Some historians put the exodus from Egypt at about 1400 BCE. If this is right, the Torah God gave to Moses at Mt. Sinai is something like 3,400 years old. No one knows when the Torah was first committed to writing. Is the Torah we read today exactly the same as the text our ancestors read, as some Jews maintain as a matter of faith?
The answer many would give is “yes it is” AND “no, it isn’t”.
Current research suggests that the Torah was finalized sometime between 100 and 300 CE, perhaps by the Council of Yavneh [Jamnia] headed by Rabbi Akiba. So, “YES”, Jews have been reading the same Torah for something less than 2,000 years.
What about our earlier ancestors, I ask? The answer reads like a detective story.
In 1947, as the story goes, a Bedouin shepherd chasing a lost goat tossed a pebble into a cave in the hills bordering the Dead Sea, and heard the sound of a jar breaking. Over the course of eight years, nearly 900 manuscripts of ancient Jewish writings in this and ten other caves were discovered.
These “Dead Sea” scrolls discovered in Qumran contain portions of the entire Jewish cannon of today, except for the Book of Esther, which is missing in its entirety. They also contained commentaries on Jewish scripture and rules for living in the Essene community at Qumran.
Until the mid-1900s, the oldest known complete Torah was “only” about 1000 years old. Carbon dating of the scrolls reveal the oldest were written in approximately 250 BCE, and the youngest were copied not later than 68 CE, the date when the Romans slaughtered the Essene population.
These scrolls push back the extant written lineage of the Five Books by more than another 1,200 years, to a time at least 350 years earlier than when we think the Torah was finalized.
We may never find earlier versions of the Five Books written in Hebrew than those among the Dead Sea scrolls. Earlier versions may have perished with the destruction of the Temples or disintegrated with time.
There is agreement in the scientific and historical fields that the Essene community did not exist prior to 150 or 100 BCE. Since these biblical scrolls predated them by a century or more, we know the Essenes did not author or scribe these earliest editions. Just who did remains a mystery to this day.
Among these oldest scrolls were the biblical writings – today we refer to this body as the TaNaKh, which includes the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Writings*, as well as scripture referred to as Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.
Recent DNA testing of the scrolls reveals the oldest were written on cow hides. Cows were never raised in the Qumran area. Goats were raised in that area, as they are today, and all the other scrolls were written on goatskins (except one that was etched onto copper).
Recent scientific analyses of the kilns found at Qumran and of the clay in the surrounding hills confirm that some of the jars holding the younger scrolls came from Qumran, as did all the dishes and cookware unearthed there. The jars holding the oldest scrolls, however, were fired from clay not local to Qumran – some not local even to the nearby cities of Jerusalem or Jericho.
Comparing the Five Books found in the caves with today’s Torah reveals many differences, but these represent a remarkably small percentage of the entire Pentateuch.
Many names of locations have been changed – seemingly minor, although some such changes do have important theological implications.
According to the older texts,
Jacob had 75 offspring, not the seventy accorded in today’s Torah.
The Masoretic text records Joseph’s response to Pharaoh’s request to interpret his dreams as, “Not I! God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare.” The earlier scroll version of Genesis 41:16 records, “Apart from God, the welfare of Pharaoh shall receive no answer.” Because of the potentially arrogant interpretation of this particular version – it could be read as, “Apart from me [Joseph], God will give no answer concerning the welfare of Pharaoh” – it is possible that a scribe in antiquity tried to protect the character of Joseph.
The older version of Deuteronomy releases everyone from debt every seven years, not just neighbors and brothers.
Where the older version of Deuteronomy speaks of the prosperity God will bestow on his obedient people, it places “the fruit of the ground” before “the fruit of the cattle”, the opposite as it appears in the Masoretic text, seemingly to lay greater emphasis on agriculture than on animal husbandry.
