THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

by Michael R. Burch

Yes, the Dead Sea Scrolls contradict the Bible in many places, with most of the contradictions being fairly minor, but some being vastly significant. There is concrete, conclusive evidence that the Levite scribes deliberately changed the Bible for specific reasons, on numerous occasions.

No need to take my word for it. Let’s consult the experts…

The prophet Jeremiah called out the Levite scribes for corrupting the Bible with a “lying pen”:How can you say, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,” when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? (Jeremiah 8:8 NIV)
The “law of the Lord” was the most important part of the Bible, because it told the ancient Israelites what they should and should not do. But what Jeremiah actually said was much stronger and sterner because he said the lying pen of the scribes had corrupted the torah yhwh, so he was apparently speaking of the Torah of Yahweh, the Bible itself. But in either case, monkeying with the Bible of Yahweh or the Law of Yahweh was a gargantuan thing to do and strongly suggests that the the scribes either knew that what they were writing did not come from Yahweh or Moses, or that they held nothing sacred. Surely no true believer would dare change a word of Yahweh, or even think to do so, if they knew it came from him.
Two prophets, Jeremiah and Amos, said god did NOT command animal sacrifices at the time of Moses and thus accused the Levites of changing the Bible to benefit themselves. Why? Because the Levites got to eat the best cuts of meat without working like everyone else.
Jeremiah specifically denied that god ordained animal sacrifices during the Exodus, when the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law were given to Moses:Thus saith Yahweh of hosts, god of Israel: “Add your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices. (Jeremiah 7:22)
The prophet Amos agreed with Jeremiah that deceitful Levite scribes had changed the Bible to demand animal sacrifices. Amos asks ironically and rhetorically on Yahweh’s behalf:“Did you [indeed] bring me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?” (Amos 5:25)
Seven biblical prophets denied that Yahweh desired animal sacrifices, and in often blistering terms: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Samuel and King David. (Amos 5:21-25, Hosea 6:6, Isaiah 1:11-15, Jeremiah 7:22, 14:12, Micah 6:6-8, 1 Samuel 15:22, Psalm 40:6, 51:16)
Knowing that the prophets were aware of scribes corrupting the Bible, we should not be surprised that oldest complete biblical manuscripts, the Dead Seas Scrolls, and other ancient manuscripts, such as the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch, confirm that major changes have, indeed, been made to the Hebrew Bible, which became the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.
Modern Bible scholarship agrees with the prophets Jeremiah and Amos:
- “The Dead Sea Scrolls have eroded the notion of the Masoretic Text as the sole authoritative rendition of the Hebrew Bible.” (Scripture Analysis)
- As James D. Tabor observed, there are “thousands of variations” with some “very significant differences.” Tabor has YouTube videos on his top ten differences, with slides highlighting major differences in the texts. Highly recommended for those interested in the truth, who want to see it with their own eyes. But this page gives a good overview, especially of the most important differences and why they matter so much.
- As H.L. Bosman noted in his informative essay “Jeremiah 8:8: why are scribes accused of corrupting the Torah?” the Levite scribes “expanded the texts they rewrote by means of Fortschreibung (“extrapolation”). The Greek text of Jeremiah is significantly shorter than the existing Hebrew text and Jeremiah texts found at Khirbet Qumran. Additional details and clarification were added and led to what is currently the Masoretic Text.”

Please keep in mind that the Old Testament of the Christian Bible is based on the Masoretic Text, so what is said about one usually applies to the other.

By far the most shocking difference between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Bible can be found in Deuteronomy 32:8-9, which discusses how the 70 nations named in the Bible’s table of nations (Deuteronomy 10-11) were apportioned to the Elohim, the 70 sons of god, with Yahweh at that time being not the supreme god but one of the 70 sons of the supreme god El. At this time Yahweh received Jacob (i.e., Israel) as his inheritance. This crucial verse tells us two very important things: (1) that the Bible was once polytheistic, and (2) that Yahweh began as a tribal god subordinate to the supreme god El. The perfect matching of the 70 nations with the 70 sons of god, and the fact that El appears in prominent biblical names like Israel, the archangels Michael and Gabriel, the prophets Ezekiel and Joel, the place name Bethel (“house of god”), and Emmanuel, which christians claim to be the prophesied name of the Messiah, seals the deal on biblical polytheism for me.

