What do the Dead Sea Scrolls Prove? The Mystery Behind the Old Testament Fragments

what are the dead sea scrolls and how do they help  us understand biblical reliability what are some   secrets about the dead sea scrolls that maybe some  people have missed well we're going to explore   that topic today and i've got a special guest  his name is dr anthony ferguson just recently   did his doctoral research with some of the leading  scholars on the dead sea scrolls but he's also the   lead pastor at 11th street baptist church in  upland california so he's used to translating   complex ideas down to people who are also not  particular experts in those areas so first off   thanks for just pouring so much time and your  research and effort into studying the scrolls in   a way that translates and is very meaningful to me  and many other people and for coming on the show   yeah thanks for having me sean i'm glad to be  here well let's just jump right in for some   people who maybe forget some of the background  of the dead sea scrolls before we get into some   of the particular questions such as related to the  great isaiah scroll what are the dead sea scrolls   and how were they first discovered yeah so the  dead sea scrolls is a popular name that's given to   about a thousand manuscripts that were discovered  in the judean desert in roughly 19 late 1946 maybe   early 1947 you know there's contradictory stories  about the way they were discovered you know you   had bedouin who discovered some a treasure  of manuscripts in the judean desert and they   want to keep it hush-hush so you know there's  not quite exactly the right stories coming out   but the story goes that there were three or  five bedouin following their goats and they   just threw a rock into a newly eroded cave and  heard the the sound of a smashing jar and uh   you know probably frightened but intrigued uh  they returned and uh that's how it happened we   have uh the discovery of six our seven initial  uh scrolls and what's cave one and then uh just   the floodgates open shortly after to uh for about  the next decade of discovering uh about another uh   in total approximately a thousand uh manuscripts  but this wasn't the first time that manuscripts   were actually discovered in this region there's  actually uh dead sea the skull discoveries that   date back to the third century a.d so the church  father origin eusebius talks about him finding   manuscripts in jericho and actually these uh  manuscripts um are actually uh found then in   what he developed called the hexapla and then in  the ninth and tenth century a.d we have a story   about a syriac uh uh bishop who comes  across other manuscripts which is   super super interesting because uh we have at that  time in the 10th century in some syriac traditions   we have about three or four psalms that start  appearing in this tradition and lo and behold   when we discovered 11 q5 a text preserving  psalms some of these psalms were found there   so the for the discovery that we typically  think of in 1946 or 47 actually wasn't the first   discovery of the dead sea scrolls but that is  uh definitely the major discovery we've have   over a thousand manuscripts a quarter of which are  biblical the rest are either apocryphal books or   sectarian books but yeah that's uh the discovery  that is so fascinating i've heard some of the   different stories and always wondered exactly what  do we know and maybe this is a part of some of the   folklore that has been told differently and maybe  we can't have the precision that we're looking for   but the better when throwing a rock is the coolest  most interesting one so i'm going with that one   uh yeah you mentioned about a quarter of these  are biblical texts talk about what some of these   biblics are and maybe why these biblical texts  are so important yeah so these biblical texts um   we found portions of every biblical book uh um at  in the dead sea except for esther um you know we   found a little uh section of chronicles and  um you know uh frank cross uh early scholar   has said that if a war made a little bit more  we wouldn't have chronicles either and when you   actually look at this text you know there's it's  it's we're pretty sure it's chronicles but it's   so so small it's hard to tell but you know the  scholarly consensus is that we have everything   except esther and these scrolls are uh are vitally  important for several reasons i mean first of all   they're ancient so we have texts that that date  from the 3rd century bc to the 1st and 2nd century   80 discovered in this region and and that that  means they're uh you know over 2 000 years old   another reason why these biblical texts are  important is because they're actually written   in the old testament's original language so the  vast majority of these are written in hebrew   and we have aramaic portions of daniel that we've  discovered there as well and in those sections the   original language of daniel was aramaic in those  sections from chapter two through chapter seven so   they're important because they're ancient  and they're also important because they're   not translations these aren't largely greek  texts or latin texts syriac texts these are   actually written in the original language so  some of the issues that we have to go through   as textual critics when we consider translations  we don't have to we don't have to consider when   we look at the dead sea scrolls they're also  important because they preserve a level of textual   diversity that um okay that what at that point  we didn't we we didn't have in hebrew manuscripts   so basically every hebrew text we we have besides  the text at qumran fit the masoretic text they   actually align very very closely all of our  medieval manuscripts belong to this tradition all   of uh our texts that we've discovered that date  from the third century a.d to the 9th century 80   all fit this tradition all of the texts  we discovered in the the cairo ganesa are   belong to the maserati tradition so these these  are important because they're different they uh   they present a level of textual diversity that we  didn't know or didn't have in hebrew manuscripts   but i think fourth they're also very important  because in addition to the diversity they   they also attest to a level of  textual unity and textual stability   and this is especially true when you look at uh  the sites besides qumrans so the dead sea scrolls   refers to manuscripts that were discovered  just in the judean desert this is the region   uh west of the dead sea uh these  are these are places like masada and uh dahlia lots of different places and when you  when you divide uh the locations with qumran and   the rest of the sites all of the other sites  uh preserve text that align very closely with   the masoretic text and at qumran you had it kind  of split in half half of them align closely with   the mazda texas half of them do not so when  you're thinking about the dead sea scrolls   and their importance they're ancient and that's  very very important they're the original languages   mostly and that's very very important and  then those two facts force us to take serious   the textual diversity there but also the  unity that we that we see there as well   that's really helpful and for those of you  watching going okay i don't know exactly what the   masoretic text is what do you mean unity and  diversity don't we have confidence that we   have the words of the bible as it was written  down that's exactly where we're gonna head in   this discussion to bring some clarity and when i  was watching your lecture you pointed out a few   things i thought oh my goodness i'm not sure i  connected those dots so hang in there with me i   think you're gonna find this to be really  really helpful before we jump in though i   i just gotta ask i wanna hear the story behind  your interest in doing a dissertation on this   because i know there's always a story for me i did  my dissertation on the fate of the apostles did   they really die as martyrs and i just had to know  and i was so interested in this for apologetics   and personal reasons and it just kept  me up late at night got me up early in   