Editing Dead Sea Scrolls (section)

==Biblical significance==
{{See also|Biblical canon|Biblical manuscript}}

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew-language manuscripts of the Bible were [[Masoretic Text|Masoretic texts]] dating to the 10th century CE, such as the [[Aleppo Codex]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Rabinovich|first1=Abraham|title=A sound in silence|url=http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/A-sound-in-silence|access-date=29 August 2015|newspaper=Jerusalem Post|date=26 March 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131101012524/http://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Features/A-sound-in-silence|archive-date=1 November 2013}}</ref> Today, the oldest known extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the 9th century. The biblical manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls push that date back more than a millennium to the 2nd century BCE.<ref>{{cite book |author=Van Der Plitch |first=Johannes |url=http://ehacksandcheats.com/pdf/2007DeadSeaDiscovvdPlicht.pdf |title=Radiocarbon dating and the dead sea scrolls: A comment on 'Redating' |publisher=Center for Isotope Research, Groningen University and Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914023047/http://ehacksandcheats.com/pdf/2007DeadSeaDiscovvdPlicht.pdf |archive-date=14 September 2014 |url-status=dead}}</ref> This was a significant discovery for Old Testament scholars who anticipated that the Dead Sea Scrolls would either affirm or repudiate the reliability of textual transmission from the original texts to the oldest Masoretic texts at hand. The discovery demonstrated the unusual accuracy of transmission over a thousand-year period, rendering it reasonable to believe that current Old Testament texts are reliable copies of the original works.

According to ''The Dead Sea Scrolls'' by Hebrew scholar Millar Burrows

<blockquote>Of the 166 ''words'' in Isaiah 53, there are only seventeen ''letters'' in question. Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word "light," which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Dead Sea Scrolls|last=Burrows|first=Millar|publisher=Moody Press|year=1986|location=Chicago|page=304}}</ref></blockquote>

Differences were found among fragments of texts. According to ''The Oxford Companion to Archaeology'':

{{Blockquote|While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the [[Septuagint]], and of the [[Samaritan Pentateuch]]. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until [[Development of the Old Testament canon|its canonization]] around A.D. 100.<!-- NOTE: this is a quotation so the value should stay "A.D. 100" as quoted --><ref>Fagan, Brian M., and Charlotte Beck, ''The Oxford Companion to Archeology'', entry on the "Dead sea scrolls", Oxford University Press, 1996.</ref>|sign=|source=}}The majority of the texts found is non-biblical in nature and were thought to be insignificant for understanding the composition or canonization of the biblical books, but a consensus has emerged which sees many of these works as being collected by the Essene community instead of being composed by them.<ref name="DávidLange2012">{{cite book |last1=Dávid |first1=Nóra |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Akn_nhHegIC&pg=PR9 |title=The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls |last2=Lange |first2=Armin |last3=De Troyer |first3=Kristin |last4=Tzoref |first4=Shani |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |year=2012 |isbn=978-3525535554 |pages=9– |access-date=16 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170322111613/https://books.google.com/books?id=-Akn_nhHegIC&pg=PR9 |archive-date=22 March 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref> Scholars now recognize that some of these works were composed earlier than the Essene period, when some of the biblical books were still being written or redacted into their final form.{{r|DávidLange2012}}