A few verses later in the same chapter we find further confirmation in Deuteronomy 32:43, where the Levite scribes who controlled the biblical texts scrubbed “bow down to him, all ye gods” and changed “sons” (meaning the Elohim, the 70 sons of god) to “servants” or, more accurately, “slaves.” Elsewhere, some translations, including Hebrews 1:6, have “angels.”

But why would anyone remove angels or servants/slaves from the text? The obvious reason for the Levite erasure was their intention to remove references to other gods from the Bible.

Nothing could be clearer: the Levite scribes were deliberately removing polytheism from the Bible, to make the redacted Bible seem like a monotheistic book.

In the comments it was argued that Elohim “hints” at “enlightened beings.”

My response:

Elohim doesn’t “hint” because we know who the Elohim were. The Elohim were the 70 sons of the supreme god El and his consort Asherah. The Bible verifies this in its table of nations (Genesis 10-11), where the 70 nations were each assigned to one of the Elohim. Jacob/Israel was assigned to Yahweh. If Yahweh is a god, so are the other Elohim.

The other most significant contradictions will be discussed in detail, after a brief intro.

INTRO

The fact that Josephus and the oldest extant copy of the Septuagint, the Leningrad Codex, often agree with the Dead Sea Scrolls and not the Masoretic Text and Christian Bible, is very significant and debunks the idea that the books of the Old Testament were “meticulously copied” with “minimal changes.” There are thousands of variations, and some of the changes were deliberate, made for theological purposes, as we see above and shall see below.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were not written in modern Hebrew, but in an ancient script called “square” or “Jewish” Hebrew. Some scrolls use the older paleo-Hebrew script from the First Temple period. Others are written in Aramaic and Greek.

Next, a timeline to demonstrate how much older the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) and Septuagint (LXX) are, than the Masoretic Text (MT) and Christian Bible (CB). Since most of my readers are Christians or know the Christian Bible far better than the other texts, I will then focus on major differences between the DSS, LXX, SP, Josephus and the CB.

TIMELINE

All dates are “circa” using the consensus of experts.

200 BC — The Septuagint (LXX) is the oldest Bible, with the oldest extant complete copy being the Leningrad Codex aka the Petrograd Codex. This manuscript is a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, using the Masoretic Text (MT) as it was circa 200 BC. But there are “considerable differences from the Masoretic Text, with the Qumrān scrolls [i.e., the Dead Sea Scrolls] confirming an old Palestinian text tradition predating 4th century BCE.” (Scripture Analysis)

120 BC — The Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) “harbors approximately 6,000 variants diverging from the Masoretic text, with a significant subset mirroring the Septuagint. Such disparities cast a shadow over the biblical authenticity of the Masoretic Text, prompting an inquiry into the textual evolution and transmission processes.” (Scripture Analysis)

100 BC — The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). “The textual variances unearthed by the Dead Sea Scrolls highlight the existence of multiple textual traditions within ancient Judaism, a finding that contrasts starkly with the prevailing narrative of a unified biblical text. Moreover, these scrolls illuminate the ancient Jewish exegesis, shedding light on the myriad ways in which the scriptures were interpreted and applied across different communities.” (Scripture Analysis)

The fact that the LXX, SP and DSS — all created around the same time — often agree with each other while disagreeing with the Masoretic Text (MT) and Christian Bible (CB), suggests that the MT was changed by Levite scribes. I will give clear examples of such changes forthwith.

75 AD — Flavius Josephus was a Jewish historian born in Jerusalem in 37 AD, shortly after the alleged death of Jesus. He was a contemporary of the apostles, if they actually existed. Josephus published The Jewish War (c. 75 AD) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 93 AD).

Josephus was the son of a prominent rabbinical family that included a high priest, and he was a student of the major Jewish religious sects — the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes — so he’s an important figure when we’re trying to pinpoint scribal “monkey business.”