the morning to figure this thing out so what  motivated you to do it on the dead sea scrolls   yeah you know in order to do a phd you have to be  passionate about it it's uh it takes a long time   and um you know it's it's it's not easy uh and  so uh you know there's probably several different   uh reasons or uh details that led me in this  direction but um i'm a bit ocd to be honest so   the uh you know getting to the bottom of things is  something i just like to do i'm a bit of a checker   and so when it comes to uh just my personality the  way god's wired me is i like to check things and   so you know i got into seminary and i'm learning  the biblical languages and i'm reading these uh   these editions that have been published and  i just want to go deeper i just want to check   what's really behind these things so i think part  of it is personality i think another part of it is   um you know my heart i um i i i really just i love  jesus and and the gospel is very very important to   me and um so i think one of the biggest questions  um our generation is struggling with is the   trustworthiness and the reliability of scripture  that's right and so i i think that apologetic   reason kind of led me in into this field you  know there was a textbook we were reading in   a septuagint seminar and um it was my first uh it  was my first um introduction to the consensus view   of the old testament so a lot of old testament  scholars believe that the old testament was fluid   which means it hadn't reached its final form  until the 2nd century a.d and what that means   is that according to these scholars jesus didn't  have a stable text so when he says things like   not a daughter and iota will pass away they would  say well this was a new a vogue idea that came on   the scene around jesus time and jesus was just  mistaken so when i came across this this view   and then i read more what these scholars say they  say things like not only was the old testament   fluid but jews didn't care about that and when  i read that i thought i thought wow this is just   this author reading post-modernity onto an ancient  text you know this is you know truth is relative   and that's just okay and when i read that i just  what he did is he cited the dead sea scrolls as   his main evidence on why this is the case and i  was just like oh man i gotta study this i gotta   see what's going on and that qumran so that's  that's kind of what those are the factors i think   that led to this phd well i'm really glad that  you did now before we jump into the great idea   isaiah scroll just basically i know this  is dangerous because you spent years so you   probably want to tell us all about it but just  what's the twitter version of what you studied   specifically in your doctoral research oh yeah  i'm not very good at tweeting you know it's uh   so and you know the dissertation's over 600  pages so how can you put that into a tweet   i'm not sure let's see you know make it into an  abstract is hard enough i guess i would say that   uh you know the heart of the dissertation  really what i'm trying to prove is that um   really the main text behind the dead sea scrolls  is a text very close to the masoretic text that's   what i'm trying to say so what we see in  among specifically the non-aligned text   and i'm sure i'll define that at some point in the  conversation um is is a text very close to what we   know as the masoretic text that's what i'm  trying to prove in the description okay   that's super helpful and we'll we will flesh  out what's meant the difference between this   scrolls masoretic text align non-aligned and how  significant this is for trusting the scriptures   but when apologists and many people think of  the dead sea scrolls one of the first examples   they go to is the great isaiah scroll so  what is that find why is it so important   yeah so the um the great isaiah scroll is very  very popular and it's popular for good reason   um first of all it like the rest of this text it's  ancient it dates to the 2nd century bc and so for   it's old that's what makes it popular also the  timing of the discovery it was one of the first   texts discovered so we had other texts discovered  as well we actually had another copy of isaiah we   scholars call this one q isaiah b one q just  means the first cave and it was the second   text of isaiah discovered that was discovered as  well we also had like a commentary of habakkuk   but one q isaiah stole the show because it was it  includes the entire text of isaiah so you have the   beginning you have the end um it has some holes  in it the bottom is a little damaged there's a few   holes in between the very end of the text kind of  wore out so it had to be re-inked you had to write   the text again with ink again but by and large  it's completely there so it's popular because   it's ancient it's popular because it's actually a  scroll and let's make that clear most of our texts   aren't scrolls they're fragments so really  it would be more popular to call these the   dead sea fragments and not the fancy scrolls  and but one queue isaiah is is a scroll and   the reason why it was preserved so well is  that the story goes they found it in a jar   so you know it's almost kind of sealed in this  like time capsule so to say and uh so you know   it's popular because of its timing it's age it's  popular because it includes the entire book of   isaiah it's also popular because it's isaiah  i mean you know most people don't know much   about joel and obadiah people know about isaiah  and it was the same at qumran you know we have   about 20 copies of of isaiah tex in in qumran we  have about five commentaries and we have a few   little works that are kind of just discussing  the book of isaiah so isaiah was popular   at qumran you know it's also popu its popularity  is also evident in the new testament i mean the   new testament quotes echoes or alludes to isaiah  quite a bit and if you just go into like a uh   seminary library there's a lot more books on  isaiah than there are on again joel or habakkuk   so i think its popularity is also due to the  fact that it's it's uh it's the book of isaiah   you know another reason that makes it so popular  is when it was first discovered it was pretty much   unanimous that wow this text a test demonstrates  the antiquity of the masoretic text that was   basically the consensus view and so its popularity  also was is due to that fact it it by and large   um uh demonstrates that the masoretic texts  um the canonical text for jews and christians   that is best preserved in medieval manuscripts  that's like the aleppo codex a text from 930   a.d uh codex leningrad from 1008 a d um those  were the best texts we have preserving the   masoretic tradition and now we have one q  isaiah a text that dates to roughly 150 bc   and it's it's demonstrating the antiquity of  the masoretic text so this is a a text that's   1200 years uh older and i think that also drew  popularity i think it's kind of in vogue now for   scholars to really highlight the differences  between one q isaiah a and the masoretic text   and i think that too now is leading to some  popularity you know scholars we like to say   new things that's uh how we get published and i  think you notice to talk about how oh well there's   actually all this this diversity in  one q isaiah you know that kind of uh   gets the twitter clicks going up in the uh and the  academia you know clicks going up so i think the   popularity now was also due to this this desire  to highlight maybe some of the differences so uh   so that that's all contributing  to the popularity of this text   so make sure i'm sum this up correctly the main  jewish text is the masoretic text which is also   the main text in our contemporary old testament  from the 9 or 10th 11th centuries was the   copies that we had when the dead sea scrolls are  discovered we now have at least a copy of isaiah   roughly a thousand years before this before the  time of christ so when they compared them together   what did they find yeah so um first of all  they they they quickly understood that this   text demonstrates the how ancient the masoretic  text is that was