Don't Newly Discovered Manuscripts Prove the Bible Inerrant?

Proponent's of biblical inerrancy often imply that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that our Bible today has changed very little, even after centuries of recopying. They usually point to the relatively infrequent differences which exist between the Isiah text and Modern Hebrew version of Isaiah. We are also led to believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove the accuracy of the entire Old Testament - but this is not the case. Those who try to persuade us to believe these claims ignore some significant details about the Dead Sea Scrolls and other important discoveries made this century. We will first clarify what the Dead Sea Scrolls actually reveal.

Although fragments of all Old Testament books except Esther have been found in 11 Dead Sea caves, most of the 200 Biblical manuscripts which have been identified were not scrolls but fragments of scrolls. Over 80,000 fragments representing seven to eight hundred different manuscripts were found in one cave alone. The work of assembling these fragments has gone on for more than 40 years and will probably continue another 40 years.

At the time of the initial discovery, seven major scrolls were made available to scholars. Within ten years of their discovery a translation of these scrolls was also made available. This included a translation of a compete Isaiah Scroll originally recorded on leather - the only complete Bible book found. A second partial Isaiah scroll was also among these seven scrolls. The other five scrolls contained the Habakkuk Commentary, the Manual of Discipline, the Thanksgiving Hymns, and War Scroll [also known as the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness], and the Genesis Apocryphon [See Vernon W. Jattson Jr. , The Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Important Discoveries, pp. 13-14]. Two or more or less compete Bible Scrolls have since been added to the Isaiah scrolls: a Psalm scroll and an Aramaic Job scroll.

The remainder of the Old Testament is represented only by fragments and will never be totally complete. No New Testament books, of course, were found in any of the Dead Sea caves. Although translations of the more complete scrolls were quickly made available to all, the fragmented manuscripts have only recently been published and made available. What has been published indicates that the Qumran library contained a canon which is not identical to traditional Judaism but which instead preserved a "variety of textual traditions" [Geza Verms, Dead Sea Scrolls - Qumran in Perspective, pp. 204-06].

The two Isaiah scrolls are typical of the variety fond in the rest of the manuscripts. One scroll corresponds to the Modern Hebrew Bible while the other corresponds more closely to the Masoretic or traditional Hebrew text relied upon heavily by King James scholars. Detailed examination of the Dead Sea Scroll Isaiah texts leads up to conclude that although these two Isaiah manuscripts were undoubtedly preserved by God for the last 2000 year, they were not as well preserved by man from 700 BC to 200 BC [the time the Qumran texts were produced]. Otherwise, there would not have been two very different versions after the first 500 years.

Proponents of biblical inerrancy seldom mention that scholars have found evidence of an effort by ancient scribes to eliminate discrepancies by comparing three model texts and "choosing as official and binding the reading attest by at least two of the model scrolls. Thereafter, every text which departed from the canonized scripture was held to be an unauthorized version" [Ibid, 208-09]. This might explain how so many later texts were said to have matched, even though they consistently contained obvious contradictions and errors.

We should further note that among the writings discovered at Qumran, there were about five times more non biblical texts as there were biblical texts, and yet many of the non biblical texts appear to have been valued as highly as modern scriptures. Today many of these valued texts are classified as apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings. While the words such as Jubilees, the Testament of Levi, the Book of Enoch and other found at Qumran have proven their antiquity and their value to understanding the inter-Testamental period, they remain largely ignored by modern Christianity.

The discoveries of Jewish writings at Qumran were quickly followed by discoveries of previous unknown Jewish and Christian writings at other Middle East locations. These included the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in Egypt, fifteen thousand clay tablets at Ebla, gold and silver tablets at Persepolis, manuscripts at Masada, and others. Hugh Nibley noted some twenty important manuscript finds between 1844 and 1947 in his book Since Cumorah pages 52 and 53. Through these finds, the world has been provided with an unblemished and unaltered record of early Christian beliefs along with their scriptural library. Though all of these writings were discovered prior to 1975 and much of it prior to 1950, most of Christianity remains ignorant of what these discoveries have to teach us.