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Well Preserved Isaiah and the Ancient Manuscripts James Parkinson In the
fifty-six years since the great Isaiah Scroll was discovered near the Dead Sea,
the initial scholarly enthusiasm has subsided, as no great change to Isaiah’s
message has resulted. Still it has been possible to make a few scroll-supported
corrections with greater confidence. So let us consider where the ancient manuscripts and
versions have come from, and then what we can learn from them. The
Septuagint In the third
century B.C., about 72 Jewish
scholars in Alexandria, Egypt, were funded by Ptolemy II to translate the
Hebrew Scriptures into a Greek version called the Septuagint (meaning seventy).
A century later, in the time of the Greek/Syrian kings of the Seleucid Dynasty,
and their conquest and subjection of Judea, the high priest’s office came to be
gained by bribing the Syrian king, and even by murdering the legitimate high
priest. Thus began the dissension between the Pharisees (including most scribes
of the Massoretic Hebrew text of the Old Testament), who refused to accept
appointment of God’s high priest by a Gentile, and the Sadducees (Zadokites), the
wealthier faction headed by the high priest. (The Septuagint, quoted or
paraphrased in the New Testament much as the King James Version is quoted even
today, appears to have been translated from a text close to that of the later
Sadducees, and not from a Massoretic text type.) Dead Sea
Scrolls When the
leaders of the Maccabean revolt against the Syrians deposed the high priest for
not supporting the revolt, and substituted one from among their own, a portion
of the priesthood and their followers withdrew from the Jewish community
altogether and settled in the desert around Qumran, just west of the Dead Sea.
From the biblical and commentary scrolls which they hid in their caves, we have
today the Dead Sea
Scrolls. A few more scrolls were preserved nearby at Wadi-Murabbaat,
Nahal Hever, and Masada. The Biblical Scrolls, translated into English, have
been published by Martin Abegg, Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The
Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (San Francisco, Harper, 1999). Massoretic Forty years
after the first Passover of Jesus’ ministry, the Romans came to Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. The
sect of the Sadducees, whose work had centered around the temple, was
destroyed with the temple. (Qumran was abandoned within three more years, just
before the fall of Masada in 73 A.D.)
From that time on, the Massoretic text has held sway. The
Massoretes were charged with faithfully copying the Bible (Old Testament)
apparently from the time of Ezra the priest after the fifth-century B.C. return from Babylonian captivity.
From the small number of variants between hundreds of Massoretic manuscript
copies known today, and yet written up to a thousand years apart, one may infer
that the earlier Massoretes had not been any less careful. Thus, the present
Massoretic text (apart from the vowels) should be a good representation of the
text of the time of Ezra. (Vowels were not added to the text until a thousand
years later so, occasionally, there is an ambiguity in reading from the
consonants alone.) The Sopherim, perhaps in the time of Ezra, made around two hundred alterations in
the text preserved by the Massoretes, but these changes were recorded by the
Massoretes in the margins of their manuscripts. Aramaic,
Vulgate and Others The Aramaic and Latin-Vulgate versions were translated from the Massoretic text, but
later revised in several places by comparison with the Septuagint. Owing to
Jewish dissatisfaction with the Septuagint, other Greek translations were made
from the Massoretic text, notably by Aquila (torturously literal), Theodotion
(a revised Septuagint), and Symmachus (literary Greek). Later Greek editions of
Origen and Lucian are of still less value to us today. Isaiah
Scroll More than
two hundred fragmentary biblical manuscripts were recovered from Qumran’s caves, in a race between
Arabs and archaeologists (Arabs winning most of the time). Twenty-one
manuscripts are from Isaiah; one is virtually complete (1QIsaa—where
1 stands for Cave 1, Q stands for Qumran, Isa stands for Isaiah, and a
stands for the first manuscript catalogued for that book and that site; written
likely in the second century B.C.,
and therefore about the oldest Dead Sea Scroll, it might have even preceded the
Septuagint translation of Isaiah). Although
this latter exhibits over a thousand variants from the Massoretic text, most
are minor. The most common variant is the inclusion or omission of a single
letter, vav (å), most-often translated “and.” Spelling
variants are also common. Isaiah has about 1291 verses, which averages about
one variant per verse, no matter how trivial. In the first
ten chapters of Isaiah about 15% of the time the variance of 1QIsaa
are singular (unsupported by any other manuscripts or versions); its variants
disagree with the Massoretic text about 90% of the time, and disagree with the
Septuagint about 60% of the time. (The Massoretic text and Septuagint agree with each other in
about half of these variants.) On the other hand, two Cave-4 manuscripts,
4QIsab and 4QIsaf, agree with the Massoretic text more
than half the time; 4QIsaf agrees with Aramaic and Latin most of the
time, but not with the Septuagint. (1QIsab, present intermittently
from chapter 10 on, usually agrees with the Massoretic text. 4QIsac
agrees with the Massoretic text in nearly half the variants. Other scrolls are
more fragmentary.) Considering
the origin of the Qumran community, one might have expected their scrolls to
agree more with the Sadducee texts, and with their presumed-derivative
Septuagint, than with the Massoretic text. But it appears Qumran had texts of
both types, not infrequently differing with each other, and none being entirely
free of scribal mistakes. The hundreds of Massoretic manuscripts are much
closer to one another than are the Qumran manuscripts, or even the Greek
Septuagint manuscripts. Best
Preserved It is
generally acknowledged that the Greek New Testament is the
second-best-preserved book
of antiquity; the best-preserved is the Old Testament. Still, some corrections can be made
from the manuscripts
and versions (translations into other languages). It would appear that
the best witnesses to the text of the Old Testament are, in approximately
decreasing order, Massoretic text, Dead Sea Scrolls, Massoretic margin,
Septuagint (Greek), Samaritan (Pentateuch only). Secondly, Aramaic (Syriac) and Vulgate (Latin). Thirdly, Aquila, Theodotian, Symmachus (all three Greek),
Targums (Aramaic paraphrases), Josephus (a Jewish history). Isaiah
Variants Some Isaiah
variants are listed below, with the better attested reading first, and other
readings afterward. Isaiah 2:2,
All nations shall flow unto it / all nations shall flow over it. Isaiah
19:18, The city of the sun / The city of destruction / The city of
righteousness. Isaiah 26:3,
Because he trusteth in thee / because he is in thee. Isaiah
44:25, And maketh their knowledge wise / and maketh their knowledge foolish. Isaiah
53:12, He bare the sins of many / he bare the sin of many. In Isaiah
19:18, if “the city of the destruction” be the correct reading, there would be
an apparent play on words between ha cheres (the sun) and ha heres
(the destruction); even the two Hebrew letters, ch (ç)
and h (ä), look very much alike. Conclusion It is to be concluded that the Massoretic text, Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Aramaic, and Latin Vulgate all preserve the text of Isaiah well, though none is above at least a few corrections. In particular, 1QIsab and the Massoretic text appear excellent.
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