===Biblical books found===
There are 235 biblical texts, including 10 [[deuterocanonical books]], included in the Dead Sea Scroll documents, or around 22% of the total.{{r|AbeggFlint2012|DSS-Bible}} The Dead Sea Scrolls contain parts of all but one of the books of the [[Tanakh]] of the [[Hebrew Bible]] and the [[Old Testament]] [[Protocanonical books|protocanon]]. They also include four of the deuterocanonical books included in [[Catholic Bible|Catholic]] and [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox]] Bibles: [[Book of Tobit|Tobit]], [[Book of Sirach|Sirach]], [[Book of Baruch|Baruch]] 6 (also known as the [[Letter of Jeremiah|Letter or Epistle of Jeremiah]]), and [[Psalm 151]].<ref name="AbeggFlint2012">{{cite book|author1=Martin G. Abegg|author2=Peter Flint|author3=Eugene Ulrich|title=The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jmm8Mvjw2WQC&pg=PR16|access-date=3 April 2013|year=2012|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0062031129|pages=16–|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140101061138/http://books.google.com/books?id=Jmm8Mvjw2WQC&pg=PR16|archive-date=1 January 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Book of Esther]] has not yet been found, and scholars believe Esther is missing because, as a Jew, her marriage to a [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian]] king may have been looked down upon by the inhabitants of Qumran,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=44&chapid=226 |title=The Dead Sea Scrolls |publisher=Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship |access-date=13 June 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120806141936/http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=44&chapid=226 |archive-date=6 August 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> or because the book has the [[Purim]] festival which is not included in the [[Hebrew calendar#The Qumran calendar|Qumran calendar]].{{r|VanderKamFlint2005}}{{rp|180}} 

Listed below are the most represented books, along with the deuterocanonicals, of the Bible found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the number of translatable Dead Sea texts that represent a copy of scripture from each biblical book:<ref>[[Theodor Gaster|Gaster, Theodor H.]], ''The Dead Sea Scriptures'', Peter Smith Pub Inc., 1976. {{ISBN|0844667021}}.</ref><ref>E. Tov, "Joshua, Book of," in ''Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' (eds. L.H. Schiffman and J.C. VanderKam; 2 vols.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) 1: 431. {{ISBN?}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; width: 25%"
|-
! Book !! Number found
|-
| [[Psalms]] || 39
|-
| Deuteronomy || 33
|-
| 1 Enoch || 25
|-
| [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] || 24
|-
| Isaiah || 22
|-
| Jubilees || 21
|-
| [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]] || 18
|-
| [[Book of Leviticus|Leviticus]] || 17
|-
| Numbers || 11
|-
| [[Minor Prophets]] || 10{{NoteTag|10 Scrolls containing fragments of all 12 of the "Minor Prophets" were found in Cave 4, although no fragment contains portions of more than three prophets.<ref name="von Weissenberg">{{cite journal |last=von Weissenberg |first=Hanne |title=The Twelve Minor Prophets at Qumran and the Canonical Process:Amos as a "Case Study" |pages=357–376 |url = https://www.academia.edu/393434 |journal=The Hebrew Bible in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls |access-date=3 October 2014 }}</ref>}}
|-
| [[Book of Daniel|Daniel]] || 8
|-
| [[Book of Jeremiah|Jeremiah]] || 6
|-
| [[Book of Ezekiel|Ezekiel]] || 6
|-
| [[Book of Job|Job]] || 6
|-
| Tobit || 5{{NoteTag|There are four Aramaic fragmentary texts of Tobit, and one Hebrew text.<ref>A.A. Di Lella, [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/19-tobit-nets.pdf ''New English Translation of the Septuagint'', "Tobit" (PDF)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110917190042/http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/19-tobit-nets.pdf |date=17 September 2011 }}, 2007.</ref>}}
|-
| [[Books of Kings|Kings]] || 4
|-
| [[Book of Samuel|Samuel]] || 4
|-
| [[Book of Judges|Judges]] || 4<ref name=Rezetko>{{cite journal |last=Rezetko |first=Robert |title=The Qumran Scrolls of the Book of Judges: Literary Formation, Textual Criticism, and Historical Linguistics |journal=Journal of Hebrew Scriptures |year=2013 |volume=13 |issue=2 |page=9 |doi=10.5508/jhs.2013.v13.a2 |doi-access=free |hdl=2066/120003 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>
|-
| [[Song of Songs|Song of Songs (Canticles)]] || 4
|-
| [[Book of Ruth|Ruth]] || 4
|-
| [[Book of Lamentations|Lamentations]] || 4
|-
| Sirach || 3
|-
| [[Ecclesiastes]] || 2
|-
| Joshua || 2
|}