The Old Testament-What Does
the Record Tell Us?

Let's examine, in some detail, the available evidence that validates the claims of the Bible-God's only revelation to His creation.

The original Old Testament manuscripts (autographs) are not available, but both pre- and post-Christian manuscripts amply represent the Hebrew text. The fidelity of the New Testament text depends on the multiplicity of manuscripts; whereas, the accuracy of the Old Testament text is the result of the ability and reliability of the scribes who transmitted it.

Is there an exact date for the Bible's origin? Moses is the first writer mentioned.

The Old Testament collection was assembled about the time of Ezra (400 B.C.). Josephus, a respected secular historian, tells us that no book was added to the Hebrew Scriptures after Malachi's time (425 B.C.).

The first Hebrew-manuscript collection (1776-1780), assembled by a man named Benjamin, and published in Oxford, listed 615 Old Testament manuscripts. Later (1784-1788), Giovanni de Rossi published a list of 731 manuscripts. Until 1947, the oldest manuscript, in our possession, of any part of the Hebrew Bible dated from around the ninth century, A.D. The oldest known manuscript of the entire Old Testament is the Leningrad Codex, which was completed in 1008 A.D.

As a result of the Jewish obsession with guarding the exact letter of the law, there sprang up a group of Jewish scholars (Masorites) dedicated to the preservation of the Old Testament text. These Jewish scribes, who standardized the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, produced it from the fifth through the ninth century. The process of copying the Hebrew texts over and over (printing machines were not available) made it inevitable that scribal errors would occur, especially in view of the difficulty of the Hebrew language. The Masorites were responsible for the vowels eventually being added to the Hebrew language (which previously consisted of consonants only). This led to the following kinds of errors.

  1. Haplography: Writing a word, letter, or syllable only once, when it should have been written more than once.
  2. Dittography: Writing twice what should have been written only once.
  3. Methesis: Reversing the proper position of letters or words.
  4. Fusion: Combining two separate words into one.
  5. Fission: Dividing a single word into two words.
  6. Homophony: Substituting a word for another that has the same pronunciation.
  7. Homoeoteleuton: Omitting an intervening passage because the scribe's eye skipped from one line to another line with a similar ending.
  8. Accidential Omission: Occurs where no repetition is involved, or vowel letters are misread for consonants.

"The Masorites sought ways and methods by which they could eliminate scribal slips and additions or omissions. This they achieved through intricate counting procedures. They numbered the verses, words, and letters of each book. They counted the number of times each letter was used in each book. They noted verses that contained all the letters of the alphabet, or a certain number of them. They calculated the middle verse, the middle word, and the middle letter of each book. {The middle verse of the Pentateuch is Leviticus 8:7, while the middle verse of the Hebrew Bible is Jeremiah 6:7} Some of these notations can still be found in our printed Hebrew Bibles. By so doing, each copy could be checked and guarded for accuracy, before using it." {Lightfoot-How we Got Our Bible}

Besides all this, each copy was rechecked several times. If a page contained a mistake, the numbering did not agree, and it was discarded. When they wrote the Jehovah's name, they used a special pen. If the copy became difficult to read, they destroyed it and made a new one. Their reverence toward the Hebrew text was an important factor in the copying process. These men had great respect for the scriptures; and they devoted their lives to copying the sacred text.

Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). The Dead Sea Scrolls are the most remarkable of the manuscripts. Dated from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D., they include one complete Old Testament book (Isaiah) and thousands of fragments, which together represent every Old Testament book, except Esther. Ironically, or perhaps providentially, these great manuscript were discovered in March of 1947, when an Arab shepherd boy who was pursuing a lost goat south of Jericho and west of the Dead Sea threw a rock into a cave where he thought the goat might be hiding. He heard a noise, and upon entering the cave, found some jars that contained several leather scrolls.

Later explorations, which continued until 1956, of this and nearby caves produced thousands of manuscript fragments. Robbers stole some of the manuscripts, and they had to be bought back. When the discovery became public, exploration continued in this and eleven nearby caves that housed thousands of manuscripts, fragments of manuscripts, as well as other secular and historical records. The fragments are purported to be the remains of the 400 books that belonged to the library of the Essenes.

The Essenes were members of a strict (more strict than the Pharisees) Jewish sect. They opposed contemporary Judaism, its leadership, priesthood, and temple practices. They settled in isolated communities, away from mainstream Judaism. The caves that contained the scrolls are near Qumran and the remains of the Essene headquarters (inhabited from the second century B.C. to 70 A.D.). The writings were probably hidden in the caves in 66 A.D. at the time of the Roman march through the area. The Essenes were contemporaries with Jesus and the first-century Christians.

Cave I-The Isaiah Scroll. The earliest known copy of any complete book of the Bible. It is a word-for-word copy of the book of Isaiah in our English Bible. Ninety five percent of it is identical to the text, with five percent being pen slips and spelling variations. (As a matter of fact, this percentage of accuracy is about the same for all the Old Testament Scriptures.) Excavations between February 15 and March 9, 1949 yielded fragments of Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Judges, Samuel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Psalms.

Cave II. Fragments from approximately 100 manuscripts. There were two of Exodus and Ruth; one of Leviticus, Jeremiah, Job, and Psalms; four of Numbers; and two or three from Deuteronomy. Some of these manuscripts are dated previous to 100 B.C.

Descriptions of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Thousands of fragments were found, as well as complete works of Hebrew text dated 1000 years earlier than our tenth-century Masorite texts. Much remains unpublished. The DSS find provides an independent witness to the faithful transmission of our accepted text. The similarities become even more astounding when one considers that the Essenes were disconnected from mainstream Judaism and Christianity. In no way did the two groups collaborate to preserve a reliable text. Variant readings helped the scholars determine how, when, where, and why there were manuscript differences. Comparison with the MSS helped solve the puzzles. Hebrew manuscripts discovered closely parallel the Septuagint. Prior to the Qumran discovery, some regarded the Septuagint as a careless translation.

Through God's providence--discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls-we have hard and irrefutable evidence of the validity of the Scriptures, and that evidence is available for examination. Still, the skeptics seek for evidence that will refute the inspiration of the Old Testament record. Such efforts and thinking will come to naught. Remember what Peter wrote: "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." {2 Peter 1:20,21} All I can add is a simple, hearty AMEN!!!


Go Back to our Main Page