One should note, for instance, that the book of Acts claims the apostle Peter healed every sick person in Jerusalem and surrounding cities with his shadow, which would have made him the most famous person in all Judea. But Josephus, who wrote extensively about other religious figures of the first century, such as John the Baptist, never wrote a word about Peter or the (allegedly) wonder-working early Christian church in Jerusalem, even though he lived there. This strongly suggests that the book of Acts is largely or entirely blarney.

350 AD — The Christian Bible (CB), with the oldest extant complete copy being the Codex Sinaiticus, dating to around the 4th century AD. This is a Greek manuscript that contains the majority of the Old Testament and New Testament. Please note that the Codex Sinaiticus is around 450 to 550 years “newer” than the DSS and LXX, and half a millennium is plenty of time for the kind of scribal “monkey business” we are about to see.

1000 AD — The Masoretic Text (MT) also contains deliberate scribal changes, as we shall see.

MONKEY BUSINESS: THE MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND CHRISTIAN BIBLE
by Michael R. Burch

Please keep in mind that the Old Testament of the Christian Bible (CB) is based on the Masoretic Text (MT) as it existed at the time Christians were compiling their version of the Bible. Thus most of what I say about one applies to the other.

Deuteronomy 32:8-9 — “Sons of God” — This is the greatest difference between the DSS and CB, in my opinion. The DSS reads, “When the Most High apportioned the nations as an inheritance, when he divided up humankind, he established the borders of the peoples according to the number of the Sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” Many CB’s replace “Sons of God” with “sons of Israel,” which makes no sense at all. Why the scribal subterfuge? They were trying to erase the Bible’s initial polytheism.The Septuagint also has “Sons of God.”
But the Levites were clumsy editors and failed to erase other polytheistic Bible verses:
- “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.” (Psalm 82:1)
- “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.” (Psalm 82:1)The “most high” god was El Elyon.
  In Psalm 82 we see a divine council of the Sons of God, the Elohim, with the supreme God presiding. In the original Bible the supreme God was El, but in the redacted Bible the supreme God became Yahweh. The divine council of the Elohim also appears in the first chapter of Job, where Satan is not a “fallen angel” but welcome in heaven as one of the Elohim.
- For who is equal to the Lord in the heaven? and who is like the Lord among the sons of the gods? (Psalm 89:6)
- God is greatly feared in the council of the holy ones [the gods], more awe-inspiring than all who surround him. (Psalm 89:7)
- Behold, he putteth no trust in his holy ones [the gods]; Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. (Job 15:15)The supreme god’s dissatisfaction with the other gods is a recurring theme in the Bible. How the Levites would know what was going on in heaven is a mystery, unless they were making things up. As they obviously were.
- Ascribe unto Jehovah, O ye sons of the mighty [bnei elohim, sons of God], Ascribe unto Jehovah glory and strength. (Psalm 29:1)
- When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God [bnei elohim] shouted for joy? (Job 38:7)As Dr. Michael S. Heiser observed: “These ‘sons of God’ are never clearly referred to as angels (יםִ כָ אְ לַ מ , mal’akhim) in the Hebrew Bible.”
  There have been attempts to demote the Elohim to the lower status of angels, mighty ones, holy ones, saints, and even servants, by translators with theological agendas, but anyone who has studied the various ancient religions of the Middle East knows Baal, Marduk, et al, were gods, not “angels.” In fact, Baal and Marduk became the supreme deity in their regional pantheons by defeating a multi-headed sea monster. Amusingly, so did Yahweh, by defeating the multi-headed sea monster Leviathan, hacking it to pieces, and feeding its flesh to the Israelites in the wilderness.
  
  Now we know the source of manna!
  
  The authors of the Bible, during their polytheistic phase, seemed to have an attitude of, “Anything your god can do, our god can do better!”
  
  And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. (Deuteronomy 4:19)
  
  Yahweh doesn’t say there are no other gods, just that they were made for other nations to worship, not Israel. This is why Yahweh is a “jealous god.” He doesn’t want his people worshiping gods who were assigned to other nations.
Deuteronomy 32:43 — “All ye gods” — The DSS has: “Rejoice, heavens, with his people, and bow down to him, all ye gods, for he will avenge the blood of his sons. He will take vengeance on his adversaries, And avenge those who hate him, and will make atonement for his land and for his people.” Once again the scribes scrubbed out obvious polytheism. They replaced “heavens” with “nations,” and “sons” (sons of god) with “servants” (or more accurately “slaves”) and completely removed “bow down to him, all ye gods” as well as the italicized “avenge” phrase. In conjunction with the passage above, we have clear confirmation of what the Levites were up to.This is the “scrubbed” verse as it appears in the King James Version:
“Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.