Moses response to Jethro’s suggestion to ease the burden of leadership by establishing a “board of elders” is expanded in the older version of Exodus by substituting Exodus 18:25 with Deuteronomy 1:9-18. Since Exodus is regarded as an older book than Deuteronomy, it may be that the text was originally in Exodus and interpolated into Deuteronomy.
Both the older version of Exodus and the Samaritan Pentateuch relocate the description of the alter of incense from Exodus 30:1-10 and place it between verses 35 and 36 of chapter 26.
In the antique version of the Pentateuch, at Exodus 27:19, the priests of the temple were given a fashion directive, “And you shall make clothing of blue and purple and scarlet material in which to serve in the holy place.” Nothing like this survives in the Torah.
God’s anger against Aaron for his part in the sin of the golden calf – not referred to in the prayer of Exodus 32:11 – is imported from Deuteronomy 9:20 in both the version of the scrolls found in Qumran and in the Samaritan Pentateuch.
There were a number of speeches found in today’s Deuteronomy that were formerly located in logical places in Numbers. These include:
Whether an action takes place in the past, present or future affects our understanding of the text. The Dead Sea Scrolls version of Numbers 16:5 (and the Septuagint) tells us God “has brought forth whomever is holy near to himself; the one whom he has chosen.” The Masoretic and Samaritan texts depict these actions as taking place in the present or future.
Sometimes there are discrepancies even among the ancient scrolls. In Deuteronomy 8:6 one of the ancient scrolls tells us to keep God’s commandments and to love him. Other scrolls, however, along with the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint and the Masoretic text tell us to fear him.
These various texts differ in Deuteronomy 13:4 as to what people must do (and in what order) to follow God. The older scrolls read of serving him, listening to his voice, clinging to him, fearing him, and keeping his commandments. But in the Masoretic text and the Samaritan Pentateuch the order is different: we are told to fear God, keep his commandments, obey his voice, serve him and cling to him. The Septuagint contains much the same text but omits the command to serve God. These readings are important for exegesis and interpretation, as they offer both a definition of what it means to follow God and a sequence in which specific actions are to be taken.
In the Qumran scrolls version of Deuteronomy 32:43, and in the Septuagint, it is the “heavens” which rejoice, not the “nations”, and; God will avenge the blood of his “sons”, not his “servants” as appears in the Masoretic text. Moreover, the scrolls contained two additions to this verse, “bow down to him all you gods” and “recompense those who hate him.”
Who buried Moses in a valley in the land of Moab? The Masoretic text suggests it was “he” i.e., God, but the cave scrolls say it was “they”, meaning Moses’ people, that buried Moses.
Some changes are more revealing. In a lecture given by Eugene Ulrich, chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls and professor at the University of Notre Dame, he said there is one passage where the Torah mentions “B’nai Israel” and the older versions say “Children of the Angels of the Gods”. Admitting that there was more than one god and that we were descended from their angels was evidently not in keeping with the strict monotheism of later Torah editors that had us created in God’s image.
In comparing the Dead Sea scrolls more broadly with today’s Tanakh, there are far more differences in the Prophets and in the Writings than in the Five Books of Moses.
In Joshua, for example, an
important paragraph in the scrolls found in Qumran and dated to 100 BCE is
missing from the version we know today. It describes Joshua crossing into
Israel and making a sacrifice of thanksgiving. This same paragraph survives in
the Samaritan bible and in the Septuagint, and is mentioned in contemporary
accounts by the historian Josephus.
The version of Psalm 145 ("ASHREY") we use in daily prayers is an acrostic, missing only the line of verse beginning with “nun”. The version of Ashrey found in Qumran - and in the Septuagint - both preserve the line of verse beginning with “nun”: it says, “God is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds.” The earlier version has a recurring refrain, “Blessed be the Lord and blessed be his name forever and ever,” that indicates this prayer was not meant to be read silently, but to be recited aloud or even sung. Finally, the earlier version has a postscript: “This is for a memorial.” This raises a question: Are Jews today using this Psalm in a way inconsistent with its original purpose?
