-Hebrew language of Abraham to a well-developed Hebrew language of Isaiah and Jeremiah and an Aramaic language most likely spoken by Daniel and Esther. Sometime during the Second Temple period, after the remnant of the nation returned from Babylon to Israel but before the time of Christ, the Old Testament canon was formed. That canon consisted of 24 scrolls of scripture, the TaNaKh, written in Hebrew.
What was the text of that ancient canon?
The Hebrew scrolls were made of papyrus or leather. To make a new scroll, one had to carefully copy the old one, line by line, symbol by symbol. The scrolls were time-consuming to make and were used for worship and so decayed over time. Because of the value of the scrolls, few scrolls were made for posterity; instead a new scroll would be weekly used in a synagogue for worship. Still, archaeologists have found some ancient Hebrew manuscripts, now preserved in museums.
In addition to the ancient Hebrew scrolls, the Jews eventually made a variety of translations of the texts into other languages. Some of those ancient writings have also survived, giving us further insight into the earliest manuscripts.
We will first look at the most ancient Hebrew manuscripts.
The Masoretic Text
The Masoretes were a collection of Jewish scholars in the early Middle Ages living in Israel and Iraq. They had careful rules for copying the scrolls of the TaNaKh (Old Testament) and did an impressive job of preserving the texts so that there were few copy errors from manuscript to manuscript. Their copies of the TaNaKh, usually identified as the Masoretic Text (MT) is the primary source for modern translations of the Old Testament. (When the NIV footnotes mention the "Hebrew text", this is the MT.)
The oldest preserved complete copy of the TaNaKh (Old Testament) in Hebrew is the Leningrad Codex, copied in Cairo, Egypt about 1008 AD. There are other older manuscripts with parts of the TaNaKh, but this is the earliest complete copy. (The Aleppo Codex is an incomplete copy from about 920 AD; the Codex Sassoon is an incomplete copy from about the same time. Both were created by the Masoretes.)
Other ancient Hebrew texts
Although the Masoretic scrolls provide us with the most complete and consistent copies of the TaNaKh, there are other old fragments of the TaNaKh written in Hebrew. These are useful in comparison with the MT.
Papyrus and leather normally did not survive the ravages of time. For papyrus or leather scrolls to survive across several millennia, the climate had to be quite dry and the scrolls had to be in an environment (such as glass jars) that aided preservation. For this reason, the oldest scrolls are found in Egypt or the Middle East. However, there are fragments of Hebrew that were written on other, more permanent materials. The Ketef Hinnom scrolls are two silver amulets dating from the time of the Second Temple. They are written in a paleo-Hebrew script that predates the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text. These bracelets appear to have a version of the blessing from Numbers 6: 24-26. (I can imagine a Jewish mother giving these "blessing" amulets to her daughter on her wedding day, valued by the young bride as a segullah.) These two amulets give us insight into the script that would have been used by priests like Isaiah or earlier writers like King Solomon.
The Nash Papyrus is an ancient Hebrew fragment found in Egypt in 1902 and tentatively dated to about 100 BC. It only contains the Ten Commandments and part of the Shema prayer from Deuteronomy 6: 4-9. It was likely used as part of a personal devotional.
Outside the Masoretic scrolls, the most significant ancient scrolls are the Dead Sea Scrolls found in caves at Qumran. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain many thousands of fragments, covering all of the TaNaKh but the book of Esther. The scrolls include a complete scroll of Isaiah. These documents have been very useful in comparison with the Masoretic Text. Although there are numerous discrepancies between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text, between texts separated by one thousand years and cultures, the differences are minor.
When King Solomon died, the nation of Israel split into two countries, the northern kingdom consisting of ten tribes led by Jeroboam and the southern kingdom, consisting of Judah and Bethlehem, led by Solomon's son, Rehoboam. The temple and ark of the covenant were in Judah, at Jerusalem and so the northern tribes could either go south to worship in Jerusalem, in the rival kingdom, or they could set up a new worship center distinct from that of Judah. (The northern kingdom was called, at various times, Israel, Ephraim, Samaria and the capital was at Samaria.) The northern kingdom was defeated in 722 BC and absorbed into Assyria. In 586 BC the southern kingdom was defeated by the Babylonians and most of the Israelites were deported to Babylon.
When the descendants of the southern kingdom returned to the region in 516 BC, they rebuilt Jerusalem, built as second temple and reconstructed the nation of Israel. (These details are reported in the Old Testament books of Nehemiah and Ezra.) At that time, there was conflict with the local inhabitants, including people living in Samaria. Some Samaritans attempted to preserve the Jewish worship but continued to insist that worship should be in Samaria, not Jerusalem. At that time, they apparently used a copy of the Torah (first five book of the TaNaKh) that was very close to the Masoretic text except it was written in Samaritan Hebrew and, in a few places, had slightly different wording, changes made to support the worship of YHWH in Samaria. Copies of this document are called the Samaritan Pentateuch. Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, they are useful in comparison with the MT.
The Septuagint
By 200 BC, Greek was the common language around the Mediterranean Sea and many Jewish communities spoke Greek. Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, created a translation of the Old Testament into Greek. This is the Septuagint translation (LXX). The Septuagint was the Old Testament document used by the early Christian church and by Jewish communities of that time. Although it is in Greek, it provides insight into the Hebrew text of that day. (When New Testament writers quote from the Old Testament, they are quoting from the Septuagint.)
Other manuscripts
Other ancient manuscripts include Peshitta translations of the Old Testament (written in Syriac, a language close to Aramaic) and the Vulgate (written in Latin.) The oldest manuscript copies of these translations date to around 500 AD. The Targum documents were written in Aramaic. In addition to these manuscripts, there are numerous ancient commentaries on the TaNaKh that add insight into the texts of that time. A Wikipedia page on Jewish commentaries is here.
Summary
Hebrew scholars can construct a fairly consistent understanding of the ancient Hebrew texts by beginning with the Masoretic text(s) and comparing them with other ancient manuscripts: the Dead Sea Scrolls (also in Hebrew), the Samaritan Pentateuch (in Samaritan Hebrew), the Septuagint (in Greek) and other ancient translations such as the Aramaic Targums, the Peshitta, and the Latin Vulgate. A summary of these sources is given at this Wikipedia page.
As a nerdy mathematician, in love with history, I am fascinated by the scholarly debates over the priorities of the various texts. But for those who simply wish to understand the Bible, these debates over minor word changes are not particularly relevant.
Resources
In addition to the Wikipedia links, above, I have used the following two books:
- The Journey from Text to Translations by Paul D. Wegner (specifically chapter 12)
- The Canon of Scripture by F. F. Bruce (chapter 2)
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