that was clear from the beginning   but they also discovered that um you know  the spelling of one cure isaiah was different   it uh you know i think most of us know  that hebrew uh you know it doesn't   in the dead sea scrolls vowels aren't used the  way they they indicate vowels are with consonants   so actually you have some consonants that do  double duty they can function like a consonant   or like a vowel and uh the one q isaiah a um likes  to indicate vowels and the nazarite text doesn't   do this with their consonants so in addition  to seeing the the antiquity of the masridic   text they also saw things like oh it preserves a  different spelling practice aramaic influences all   over this text so it might seem like the the uh  the scribe his mother tongue perhaps was aramaic   also they understood that this text was  probably actually poorly copied so when you   look at the amount of scribal intervention  in one q isaiah it hap there's a there   the statistics that a scholar by the name emmanuel  tove gives is about one intervention every 10   lines and in his mind that indicates careless  copying so they they noticed all of these things   when they looked at one cue isaiah but basically  it demonstrates how ancient the masoretic text is   uh because when you look at the differences it's  clear that what's behind it is the masoretic text   so they have differences like unintentional errors  like you know you're you're reading a book and   your eyes skip one line to the next line that's  called parablepsis and you know that happens to   all of us if you're just reading a book outline  out loud or you know i'm preaching a sermon and   i'm like oh man what just happened you know it's  not it's not difficult for your eyes to skip   and uh that happens in one cue isaiah hey  other unintentional errors um include you know two letters look alike and that causes a  difference or perhaps two letters sound   alike and and that causes an error as well um  you know uh there's been a couple studies done   on the second half of one q isaiah that actually  uh prove in my mind or demonstrate strongly   suggest uh that the second half of the text was  actually copied from a manuscript with a damaged   bottom uh edge and so the bottom was actually  damaged yeah so you know this text demonstrates   the antiquity of the masritic text mostly  because when you look at its differences   it seems pretty clear that it's the masoretic text  is behind it now of course even when you look at   the similarities the text is agreeing with the  masritic text most scholars uh would say it in   the mid 90 percent range to even higher depending  on how you do your statistics so sure even it's   it's very it's very close to the masritic text but  even its differences the mt seems more original   so that's really helpful oftentimes what  apologists do and i've been guilty of doing   this is draw from the book of isaiah conclusion  about the copying over a thousand years   without maybe putting this in context to some of  the other books that are in the dead sea scrolls   and some of the larger story so what  conclusions can we draw from this and where   maybe should we have a little pause and caution  from the example of the great isaiah scroll   yeah so i think it's a safe conclusion to draw  that one qizaa demonstrates the precise copying   of the masoretic text so again those texts  that we have that date to the middle ages   that is a safe conclusion to draw in my mind i  think it's pretty certain most scholars agree   that's what's behind one q isaia is a text very  close to the isaiah we have in the masoretic text   so i think that is a very safe conclusion to  draw what's not safe is to say well because   that's true therefore the old testament has been  copied rely reliably and you know it should be   clear why that's not a safe conclusion to  drum based on that one piece of evidence   right because one q isaiah a is not a manuscript  of the entire old testament it's just isaiah   so it doesn't say anything about the copying of  jeremiah it doesn't say anything about the copying   of ezekiel it's just a manuscript of of isaiah  and so also i think another thing is that you know   i believe that the book of isaiah was written by  isaiah you know you're thinking in the seventh   century or so uh bc so even even if you have one  q isaiah that dates to 150 bc you still have a 500   year gap a 600 year gap between the original copy  of isaiah and one q isaiah a so and so there's   this big gap that you know we we don't have any  manuscript evidence one q isaiah a is the oldest   text of isaiah we have so to make that jump that  because one q isaiah demonstrates the antiquity   of the maserati text therefore the entire old  testament has been copied reliable reliably is   just not a it doesn't follow because of the age  of one q izaa and because it's again just a text   of isaiah so i think so i think we need to be  careful and nuance the how much we let isaiah   prove it doesn't prove anything more than that the  masoretic text of isaiah has been carefully copied   that's great i love it so tell me this  before we move on to the masoretic text   how do we make that jump then if there's five  six hundred years from the time isaiah wrote this   the text was transmitted before the copy  we have today what would give us you know   confidence so to speak for that time era  well i think there's lots of things i mean   there's lots of circumstantial evidence that  speaks to uh careful copying in ancient israel   um and we're going to talk about that later on but  uh but also you know we you know uh the septuagint   version of isaiah had was copied in about probably  the second century bc so at the same time as one   q isaiah a and scholars are in complete  agreement that this is preserving the same   text now the septuagint version of isaiah has  lots of differences but it's pretty clear that   those differences in the septuagint which is the  greek translation of the old testament um it's   pretty clear that the differences in eyes in the  isaiah text of the septuagint really derive from   the translator so the translator um is really um  he wants it to be good greek so uh i mean that's   a high priority for him so that causes him  to take certain liberties in his text also he   wants to make sure that his audience is drawing  the proper theological conclusions about god   so for example in isaiah chapter 6 verse 10 in  the masoretic text when god commissions isaiah   he says he says that hey isaiah when you preach  you're going to harden the people's hearts well   the the septuagint the the translator he wants  everybody to be clear that god's people went into   exile because of their sin it wasn't god's  fault it was the people's fault so what does   the septuagint translator do he changes the text  well why does he do that for so that everybody   draws the right theological conclusions so my  point so my point is is that yeah oh you know um   uh one q isaiah is our oldest text but we also  have several other texts we have one q isaiah b   like i said we have 20 texts from the book of  isaiah at the dead sea all circulating around   around this time frame we also have the septuagint  and all of these are alluding to the same text   tradition so um that's good evidence in my mind  it doesn't get us all the way back we don't have   a sixth century copy of isaiah sure but we have  all of these manuscripts around the second century   bc that are that are uh alluding to the same  idea and attesting to the same text tradition   super helpful we're going to get into some of  those circumstantial pieces of evidence that you   discuss but maybe we discuss this a little bit  maybe just clarify again exactly what we mean   by the masoretic text how that was copied and  just the compare and contrast with the dead sea   scrolls yeah so um the maserati  text is the name that we give to the   the jewish canonical text so this is the text  that the jews currently see as canonical and it's   also the christian canonical text it what it's  been the christian canonical text at least since   jerome translated the vulgate so uh there's  something called the old latin which