As Michael S. Heiser pointed out:

“Notice that Deuteronomy 32:43 in the Dead Sea Scrolls has three poetic pairings. Since it’s a poetic section, symmetry is not only important, it’s expected. The Masoretic Text reading has removed or altered parts of two of the pairings. The first, as in Deuteronomy 32:8, eliminates references to other divine beings (“sons of God” in 32:8; “heavenly ones” and “gods” in 32:43). At some point, a scribe thought this reference to other gods was theologically offensive. The first line of the final pairing was removed because someone hating God was also offensive.”

We see something similar happening in the Bible’s account of a census taken by David. The author of the account in 2 Samuel 24 said god commanded David to take the census, then became enraged over what he had caused and murdered 70,000 people who had nothing to do with anything. A scribe copying the same account in 1 Chronicles 21 apparently didn’t think his god should be so wicked and changed his account to say Satan induced David to take the census. This is the first appearance of the name Satan in the christian bible and the purpose was clearly to get god off the hook for being such a monster. But the scribe didn’t fully redeem Yahweh, since he still murdered 70,000 innocent people!
Malachi 3:1-2 — Two Messiahs? — The DSS asks, “Who can endure them when they come?” and seems to be speaking of two Messiahs: one a ruler, the other a priest. Like Moses and Aaron. This idea can also be found in Zechariah 6:12-13, which seems to foresee a ruler and a priest and says, “the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 — Reason for the Sabbath — The DSS 4Q Deuteronomy fragment says the reason for the Sabbath goes back to the seven days of creation, connecting it to Genesis chapters 1 and 2, while the CB says the reason for the Sabbath is god bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. This is a major theological difference.
Deuteronomy 8:6 — The DSS says “loving” instead of “fearing” god, as in the CB. The Levite scribes who controlled and redacted the MT were very big on causing people to fear god. This is a major theological difference.
Isaiah 2:9 — “do not forgive them” was added to the MT and CB but does not appear in the DSS. The context is an end-times prophecy, making this a major theological difference. Some translations add “O Lord” as if the the prophet Isaiah is asking god not to forgive “them.” The next verse is also missing from the DSS, completely changing the tenor of this passage: “Go into the rocks, hide in the ground from the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty!” (Isaiah 2:10)
Hebrews 10:5 — body or ears? — The CB has “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me” while the SP has “but my ears you have opened.” And while christians have used this Old Testament passage as a “prophecy” about Jesus, ears being opened makes a lot more sense. And wasn’t Jesus’s body offered as a sacrifice, making the CB text nonsensical? The SP text makes a lot more sense, since seven Hebrew prophets said god did not desire bloody sacrifices, but wanted people to hear and live more righteously.
Psalm 22:16 — Pierced, mauled, dug or gouged? — The CB has “they [dogs] have pierced my hands and feet” but the DSS has “mauled” which seems to fit better. The SP translates Psalm 22:16 as “They have dug my hands and feet.” Other translations have “gouged,” which seems like the best translation to me. This might seem like a minor difference, but christians have used this psalm as a prophecy about Jesus. However, there are parts of the psalm that don’t seem to apply, such as: Did Jesus roar? Did he pray and God didn’t hear him? Who was Jesus’s “darling” since he was single and celibate? Did he believe in unicorns? Did he have to pay his vows? How could Jesus be God if he couldn’t keep his own soul alive? Seems iffy to me. This sounds like an ordinary mortal speaking, not the superhuman Jesus of Luke and John.
Luke 4:18-21 — where are the blind? — This passage is intended to show that Jesus would fulfil Isaiah 61:1, but the reference to “healing the blind” (the only bit that makes it relevant to Jesus) appears only in the SP not the CB, MT or DSS.
