“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.

When Was Jesus Crucified?

Biblegems #178

Question: When Was Jesus Crucified? The Gospel of Mark says it was the third hour, but John seems to suggest it was the sixth hour.

Mark 15:25 reads: It was the third hour when they crucified him.

John 19:14-16 reads: It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews. But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.

Most likely, John's Gospel best reflects the actual timing of the crucifixion. Here are the three possible answers to this apparent contradiction that have been suggested over the years. Sound principles of biblical interpretation help reveal which, if any, of these solutions is correct.

Possibility #1

Some speculate that Mark used Hebrew reckoning of time, while John used the Roman system. In that case, John’s “sixth hour” would be 6 AM, not twelve noon, and the three hours between 6 AM and Mark’s 9 AM would be taken up with the beating, whipping and preparations for the crucifixion. While this is not unreasonable in itself, there is absolutely no evidence in John’s Gospel to suggest he, as a Jew, was thinking in terms of Roman time.

Possibility #2

Others suggest that verse 25 was not in Mark’s original Gospel but was added later when the document was being copied for circulation throughout the early Christian church. Occurrences of this type of error in copying are known as a “gloss.” This happens when a scribe or copyist makes a side note on the margin of the document being copied, and a later copyist mistakes the side note as part of the original text. This is certainly possible, especially considering the fact that Mark is the earliest of the Gospels, and Matthew and Luke seem to draw on Mark’s time-line for the passion and crucifixion events, yet neither mention the “third hour” of Mark 15:25.

Possibility #3

This solution also looks to copyist error as the likely culprit. In this case, the Greek letter gamma was originally in its lower case form and doubled (gamma gamma), which indicates the number “6.” An early copyist mistakenly replaced the lower case with an upper case gamma, which indicates the number “3.” This would be a very easy mistake to make when copying by hand, and examples of this kind of error can be found in ancient manuscripts.

The last two solutions point to an “error of transmission”—an error that was not part of Mark’s original manuscript. This is human error in copying, not a mistake in the Word of God as Mark first wrote it down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Bible translators today have available to them a vast number of ancient manuscripts, where one can be compared against others with relative ease. This process is of immense help in recognizing copy errors that do occasionally arise. While errors in copying do take place from time to time, such “errors of transmission” never affect doctrine. God’s Word is trustworthy and true!

For more on the origins and authority of the Bible, please check out Bible Gems #172, 165, 149, 110, 105, 83, 64, 60, 59, 53, 31, 6. 

Duplicated Bible Chapters—follow-up

Biblegems #172

Question: A Bible Gems reader asked this question from Bible Gems #105, Duplicated Bible Chapters:  “There are duplications where the authors were more than a hundred years apart. Since they couldn't be eye witnesses what does it mean??”

The original question had to do specifically with the duplication of entire chapters of Scripture, so I am assuming the follow-up question still has duplicated Bible chapters in view. Here are some examples of duplicated Bible chapters, or large chapter portions:

         Psalms 14 & Psalm 53

         2 Kings 19 & Isaiah 37

         2 Kings 18:13-20:11 & Isaiah 36:1-38:8

2 Kings 24:18-25:30 & Jeremiah 52

Psalm 40:13-17 & Psalm 70

Psalm 57:7-11 & Psalm 60:5-12 & Psalm 108

As was mentioned in Duplicated Bible Chapters, part 1, Kings and Chronicles contain material common to both books. These, along with 1 & 2 Samuel, are books that cover hundreds of years of Israelite history. And even though 1 & 2 Samuel were originally one book in the Hebrew Bible, as were the books of 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles, they were not each written by one human author. Rather, they contain the records of kings, scribes, prophets and court officials.

These records were then compiled by men led by the Holy Spirit to show the spiritual meaning behind historical events.

         2Tim. 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness…

The books of Samuel reveal what happens when God’s people trust their own judgment instead of God’s in the choice of a leader. Kings and Chronicles, each through a unique perspective, show how God blesses godly and obedient nations and their leaders, punishing the disobedient, as He exercises ultimate control over the flow of history to His predetermined conclusion.

It should be no surprise that the human authors of these books would draw on some of the same reliable historical records, even duplicating them, especially when reporting events taking place long past. Such duplication demonstrates that the author is not making things up as he goes along.

A good example of this is where the prophet Jeremiah describes how the reign of king Zedekiah was the primary cause behind the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587-586 B.C. (Jeremiah 52). In fact, Jeremiah himself had even described this once before (Jeremiah 39:1-14), like a preacher re-using information from a previous sermon. This same material is found twice more in the Bible (2 Kings 25; 2 Chronicles 36:11-21).

The book of Kings was completed very near the same time as Jeremiah. Chronicles, however, was completed much later, perhaps around 400 B.C.—almost two hundred years later. The author of Chronicles (Ezra?) was not an eyewitness of the events leading to Jerusalem’s destruction. But he did have the reliable accounts of Jeremiah (an eyewitness) and the complimentary record in the book of Kings to draw upon as his sources. This shows how committed he was to giving an accurate account.

You can trust the Bible to be historically accurate. God is not afraid of being proved wrong. God’s revelation to humanity through the inspired Word is based in the real world of historically and scientifically verifiable events.

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