is a   latin translation from the septuagint the greek  translation and what jerome realized there was   differences between the old latin and the he the  jews he was talking with so he wanted to translate   directly from the hebrew and that's what we have  is the vulgate and um and that translation is   from a text very close to the nazi tradition  so the vulgate typically always agrees with   the masoretic text and so once once the vulgate  became the dominant text in the church of the west   it really became the dominant uh text for most  christians as well so the masodic text really is   the canonical text for jews and christians  if you pull up the esv the niv the nasd   all these translations they're going to say  we translate from the masritic texts and if   we differ we'll put it in a footnote so um so the  text uh there's several components to it first of   all there is a consonantal framework so these  are the consonants and uh there's also vowels   that are put in with mostly dots and little  tittles above the line and below the line   and also the master of text also includes  accents this is kind of like punctuation and   uh the way to sing the text in the synagogue  and also notes that are in the margin and in   in between columns and in the upper margin and  in the bottom margin at the end of books they're   found there as well so the maseratic text includes  all of that consonants vowels accents and um and   the masoretic notes now um the con uh the the  the vowels the uh accents and the masoretic notes   were added in the fifth century ad to about the  seventh or eighth century a.d but the consonants   that they're adding the vowels to and the accents  to and the notes to are ancient i would even say   the vowels are ancient the accents are ancient but  the first time we see them appearing in the text   are in the middle ages um so this whole tradition  is ancient i mean you can't have just consonants   it is you you can't say words without vowels  right right so there's always been a tradition   of vowels even in in greek and in latin you  can't just write consonants you have to write   vowels so um even in qumran when i said earlier  how they like to add consonants to indicate vowels   well they're everywhere in the dead sea  scrolls and so so there's always been a   tradition of vowels there's also always been  a tradition of accents punctuation and notes   but we we first start seeing them in the text  really in in the middle ages well actually   beginning in the fifth century a.d to uh the  eighth century a.d but the consonants are ancient   and uh and these have always been copied  carefully at least we could say this   as far as our mat our manuscript evidence goes  back we have evidence that this tradition has been   copied carefully and precisely so what is some  evidence for this well first of all you have   the notes in what we call the mesora um at the  end of biblical books uh you have like how many   verses are found in any given biblical book or how  many letters or how many words and the purpose of   these notes are to say hey if you have more words  than you see here then you've made a mistake these   notes are supposed to guarantee precise copying um  but also when you look at some of the differences   in let's say some of the dead sea scrolls we  see that uh we see that that these texts have   been copied very precisely so some examples  include we have a leviticus text from masada   that uh that agrees with the masoretic text even  in a very peculiar spelling so um basically uh you   could say the word uh uh she or it the feminine  pronoun um is he in hebrew and the masculine is   who and uh so basically you have the consonants  who when it should have been he and and and you   have this in the leviticus text from uh masada  uh you have the consonants who not he and in   the masritic text like leningrad from 1008 you  have the consonants who and they have they have   a point that says all you should read this he and  the reason why that's significant is because this   is either an archaic spelling or a scribal air  clearly okay and they didn't they never changed   it from the leviticus text that probably dates  to the turn of the era so you're talking you know   uh you know uh 20 bc 20 a.d this time kind of time  frame all the way to leningrad they didn't change   it and it changed it at all it's the same thing  in 4q jeremiah a so this is a jeremiah text that   actually is one of our oldest manuscripts  it dates probably to 200 bc and it agrees   with the master detects in a very unusual spelling  so there's this word that typically you have two   y's when you spell it it occurs about 40 times in  the masoretic text and one time it only has one y   and 4q jeremiah a agrees with the masoretic  text it just has the one why that's interesting   you even have like a masada psalm scroll this  is a psalm scroll from the book or from masada   that agrees not only in its consonants with the  masritic text but also in its layout that means   its accents basically it's not using accents  it's using spacing to indicate a punctuation   but this is agreeing very closely with what  we have in the masoretic text peter gentry   and john mead talk about this in one of their  articles but they say that even codex vaticanus   and cyanidicus these are greek manuscripts  from the fourth third and fourth century a.d   they they not only copy um they they preserve  in their psalm text even the layout found in the   masala psalm scroll that means they're coughing so  precisely they're even concerned with the layout   so that's fascinating yeah so you have a lot of  very careful coughing and that indicates that the   masritic text has been copied with precision  as far back as our um as our evidence goes   let me say one other piece of evidence okay we  have something called inverted nunes a noon is   like the letter n in hebrew and it's likely  that hebrew scribes adopted this um this uh   this technique of using nunes from alexandrian  scribes and perhaps the third century bc   and what's significant is these are used in  the masoretic texts in two places and what's   interesting is they indicate they could  indicate either the text is in the wrong   location or perhaps this text indicates it's so  significant it's treated like a book in itself   happens twice in the masoretic text and what's  significant is the scribes of this tradition   don't change the text they instead what they do is  they copy the signs that means in their mind not   only are the consonants uh you can't touch them  but even the signs you can't touch yeah which is   very and that's possibly dating back to the third  century bc so so i think you know as as as far   back as you want to go with our manuscripts and  let's just be honest we only go back to the third   century bc which is significant i mean that's  that's significant still we we have evidence a   lot of evidence that indicates that what we have  is the canonical text behind our english bibles   has been copied precisely and carefully that's  so so interesting so in some ways we can't get   back to that original moment we'd like to but  the evidence we consistently have is such care   and precision in passing on the text because of  something god built into uh the jewish people   in a reverence for the for the text so we compare  the masoretic text with the dead sea scrolls and   for example grant isaiah scroll 95 plus alignment  and those differences tend to be really small   like spelling but there's some other books as i  understand it like jeremiah that would have less   alignment what do we do with those because i know  the question then becomes wait a minute if we have   these two lines so to speak which are connected  obviously dead sea scrolls masoretic text   texts that are longer the argument as you know  better than i do in scholarship is that there was   not a stable text during what's called the second  temple period which the second temple rebuilt 516   bc to when it's destroyed 70 a.d which of  course is during the time of jesus so that calls   into question the confidence we can have that  the new testament writers even had a stable   text to rely upon which