The Dead Sea Scrolls - What are they and why do they matter?

TL;DR:

The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest copies of biblical manuscripts we have. These biblical scrolls were found in caves in Qumran. They confirm the reliability of our modern Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).

what does the bible say?

The Dead Sea Scrolls are considered one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. They include roughly nine hundred documents dated from approximately 300 BC to AD 70. Among them are over two hundred scrolls of Old Testament writings, including the famous Isaiah scroll, which was found in excellent condition. These documents help confirm the accuracy of our Old Testament text.

Comprising a vast collection of Jewish documents, the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. They are attributed to the Essenes, a Jewish sect inhabiting the Judean Desert during the Second Temple Era. The collection includes manuscripts or fragments of every book in the Hebrew Bible except the book of Esther, all of them created nearly one thousand years earlier than any previously known Old Testament manuscript.

from the old testament

Psalm 145:13 says: "Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. [The LORD is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works.]" (ESV). Psalm 145 is an acrostic where each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. While Hebrew has 22 letters, English translations only have 21 verses, as the verse for the Hebrew letter nun is missing in the Masoretic text, which forms the basis for most English translations. But a phrase with that letter was found in a Dead Sea Scroll (11Q5 Psalms) and is added to verse 13 in modern translations, as shown in brackets in the ESV above. This is one of the biggest differences between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic text. Most differences are minor textual variances that are insignificant.

from the new testament

The Dead Sea Scrolls are of Old Testament texts only.

implications for today

The first of the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries occurred in 1947 in Qumran, a village situated about twenty miles east of Jerusalem on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. A young Bedouin shepherd, following a goat that had gone astray, tossed a rock into one of the caves along the sea cliffs and heard a cracking sound: the rock had hit a ceramic pot containing leather and papyrus scrolls that were later determined to be nearly twenty centuries old. Ten years and many searches later, eleven caves around the Dead Sea were found to contain tens of thousands of scroll fragments.

Many of the ancient scrolls from Qumran closely match the medieval Masoretic Text, which modern Hebrew and English Bibles are based on. This close match confirms that the biblical text has been faithfully preserved all these centuries. For example, 4QGen is an important Genesis manuscript from the first century AD. It contains most of the creation account (Gen 1:1–28) and is virtually identical to the medieval Masoretic Text, showing the faithful scribal transmission of the text over the centuries. So, when we read the Genesis creation account today, which is based on the Masoretic Text, we are reading the same text that people were reading 2,000 years ago during the Second Temple period.

understand

The Dead Sea Scrolls are nine hundred documents of manuscripts or fragments of every Old Testament book except Esther, dated from approximately 300 BC to AD 70.
The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm the reliability of the Masoretic text, the main source material for modern-day Hebrew and English Old Testament.
Most differences between the Dead Sea Scroll texts and the Masoretic texts are minor.

reflect

How does the accuracy of the Dead Sea Scrolls compared to the Masoretic text impact your view of Scripture?
How does God’s preservation of His Word in texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls impact your view of His providence?
What role do archeological discoveries like the Dead Sea Scroll play in your faith?

engage

How does the historical accuracy of the biblical text as confirmed by discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls impact how you interact with others about the Bible?
What impact can the Dead Sea Scrolls make on sharing the good news of the gospel with unbelievers?
How might the preservation of the Old Testament manuscripts and fragments discovered with the Dead Sea Scrolls impact how others view the Bible?