1 Samuel 17:4 — Goliath’s height — The DSS says Goliath stood “four cubits and a span” or six-foot-six, while most CB’s say Goliath stood “six cubits and a span” or nine-foot-six. The LXX and Josephus agree with the DSS. The CB is full of wild exaggerations and this one looks like a deliberate exaggeration by a scribe. Would someone have been considered a giant in ancient times, when the average man stood a foot shorter? Yes, because Ramses and Richard the Lionheart were around six-foot-even and were called giants. Furthermore, men over eight feet tall are more likely to be cripples than robust warriors, and a boy like David could not have worn armor made for someone over nine feet tall.
Genesis 5-11 — The SP has around 1,300 more years of genealogies than the MT, radically changing the dates of Creation and the Great Flood of Noah.
Psalm 151 appears in the DSS and SP but not in the MT, a significant difference. And what does it tell us? Either texts were being added, or the Levite scribes were deliberately deleting things they didn’t like. In either case, they held nothing sacred.
Further confirmation that the scribes held nothing sacred and felt free to radically change the “word of god” include significantly expanded versions of Daniel, Job and Jeremiah in the SP. It turns out that the “holy bible” is more like a hole-y bible, with human scribes deciding what to keep, delete and change.
1 Samuel 10.27-11.1 — A significant passage was missing from the traditional text that better explained the conflict between King Nahash of Ammon and the men of Jabesh-gilead. But a DSS manuscript contains a continuation of 10.27 that filled in the missing context. Josephus was also aware of the additional information (Antiquities 6.68-71), making the DSS seem more complete here.
Jeremiah 6:6-10 is shorter in the SP than in the MT, suggesting that words were either added or deleted. The DSS contain evidence of both the longer and shorter versions of Jeremiah, suggesting that there was not a single authoritative version of Jeremiah.
Psalm 145 — Acrostic missing verse — Psalm 145 is an acrostic poem in which each verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. But the verse for one letter is missing from the MT. A verse with that letter turned up in the DSS and is now verse 145:13 in most recent translations: “God is faithful in his words and gracious in all his deeds…” This is not a major theological difference, but shows the Levite scribes were not as meticulous as christians apologists would have us believe.
Isaiah 53:1-11 — “He will see the light…” — This famous Suffering Servant passage has several differences from the MT, with the biggest being that the DSS says the servant “will see the light” as if he hadn’t before. Also that he would make his grave with “rich people.”
Genesis 37:3 — Joseph had a “fine woolen tunic” (SP) not a “many-colored tunic” (CB).
Deuteronomy 32:43 — The DSS has three poetic pairings, while the MT has removed or altered parts of two of them.
Exodus 1:5 — The DSS and Acts 7:14 have “75 souls” versus “70 souls” suggesting the DSS is more correct here.
Isaiah 44:25 — Wise or foolish? — There seems to be some sort of difference here, but so far I haven’t seen anything of consequence.
The Psalms are numbered differently in the SP and MT, with individual psalms being combined and divided differently, suggesting that there was not an “authorized” version of the Psalms.
It bears noting that the Catholic Bible adds the “apocryphal: books of Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, First and Second Maccabees, as well as extra chapters in Daniel and 103 extra verses in Esther. The Eastern Orthodox Bible adds First Esdras, Second Esdras, Third Esdras, and Third and Fourth Maccabees.
The Septuagint includes Third and Fourth Maccabees, the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees and Psalms of Solomon, along with significant additions to the books of Daniel and Esther.
Dead Sea Scroll experts have determined that Isaiah was written as three separate books, something Bible scholars had long theorized. The evidence includes blank spaces in the scrolls where a new book begins and the fact that with 17 Isaiah scrolls, First Isiah is always kept separate from Second Isaiah and Third Isaiah.

In conclusion, the Christian Bible shows evidence of scribal “monkey business” for theological purposes, plus far too many errors for us to credit the idea that Levite and Christian scribes were always meticulous when copying the texts. And we also have the testimony of the ancient Greek philosopher Celsus, who in his debates with the early church father Origen said Christian copyists of the Bible were changing it as if in a drunken frenzy!

by Michael R. Burch