would then in some ways  call the new testament potentially in a question   so how do we know that this is not really  what follows from scholarship itself   yeah that's a really really good question and  that's that's the major question we're trying   to answer in this field i would say it's best the  best way to make sense of the data the manuscript   evidence is to understand that scribes approached  their task of copying in one of two ways on the   one hand we have a very conservative approach that  scholars call repetition it's basically you're   copying what's in front of you and that's largely  preserved in the masoretic tradition the other   approach is what scholars call re-signification  uh and so this would be put changing the biblical   text and um these types of changes uh um so  those are the two ways that you approach and   okay so that that that accounts for the unity and  the diversity so when we're thinking about okay   well what is the nature of this diversity that  might be a good way a a good way to answer this   question so what what really is going on in this  diversity when scribes re-signify their texts what   are they really really doing and a lot of these  things are what we would expect people to do so   on the one hand we have uh scribal errors which  you would just expect from any manuscript i mean   when you're copying a text by hand this is this  is pre-iphone you know what i mean this is free uh   um you know cameras pre-printing press  i mean uh you're going to make mistakes   paper is really what it is i  mean that's how far back it goes   that's right yeah and um so this is uh this it's  a difficult it's a difficult thing and that and   that by itself should demonstrate the attitude  of those who are copying the masritic tradition   to for it to be so careful and so precise and the  things that we have preserved like the leviticus   text from masada the psalm text from masada even  a text like 4q jeremiah a uh 4q genesis b and many   other texts you know there's many that do this it  really demonstrates the attitude of this approach   so so you have the one approach a conservative  approach but then you also have a re-signifying   approach and i think it's best not to see these  as uh against each other it's not like these were   competing approaches uh there's a scholar uh  andrew teeter who talks about these approaches   actually being complementary and i think that's  really really helpful so um you know the bible is   difficult to read for multiple reasons and  by the time you get to the 2nd century bc   the bible needs updating first of all it wasn't  uh the this the actual uh form of the letters we   call this the script is different gotcha the the  spelling is different the words are different you   know i mean uh the language is shifting uh there's  there's confusion about what the text means i mean   on theological levels i mean you it's it's i  preach god's word every week before god's people   and i have a lot of questions a lot of questions  when i preach god's word so you know you have   these people who are trying to make sense of god's  word they're trying for it to be readable to their   children they're they're they're trying to make  sure that you understand that it's trustworthy   and true so they make changes and these this  is re-signification and this isn't against the   conservative copying this is actually proving uh  the attitude uh that the bible is trustworthy and   true because they they it's so trustworthy they  want you to understand it they want you to read   it it's not just something you put on the shelf  and you set it aside this is important for life   so they re-signify it so what are some of the  changes they make some common ones or like   they update grammar you know what i mean just  think about english how much english has changed   from you know a thousand a.d to now i mean it's  it's it's unheard of you can listen to one of   peter gentry's uh lectures uh at the texting canon  student he talks about this like i can't read   english from 1000 a.d and not many of us can so  you know what in the dead sea scrolls these are   you know when you're thinking about the pentateuch  deuteronomy in genesis and this is a thousand   years after it was written and at least a thousand  years so you have grammar being updated you have   words that are being updated we don't use words  the same way so they insert the new word they   they interpret the text they want to make sure  you're interpreting it properly so they interpret   it for you they harmonize the text so you know in  the book of exodus for example you know god gives   moses the instructions for building the tabernacle  and then they build the tabernacle oh there's a   tendency to make sure that when they built it it  was it was exactly the way god described it so   what do we call those differences those are called  harmonizations um you know uh so there's a lot of   things motivating these changes in the text  updating grammar um changing the script changing   the spelling you have normalizing the grammar  so there's one text we call it 4q genesis k i   talk about in my lecture where basically there are  three uh variants and each variant it functions to   normalize the grammar and style of the masoretic  text so and then you have uh some texts that   are uh um you know they update uh the language  like i've already mentioned and the spelling so   the conservative approach to copying and the  updating approach really fit together and both   of them demonstrate the antiquity of of our  old testament now the issue you brought up   of jeremiah i mean i'm really sorry i don't know  if i'm going to punt on that one but there's just   so many questions sean in this field and so much  work to be done um i'm not an expert on the book   of jeremiah that's fine so um but when we look  at jeremiah um you're right they're they're in   the septuagint there there is a shorter version if  i recall correctly it's about 13 shorter than the   masoretic text and there's lots of debate about  which one's more uh original that's a difficult   question uh to uh to wrestle through and i don't  think i have all the answers i haven't studied   that text in that particular problem in a lot of  detail but i would say that even when you look   at the book of jeremiah you could see that there  are different editions of this book so you know   you have baruch who's copying it he copies this  book and then you know the judean king burns it   and then jeremiah tells him to copy a  new one so you know in jeremiah you have   even in the text different editions and then you  have in jeremiah's life you know in about 580 bc   the jews are afraid the babylonians are going to  come and kill them all so what do they do they   run to egypt and they take jeremiah with  them so you know there's some historical   things going on in the book of jeremiah that might  that might give reason why we have these different   editions but as far as a better explanation than  that i i really haven't studied that that question   in a lot of detail that's totally fair and i  i appreciate your honesty it gives a sense for   people you've spent years studying these languages  the old testament dead sea scrolls but there's so   much more that needs to be studied and so i would  say if students are watching this we need people   if like dr ferguson you might describe yourself  as ocd which is okay i definitely have some of   those characteristics and you want to probe  into the question the reliability of the text   there's need for a generation people to  continue doing the kind of work that he's   doing now you make a fascinating point that i  had not thought of when it comes to the text   we look at josephus and his writings  of course the end of the first century   and he makes an interesting contribution that  we can know there was a stable authoritative old   testament text amidst these different lines what  does he contribute to my understanding of this   well he contributes a great deal because he's he's  trying to uh defend the historicity and and the   antiquity of the jewish religion to his audience  and what he says is that you know the uh the   