The Dead Sea Scrolls: Genesis
by James Duguid | December 11, 2025
The Dead Sea Scrolls have come to visit the District of Columbia for the year. I’ll be arranging some trips to go see them, and putting out some blog posts about the particular scrolls that are coming to visit, and what significance they have for our understanding of the Bible.
The Dead Sea Scrolls originated from a community located in Qumran near the Dead Sea, in ancient Judea. The exact identity of the sect that lived there is a matter of scholarly debate, but they did have their own peculiar spin on Judaism. Some of the texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls are sectarian writings that outline their tradition, practices, and history. I’ll talk about some of those in later posts. Many of the scrolls, though, are copies of biblical texts.
Since the community is roughly contemporaneous with Jesus (it was destroyed by the Romans in 68 AD), these are the earliest Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament, dating a whole millennia earlier than the great medieval witnesses of the 10th and 11th centuries AD. Of course, periodic translations of the Hebrew text into Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Aramaic allow us to check in on the details of the text across the centuries, so the state of the evidence is not as dire as that statement might suggest. But the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with the first Old Greek translations, anchor the early end of that series, guaranteeing their significance for determining the precise text of the Bible.
Introduction to Text Criticism
Different ancient manuscripts of the Bible often have different readings of various letters, words, and even whole sentences and sections. Scholars use a discipline called “text criticism” to establish the best form of the text from the available evidence. Discovering this can be alarming to Christians, especially from traditions that hold high views of the authority of Scripture. How can we trust what we read in our Bibles, if the manuscripts are full of typos? In fact, differences in manuscripts are not our biggest obstacle in understanding the Bible. Differences in translation and interpretation present a much larger challenge. Jesus’ words at the Last Supper in Matthew 26:26 - “this is my body” - are perfectly textually secure, but this hasn’t prevented disagreement among Christians as to what they mean.
Variations in manuscripts do create some uncertainty in our understanding of Scripture. But we should become comfortable with some uncertainty. I appreciate the balance of the Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7:
All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7
We may contrast this view with two extremes: First, there is the view that everything in Scripture is clear. There should be no need for nuance in matters of biblical ethics, or rafts of distinctions in doctrine, for any simple believer may understand absolutely everything out of the Scriptures without the help of creeds, tradition, or PhDs. Second, there is the view that nothing in Scripture is clear. Everything is ambiguous and open to interpretation, requiring a learned theologian or a Bible scholar as an intermediary to make head or tails of it. In contrast, the Confession tells us the basics needed for salvation are clearly taught in Scripture, but other matters in the Scripture are more difficult, perhaps only accessible to the learned or wise.
When it comes to differences between manuscripts, we find a similar patterning of views. There are those who want to claim there is nothing at all to worry about here. Exaggerated claims are made about the similarity of the Dead Sea Scrolls to medieval manuscripts. Didn’t you hear that the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran is 100% identical to the Masoretic text copied one thousand years later? (Of course, it isn’t). On the other hand, some claim that differences between manuscripts mean that the text is fluid, infinitely malleable, a wax nose.
In my own teaching, I’ve tried to find a balance between assuring congregants that the text has been passed on with high fidelity, while maintaining that different readings make a difference often enough to be worth thinking about. I usually say that text critical issues rarely change the basic meaning of a whole chapter of Scripture, but that they often affect the meaning of an individual verse. There are some exceptions to this, like the story of the woman caught in adultery (wholly absent in some manuscripts) - but I think this is generally a good way to get perspective on the issue. It helps communicate that we don’t need to panic about text critical uncertainty, but if we do care about understanding a text deeply, on a verse-by-verse level, we will want to think about text criticism. It is just one of the kinds of uncertainty we have to deal with when we try to understand the biblical text.
In this blog series, I’m going to focus on the text critical differences which make the biblical manuscripts from Qumran interesting. But obviously there is a danger that by focusing on the differences, we might exaggerate the problem, and give the impression that most or every verse has the same kinds of tricky textual problems as the ones we will investigate. In fact, many text critical differences are not interesting, and make little to no difference to the meaning of the text. Spelling differences, presence or absence of “and” connecting sentences, or variations in which divine name is used are frequent but not massively significant. The text can accumulate quite a number of these sorts of variations without causing real interpretive problems – a consequence of the redundancy of communication.
For my first post, then, I’m going to look at 4QGeng, a fragment from a manuscript of Genesis which contains the first eleven verses of the Bible (minus what has been eaten away by worms and time). According to the notation used for the Dead Sea Scrolls, “4Q” indicates it was found in Qumran Cave 4, “Gen” that it is a copy of the book of Genesis, and the superscript “g” indicates it is the seventh such copy of Genesis from that cave, designated alphabetically, following “a-f”. This fragment of Genesis contains multiple differences with the later medieval text, but as we will see, these changes are not interesting, at least in the sense that they change the story or the meaning of the story in any way. This makes it a good test case for the idea that the Dead Sea Scrolls show that Scripture has been passed on to us over the centuries with high fidelity.
Before we get into the scroll itself, here is a guide to the kinds of sources for the Old Testament text we will be comparing it to:
- The“Masoretic Text” is the term we use for our great medieval Hebrew exemplars of the Old Testament text. Codex Leningrad, from 1008 AD, is the earliest manuscript from this group that is still complete, but in fact all the copies we have are extremely similar.
- The Old Greek is an early translation of the Old Testament into Greek – for the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), this translation dates as early as the third century BC. This translation used a Hebrew manuscript from a different text family than the one that was transmitted down to the Masoretic text, so it shows the most differences with the medieval copies.