Fifteen Psalms were discovered that are not part of today’s Psalms – four of which exist in no other form or language, and those Psalms after #90 were numbered differently
An entire paragraph lost to 1 Samuel was recovered at Qumran. It begins paragraph 11, “ Nahash king of the Ammonites oppressed the Gadites and the Reubenites viciously. He put out the right eye of all of them and brought fear and trembling on Israel. Not one of the Israelites in the region beyond the Jordan remained whose right eye Nahash king of the Ammonites did not put out, except seven-thousand men who escaped from the Ammonites and went up to Jabesh-gilead. Then, after about a month…” [Masoretic narrative resumes].
There are two very different versions of Isaiah among the Qumran scrolls. One version is largely as we know it today. Another version, however, has more than 1400 differences, and is 2/3 larger.
The Jews at Qumran
seemingly regarded Daniel as one of the major prophets, a prominence that was
downgraded by the time of canonization.
After the discoveries at Qumran, forty-five scrolls were recovered at Masada and two other palaces, the last in 1965. They were carbon-dated to just prior to the Common Era, two hundred years after the oldest scrolls at Qumran. When compared to what was found at Qumran, these later scrolls reveal that the text of the Torah had evolved in just those 200 years to very nearly resemble what we today call the Masoretic text. The rabbis had to make very few changes thereafter, during final redaction and canonization.
The rabbis who canonized the scriptures incorrectly attributed two texts to Christian origin or influence and so did not include them in the Jewish canon. These texts, Ecclesiasticus (also known as Ben Sira) and Tobit, were found on scrolls carbon dated to a definitively pre-Christian period and in a style of script long archaic by the time of the Christians. Today, we can confirm they are authentic Jewish scripture.
Modern science holds the promise of more revelations to come. Some 25,000 blackened, postage stamp-sized scroll fragments have never been reassembled and read. Scientists plan to use DNA to match each of the fragments to a specific animal hide, so at least fragments can be assigned to the proper scroll. Thanks to today’s document shredding scandals, software is just now becoming available that will enable us to reassemble these blackened fragments, puzzle-like, inside a virtual reality.
A newly developed generation of enhanced infra-red technology can now bring back most badly blackened script. When completed, the sum of these advancements should add more information to the already substantial insights gleaned from the Dead Sea scrolls.
Text analysis concurs with historical dating to conclude the Septuagint was probably not translated from the Masoretic text, because it more closely resembles earlier Hebrew text such as found among the Dead Sea scrolls. Some scholars believe the Septuagint translation was roughly contemporaneous with the oldest of the Dead Sea scrolls. This has given greater credence both to the idea that there were earlier versions of the Tanakh and to the accuracy of the Septuagint.
The interpretive and sectarian writings of the Essenes clearly indicate they believed the Five Books they were using were the exact words of God, just as many Jews of today believe the Masoetic text contains the exact words of God.
So the answer to the mystery is, “NO”, our BCE ancestors recognized a somewhat different Five Books of Moses than we do today and would have noticed substantial differences in the Prophets and Writings. I also suspect they would have been rather puzzled by how their body of scripture had been canonized.
FOR FURTHER STUDY: Comprehensive text comparisons of the script from these oldest known scrolls to today’s accepted versions are only recently available. The best source may be The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible by Martin Abegg, Jr. published in 1999.
Underway now are the theological analyses that will lead to debates - about how these ancient scroll texts reveal the way our early ancestors viewed God and - about how the processes of redaction and canonization may have actually redirected Jewish observance. Time will tell whether this upcoming debate will result in a reappraisal of Jewish canon, theology or practice.
The TaNaKh consists of twenty-four books, cited below, that are divided into three groups: Torah, Prophets and Writings.
The Torah consists of:
The books of Neviim (The Prophets) are:
The Ketuvim (The Writings) are:
The Apochrypha are writings of dubious authenticity as scripture, according to rabbinic tradition dating as long ago as 100 CE.