jews have a fixed number of books that they see as  canonical and nobody changes the words in them and   well what scholars since um we've discovered the  dead sea scrolls like to say is oh josephus was   just wrong that was rhetorical because look at the  dead sea scrolls you know there's lots of changes   and there's a scholar by the name of arie van der  koy who helpfully says well what text is josephus   talking about he's not talking about the text  from qumran he's talking about the temple text   he's talking about the text that's copied  conservatively so josephus contributes a   great deal because he indicates to us that the  canon was fixed after the time of artaxerxes   and more than that people didn't update  the text or change the text now like i   mentioned some some scholars want to say that  josephus was just mistaken perhaps this was a   a a lie a rhetorical device but a scholar by the  name of arie van der helpfully points out that   josephus isn't talking about um the texan in  qumran he's talking about the temple text this   is the text that was copied conservatively and  and and precisely from antiquity and so actually   josephus actually um contributes a great deal  to our understanding of the history of the text   that's that's really helpful way  to to look at it now you give some   circumstantial evidence and i've got a lecture  that we're linking to below people can go   watch and get all the details so maybe just  give us one or two of what you consider pieces   of circumstantial evidence that tell us we had a  stable authoritative text in that second temple   period yeah i think one is the septuagint which is  the greek translation of the old testament as soon   as it was copied immediately began to be revised  and it was revised to fit a empty-like text so   this this dates even before uh the turn of the era  so we have a minor prophet scroll from nahal hever   a greek minor prophet scroll that is updating its  text to align more closely with the nazareth text   so i think that's a a powerful piece of evidence  that yes there's diversity there's differences   in the ancient world but people clearly know the  best texts it's a masridic-like text why why is   the person who owns the nahohever minor prophet  scroll he's updating it because he understands   that the masoretic text is superior textually  so the idea that i mentioned earlier that jews   were okay with diversity um just doesn't fit the  evidence if it was why did this guy update his   text why not just keep the differences exactly  the way they are but he changed it to align more   closely with the masoretic text also we have a  book called a letter called the letter of aristeas   which kind of talks about how the septuagint was  translated now scholars doubt the historicity   of a lot of this letter but that doesn't mean  there he doesn't preserve any historical truth   now the the goal of the author of this book of  this letter the letter of aristeas is trying   to convince his audience that the copy  of the septuagint he has is trustworthy   so what does he do he gives them evidence that  they would all agree upon and some of his evidence   is that my text was copied from the right text a  text kept in the temple by the proper authorities   and again what that indicates is that everybody in  the ancient world understood that texts differed   but they understood that the best text was  found in the temple so those are just a few   pieces of this circle circumstantial evidence that  indicates a stability when was that letter written   well it seems to have been written in the second  century bc okay oh bc okay so this is before the   time of christ at least century plus okay very  very interesting now one of the points that   jumped out to me because of my doctoral research  on the apostles was the maccabees willingness to   suffer and die and one of the points that i  off i often made even in my doctoral research   was that they're willing to die for the law  like the apostles were willing to suffer and   die they believed they had seen the risen jesus  the maccabees say we will not compromise the law   you make a further point and say this actually  demonstrates that they believed there was a   reliable stable text connect those thoughts for  me well again it's you know it's it's it's in my   mind circumstantial like it's not direct evidence  it doesn't prove that there's a stable text but   i think it it suggests that there is a stable  test and i think what i'm trying to say there is   if if some scholars think the text was  fluid that means you don't really know   you don't really know the details of the day of  atonement you really don't know the details of the   exodus you don't really know the issues related  to the sabbath day if that's the case would   people be willing to die for it i mean antiochus  epiphanes the syrian king is telling them that   hey if you don't worship zeus and sacrifice these  pigs off with your head and these jews are saying   absolutely not and i think what that's indicating  is that they believe that that their customs and   culture is indeed uh the word of god and if if  the text was fluid i i doubt that they would   have this kind of uh passion to abide by it that  is that is so interesting fascinating you said   you're right it doesn't prove it but it suggests  it you start pulling together these different   the letter uh josephus the maccabees willing  to die there's this consistent sense that yes   there's different lines but we all know that there  is a stable authoritative text that we can trust   at this period even before the time of christ  that's so interesting uh so while you're doing   this research obviously you went into this as a  christian you said at the beginning that you love   jesus and you want to encourage christians through  it so i'm sure there's a lot of people going he's   biased now i would say i definitely want to point  out that when i asked a question about jeremiah   it showed me your commitment to scholarship  that you didn't overstate something you haven't   studied so that's something i think people need  to see that there is a commitment to truth even   though you have a certain bias so to speak  but is there anything in your research that   just gave you pause anything that undermined  your confidence anything that made you think   gosh maybe there's something else i need to  study or this is just something i'm going to   store away as a problem i'm not quite sure what  to do with and if so how would you respond to it   yeah that's really good well i would say  you know to be honest i mean i i approach   um my expertise um believing in the reliability  of scripture i have certain presump positions   um and i think they're warranted they're they're  they're not um i think there's evidence for them   so i don't i don't have any shame in saying  that i do think that if you if you're if if   your goal was just to look at the evidence it's  all you want to do and that's not what i do but   if that's what you wanted to just looking at  the evidence then you could draw you could draw   two different conclusions from the evidence  you could you could conclude that the bible   was fluid because look at all these differences  that's a conclusion you could draw i don't think   that's the best conclusion because i think when  you look at the totality of the evidence like   i've mentioned all this circumstantial evidence in  addition to just what the bible says about itself   i i i think the better conclusion to to draw is  that amid a diversity of texts there is a stable   text now i think that's the the better conclusion  to draw based on the evidence now um were there   any things that caused me pause i mean absolutely  i mean um i'm trying to wrestle with um this um   this discipline there's not a lot of evangelical  well let me rephrase that there's not a lot of   people studying the dead sea scrolls as scholars  that hold my convictions so and in in some ways um   um it's it it's kind of lonely um you know  there there are some there are some scholars   um and there are certainly christian scholars  people who believe in jesus and trust in jesus   and there are certainly