“The Dead Sea Scrolls And Jesus”

Biblegems #204

Question: What are the Dead Sea scrolls, and how does their existence have anything to do with Jesus?

Over the centuries there have always been skeptics who argued that the Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Jesus were actually altered by Jesus’ followers to make the Old Testament conform to the historical facts of Jesus’ life and death.  This argument was widely used because everyone admitted that the probability of one human being fulfilling all the Old Testament messianic prophecies — as the New Testament claims regarding Jesus — was statistically impossible. 

Skeptics argued their belief that the biblical text was “fixed” on the grounds that our oldest existing Old Testament manuscripts (the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, or LXX) dated back only a far as 360 A.D.

While it was known that the LXX was first translated from the Hebrew into Greek between 285-247 B.C., the oldest surviving copies date back over three hundred years after Jesus. And the oldest Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament in existence dated back to only 1000 A.D. — nearly a thousand years after the life of Jesus! This gave the skeptics lots of ammunition (not evidence) for their claim of altered documents.

Everything changed, however, with the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947 by a shepherd boy looking for a stray goat in an area littered with caves near the Dead Sea. These caves were used as a repository of safe keeping by a community of Jews known as the Essenes. They preserved copies of their own writings, and copies of the Hebrew Old Testament, in earthenware jars. These manuscripts have been dated by archeologists as originating between 150 and 100 A.D. — more than one hundred years before Jesus’ birth.

What is most astounding — and most exciting for those who trust the authority of the Bible — is that these ancient Hebrew manuscripts predating Jesus are identical in wording to the Hebrew text we already had available to us, even after 1200 years of separation and 1000 years of Christianity. When comparing the Dead Sea scrolls to the 1000 A.D. texts there is only a discrepancy of 5%, and these differences are obvious spelling errors and minor scribal mistakes. Nothing of substance has changed over the span of 2200 years!

All the prophecies pointing to details of Jesus’ birth, his life, ministry, death and resurrection were original to the Old Testament as the Jewish people had available to them for centuries.

         Ps. 18:30 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

Was There Really A Virgin Birth?

Biblegems #166

Question: I’ve heard people say that the Hebrew Bible does not use the word for “virgin” in Isaiah’s prophecy quoted in the New Testament in reference to Mary. Is this true?

Isaiah 7:14, written about 740 years before Jesus’ birth, reads: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” When we fast-forward to Jesus’ birth, Matthew recorded in his Gospel how an angel announced to Joseph that his fiancé Mary would bear a child conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20-21). Matthew then tells the reader that this virgin conception was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”

In the English translation both Matthew and Isaiah appear to be in perfect agreement. Some claim, however, that Matthew’s quote, which comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, misrepresents the Hebrew word “almah.” They claim that “almah” means a young woman of marriageable age, not “virgin.” Their argument is that Isaiah never intended to mean that a virgin would get pregnant and bear a son.

The word “almah” in Hebrew, like so many words in any language, can carry a variety of meanings, depending on the context in which it is used. The word “cool” in English for example can refer to the temperature in a room, or it can mean “great!” or “terrific!”—depending on the context. One meaning does not fit all uses.

The dictionary definition of “almah” means a “young woman” who is sexually mature and able to bear children. While the word could technically be used of a married or sexually active woman, the reality is that of the nine times it occurs in the Hebrew Old Testament “almah” is never used that way (see Gen. 24:43; Ex. 2:8; 1Chr. 15:20; Ps. 41:6; 68:26; Prov. 3:19; Song of Sol. 1:3; 6:8).

The context of Isaiah 7:14 itself shows that Isaiah wanted to highlight this “almah” as distinct. She is not a woman that one would expect to be pregnant. It is the very fact that she will conceive a child that makes her special and unique, even as the child she will bear will be special and unique.

It’s important to remember as well that it was Jewish scholars in the area of Alexandria—about 100 years before Christ—who translated the Hebrew Bible into the Greek form that Matthew would later quote from. These scholars understood their own Hebrew word “almah” to mean “virgin,” and translated it accordingly.

Isaiah’s prophecy of the virgin birth demonstrates again God’s great desire to inform mankind of the plan He has put into place to rescue us from the path of destruction brought about by sin. His love, grace and forgiveness are available to all who put their trust in Jesus, the Savior born of the virgin Mary, even as God promised long ago.

         John 3:17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Merry Christmas!

A Body You Prepared For Me — Heb. 10:5

Bible Gems #96
Question: If Hebrews 10:5 is quoting Psalm 40:6, why does the NT quote sound so much different than the OT original?

Where Psalm 40:6 reads “mine ears thou hast opened” (KJV), or “my ears you have pierced” (NIV), Hebrews 10:5 reads: “a body you prepared for me.”  The New Testament quote appears widely different from the Old Testament source.

Here's why:

The apostles and the early church used the Septuagint, rather than the original Hebrew, as their primary version of the Bible. The Septuagint (commonly known as the LXX) is a Greek translation of the Hebrew OT made by Greek and Hebrew speaking Jewish translators in Egypt around 285 - 246 BC. Since Greek was the common language of the NT world, it made sense to use the Greek translation of the Scriptures.

In most ancient manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, Psalm 40:6 reads (in English): “ears you have dug for me.”  The LXX translates this into Greek as “a body you prepared for me.” Most likely, the translators of the LXX were attempting to make a vague Hebrew figure of speech (‘digging out ears’) more understandable to a Greek speaking audience by making the ‘digging out of the ears’ a reference to God forming the human body, even as He first molded Adam out of the dust of the earth.

The writer of the book of Hebrews used the LXX as his Bible version. On the surface, the difference in his translation compared to the Hebrew seems significant. But the LXX was simply trying to make the sense of the Hebrew text clear to non-Hebrew speaking people. The Hebrew language is very colorful, much like the American Indian languages are very picturesque. Rather than presenting a word-for-word translation from Hebrew to Greek, the translators sought to accurately convey the meaning of the phrase.

  

So the meaning of the original Hebrew was captured by the LXX, and then carried faithfully over into English by both the KJV and the NIV, both capturing the LXX translation of the Hebrew translation of Psalm 40:6.

Once again, God demonstrates how He preserves His Word across time, cultures and languages.

         Ps. 119:89 Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.