evangelical scholars but  you know like the doctrines i hold there's not   many people in in my camp studying the scripture  so it could be kind of lonely so you know as i was   doing this dissertation i'm just reading over and  over and over again how you can't trust the bible   you can't trust the bible you can't trust the  bible because look at all these differences   and it was a it was a it was a very difficult time  it was a time of it was a you know a desert time   in in in my life just because um because  what i'm reading over and over again and um   i think that the the text that caused me the most  problem was a joshua text 4q joshua a which um is   a difficult text um i think we have an explanation  for it but that was a difficult one and um you   know anybody could just probably type into google  4q joshua a and find details about it i don't need   to rehash it here you can look at my dissertation  if you'd like to um but it's very fragmentary um   and you know i think the scholars who are using  this as the basis that oh we you know there's   different forms of joshua are overstating their  case because it's very fragmentary it's just   it's not preserved well it's poorly preserved and  even if it was preserved well how do you know that   those who had this manuscript thought it was  even biblical like there's a lot of assumptions   here like when i listened to scholars like sydney  crawford great scholars eugene ulrich fantastic   scholars but um you know they i think i think what  they do is they they make the connection look at   all these differences therefore there's textual  chaos and i just don't think that follows um   so how do you even know that this it's so  fragmentary you're over i think they were   overstating their case also how do you even know  if it's biblical they're actually in qumran we   have a few three or four texts where um where the  people in in this region are are kind of reworking   joshua and they're it's not a biblical text  they just they love joshua they love the story   of joshua and they're they're just working with  what they got you know what i mean it's a creative   story you know we do that stuff all the time look  at my kids my kids bible you know you know they're   not it's not that's not the inerrant bible you  know they're taking stories and they're kind of   playing with it and i don't think it's actually a  biblical text it's a kid's bible well so how do we   know that those in this community actually saw  4k joshua a as biblical so that was a difficult   text to wrestle through i think partly because  there was i was just reading over and over again   the alternative view but also i think there's good  reason to doubt their conclusion from the evidence   that's really fair and helpful and uh if i find  time for a 600 page dissertation i just might   dive in it's tempting man i actually i decided  to do a phd i was sitting on the plane studying   michael lacona's dissertation on the resurrection  lady's like what are you doing i said well i'm   studying this i'm thinking about doing a phd but  i don't know if i should and she goes look at you   you're reading this on a plane of course you  should and that was like one of the things that   convinced me to so uh fun story now i i have a  couple kind of more personal questions related   to how you process this yeah and then where you  see some of the scholarship going into the future   one of the questions is you've studied this in  depth and you described it as kind of a desert   season for you you have you admit there's people  could take this data interpret it differently but   you don't think it's the best explanation how do  you shift from saying well historically i have a   good case that this is a stable text to preaching  it every sunday teaching it to your kids living   out this is the word of god which you said you  have good reason to but because we're human and   we're dealing with events 2000 years ago questions  remain how do you bridge that gap personally   well i think there's a really practical way  as a pastor i change the text all the time   maybe it's uh it's a strange idea but if you  just listen to a pastor read the word of god   um he makes changes i make changes so like  i might be reading the bible and i might   repeat a word for emphasis i might uh be reading  the text and i might uh maybe it says he said   and i'll say moses said because we don't have  the context so i'm making changes all the time   you know i really like uh interesting i don't  know if you listen to uh shane and shane they   have some albums about like singing the psalms  and one of one of their psalms titles is psalm 23   and they're not just singing psalm 23 i don't  know if you know this song but they're making all   kinds of changes to it they're they're repeating  words they're adding words even the refrain of   the song has nothing to do with psalm 23. and  yet if i were to ask shane and shane like hey   do you believe the words of your song are actually  psalm 23 they'd say absolutely not absolutely not   this is a liturgical uh rendition of psalm 23 that  we're singing and you know so when i think about   how we as evangelical christians actually use the  bible i think that's exactly what we see at qumran   the differences that we see the re-signification  the updating the normalizing all of these things   it's just a community who's using the bible so how  do i personally deal with it well i see an analogy   in how i use it fits with the way they're  using it um i think personally you know i think god's really really kind i believe in  the sovereignty of god so you know our texts   are fragmentary i mentioned earlier we could  call them the dead sea fragments not the dead   sea scrolls and that's very true um but it's the  lord who said that this worm will eat this amount   of text and no more it's the lord who literally  said this amount from 11 uh q leviticus this much   will decay in the soil and this much will not it's  the lord who said to a cow who was or a goat who   was going to the bathroom on a dead sea scroll you  hear urine will destroy this text and nothing more   you know a soldier who has a dagger who rips  the word of god in half and tears it to pieces   this text will be in a storage jar this one will  not you know i believe in the sovereignty of god   and i have the evidence preserved that god  wants me to have and that helps me make sense   of the data so um so personally i uh i see a  lot of analogies in the way i use scripture to   the way qumran uses scripture okay and also  i just i i hold to the sovereignty of god   where i could rest in the evidence i have  and i also think about the kindness of god   what if god only had preserved the diversity  and not the unity what if all we had preserved   was the texts that are updating and normalizing  and the fork and 4q jeremiah a which   are for q genesis b um you know the leviticus  scroll from masada or psalm school what if those   decayed and we never had those like ice  like what if god did that he didn't in his   kindness he gave us evidence that speaks to  a diversity and a unity and i just thank god   for for doing that for us so personally i handle  it in a lot of ways um but you know theology helps   me uh i believe what the bible says about  itself and i rest in the goodness of god   it's such a great answer in a way i had  not even thought about the dead sea scrolls   that's very helpful uh to me personally as  well what is having a text that you trust   it's stability in terms of the old testament  just mean to you personally or as a pastor   well it means that i have confidence when i  stand before god's people i have confidence   that i'm preaching to them not just another book  but i'm preaching to them something unique i'm   preaching them to them none other than the word  of god and thus because it is the word of god it   is able to transform us so i think personally  it gives me it gives me a lot of confidence   um i think it gives me a lot of joy i mean the  old testament produces joy when you read the old   testament properly it produces joy because  it's god's word i mean think about psalm 1   blessed is the man you know who's delighting  in the word of god like what we have in the   old testament is something not just something  it is it is the thing that can produce joy so   personally it gives me lots of confidence and you  know it gives me it gives me lots of lots of joy   i love that thanks tell me this is a huge question  but you mentioned earlier there's further areas   of research that need to be done are there one or  two that just kind of jump out or where do you see   some of this conversation going on  the dead sea scrolls into the future   so it's just actually a recent thing that we  have all of the dead sea scrolls published   and available to the public anybody right  now could type in digital dead sea scrolls   or iaa these websites and see all of the dead sea  scrolls digitized so they are amazing available   now to the world and that's that's new so i think  what we're going to do is um we're going to have a   better understanding of of the biblical text we're  going to have a better understanding of the people   who left us the biblical texts i think we can now  start to analyze not just we can now not only just   know how many differences they are but we can  begin to analyze the nature of the differences   so that's what i try to do in my my dissertation  is that all all of the differences were published   in the uh the series called djd discoveries of the  judean desert published by oxford and what i did   is i just tried to uh describe the nature of these  differences so i looked at all the non-aligned   texts and the term non-align means there's a  biblical dead sea scroll that doesn't align   with the masoretic text the septuagint or in the  cases of the pentateuch the samaritan pentateuch   and it has unique reading so i looked at all  of these texts and what i discovered was that   really what all of these texts are attesting to  is really the re-signification the approach to   copying where you're updating and you're  changing and what's behind them really   is the masoretic text so i think we're also  going to have a lot more published on what's   what is the nature of these texts you know sean  there's a lot of work that needs to be done um   uh what i really want to do but i'm a pastor  and i don't have the time to do it um you know   i i love scholarship i really really do i  don't have a lot of time but um you know um   the the biggest argument against my view is  really the the the possibility of different   literary editions so the question of jeremiah  mentioned earlier or you know in in the dead   sea did they have all these different editions  that they actually saw as authoritative they   actually saw them as canonical which it's  a very hard thing to prove that they saw   these things as canonical we don't have like a  note in the margin that says this sure so a lot   of the the consensus view is oh well look it's a  different it's different therefore they saw it as   canonical like all the others and i don't think  that's a helpful argument and here's one reason   why when we look at in context where people  clearly believe in a stable text like josephus   does he rework his texts or the rabbis they  clearly believe in authoritative stable texts   but do they rework their texts what about the  targums the targums are the aramaic translation   of the old testament and there's lots of crazy  differences there's more differences in the   targum than in the biblical dead sea scrolls  at least the non-aligned texts and yet nobody   doubts that the targums attest to a masoretic  text why because everybody knows at that time   period the masoretic text was the canonical text  so so we have all these differences in the targums   so you have people changing the text doing all  this reworking in context like josephus the rabbis   even in christian context and uh and uh and yet  they hold to a stable text so what i would love   to see some people do is to develop really like a  uh a model or a paradigm like josephus holds to an   authoritative text and yet he reworks it so if i  could show people that if i could show people that   reworking doesn't necessarily mean that we think  the text is fluid well then that's now a paradigm   i could apply to the dead sea scrolls that says  hey listen uh just because their differences   doesn't mean that there's not a canon and  authoritative text in fact look at the targums   in fact look at josephus look at the rabbis  look at christians all these other examples   provide analogies and you don't have any and  not not to be mean or pedantic but i think   that's a really profitable way forward that's  really interesting i hope someone listening   will share this with a younger student who likes  biblical languages dead sea scrolls and consider   going down that road i'm sure if they did you'd  be willing to talk with them and encourage them   give them a little bit of a little bit of  direction uh this has been fantastic tell us   last question just about the institute that you  work with kind of on text and canon uh recently   uh peter contacted me and just said we're doing  this blog and the website's launching i read a lot   of the stuff i watch it i follow it i want to  encourage all my audience christian or not it's   good scholarship that's understandable just tell  us briefly about that and where people can find it   well the texan canon institute is produced by  phoenix seminary and the leaders of that institute   are peter gentry john meade and peter gury and  they've been so kind to let me be involved in   writing articles and obviously giving the lecture  at their conference so i believe the website is   texting canon navy.org if you just google search  text and canon you'll you'll see it and there's   lots of great uh articles on this website a  lot of great information and i think one of   the things that's unique about it is that it's  written for the populace for the general public   it pertains to issues of new testament and  old testament textual criticism so that's the   organization that peter gerry and john meter  doing and i've just been had a privilege to   participate so it's one of my go-to sites that i  read and i follow and it's it's very very helpful   i want to encourage you you're a busy guy but  this research here i'd love to see you produce   a popular level book of this kind of a more than a  carpenter length 120 pages you could write it you   could hire somebody else to there's intrigue in  the dead sea scrolls there's questions about the   old testament i think there's a lot of people that  would benefit from this so for what it's worth   i'm going to encourage you to do a popular book  hey those of you watching make sure you hit   subscribe here's a couple of conversations we have  coming up i have an atheist by name of jonathan   gotcha who's written one of my favorite books in  the past five years called the storytelling animal   now we're going to talk about the fact that  we tell stories does it have an evolutionary   explanation or does it maybe point to  the fact that we're a part of a story   and there's a story teller have a very popular  lesbian youtuber coming on who's not a christian   and we're just going to have a conversation  about faith about youtube about culture   and even what she thinks about jesus if you  thought about studying apologetics look below we   have a fully online master's program and we would  love to train you dr ferguson we have full classes   on the canon and reliability and transmission the  very stuff we're talking about here and it's fully   distance so we want to partner with you in ways  that we can uh so those of you watching make sure   you check out the text and the canon institute  wonderful resource and think about joining me at   biola dr ferguson thanks again so much for  your time yeah it's a pleasure thanks sean

Channel: Sean McDowell

Views: 118,060

Keywords: Bible, Old testament, dead sea scrolls, discovery, fragments, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Leviticus, transmission, reliability, archaeology, 20th century, Christian, skeptic, scholar, Israel, Dead Sea

Id: 4OgsxiAHz-g

Length: 69min 44sec (4184 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 14 2022