- The Targums are Aramaic translations of the Old Testament made at different times – their precise dating is a matter of scholarly dispute. For the Pentateuch, the Targums we have are referred to as Targum Onqelos, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, and Targum Neofiti, alongside some fragmentary copies of other Targums.
- The Syriac Peshitta is a translation of the Old Testament into Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic) in the second century AD.
- The Vulgate is a translation of the Old Testament into Latin made by Jerome in the fourth century AD.
- The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Pentateuch maintained by the Samaritans, and it is noteworthy for identifying Mount Gerizim as the place where God must be worshipped. While this is obvious evidence of tampering with the text, there is evidence from parallels in the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Samaritan Pentateuch preserves important readings that go back prior to these edits.
Many of these sources are translations, and we should note a bit of complexity in using them – we need to back-translate to infer what the original Hebrew they were translating might have been. This can be a bit hazardous, and frequently apparent differences turn out to be due to translation style rather than a difference in the underlying text. But examples from the Dead Sea Scrolls make it clear that many differences in these translations do reflect diversity in Hebrew manuscripts. Scholars have to consider which explanation is more likely when evaluating the use of translations for text-critical evidence.
The text of 4QGeng
4QGeng contains Genesis 1:1-11. In what follows, I have made my own translation of the text. Missing portions are reconstructed in brackets with italics based on other witnesses to the text. I have bolded those places where there is a text critical difference with another important manuscript, and explained the differences in the following bulleted list.
4QGeng, lines 1-121 In the beginn[ing] God [created] the heavens and the earth. [ 2 Now the earth was void and empty, and darkness was ov]er [the face of the de]ep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, [3 and God said, “Let there be light, and there was light, 4 and] God s[aw] that the light was good, and Go[d] separated [between the light and the darkness.] 5 And God called the light “Daytime” and the night he call[ed “Night.” And it was evening and it was morning,] Day One. 6 And God said, “Let there be a firmament between the waters, and let it separ[ate waters from waters.” 7 And] God [made] the firmament and it separated between the waters which were und[er the firmament and the waters which were] over the firmament, and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament “Hea[vens.” And it was evening, and it was morning,] the second day. 9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens gather [to one place, and let dry land appear] and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land, “Ea[rth,” and the collection of the waters he called “Seas,” and God saw] that it was good. 11 And [God] sa[id…]
- In verse 5, a difference of one letter gives a different term for “day” than in the Masoretic text. Intriguingly, every Targum – all five for this text – agree with 4QGeng here, and the Syriac Peshitta may also support it. On the other hand, the Samartian, Old Greek, and Vulgate support the reading in the Masoretic text.
- In verse 7, the Old Greek has “and God separated…”, adding the name of God. This makes God the subject of the verb, when the firmament is more likely to be doing the separating here, as it is in verse 6. 4QGeng supports the Masoretic text, as does another scroll (4QGenb) and every other version and translation of the Hebrew.
- Also in verse 7, the Old Greek omits “and it was so.” 4QGeng supports the Masoretic text, as does 4QGenb and every other version and translation of the Hebrew.
- In verse 9, 4QGeng has a compound preposition instead of a simple one – essentially, we are dealing with two different versions of the “under” preposition, like English “under” vs. “underneath.” Targum Pseudo-Jonathan has the same compound preposition, while 4QGenb and the Samaritan Pentateuch support the Masoretic Text. One ancient Greek translation and some manuscripts of the Peshitta actually have “the firmament” instead of “the heavens,” but all other versions have “heavens.”
- Also in verse 9, the verb “gather” is spelled slightly differently in 4QGeng from the Masoretic text, this may indicate a slight difference in pronunciation but no difference in meaning.
- At the end of verse 9, the Old Greek follows “and it was so” with some extra content: “and the waters which was under the heavens gathered into their gathering, and the dry land appeared.” A Hebrew version of this extra content is actually attested in 4QGenk. But our scroll 4QGeng agrees with the Masoretic text, as do 4QGenb and 4QGenh, along with all other versions and translations of the Hebrew. Of course, these extra words repeat God’s command from the beginning of the verse in the indicative, merely spelling out the implications of “it was so.”
So in this short fragment of Biblical text, where roughly 60% of the text is present, we found three differences with the Masoretic text: A different term for “Day,” a different spelling of “gather,” and a slightly different preposition meaning “under.” We also looked at three places where the Old Greek differs from the Masoretic text – the most significant of these differences in terms of meaning is in verse 7, where the Old Greek has God separating between the waters, whereas the Masoretic text suggests it is the firmament that does the separating. In all three of these cases, 4QGeng supports the Masoretic text, along with all or the preponderance of other Dead Sea Scrolls.
This exercise shows how you can multiply text critical differences without substantively changing the meaning of a text – especially if you include spelling variations! For all the versions mentioned here, you get the same story whichever manuscript you read, whatever you decide on the text critical problems. Even the extensive addition in the Old Greek at the end of verse 9 merely makes explicit what is already implied by the previous “it was so.” Of course, text critical changes that don’t change the meaning of the text are more likely to slip by the eye of editors and accumulate over time. One would have to be pretty sharp to notice and correct a change of “under” to “underneath.”
I certainly don’t intend to give the impression that the Old Testament has no text critical differences that make a significant difference to the meaning of a verse. There are many examples of this. But I wanted to start with 4QGeng as a bit of a sanity check to keep us from getting carried away. This fragment does little to change our understanding of the Genesis 1 creation story, and in fact does more to confirm the version we all know and love. Most text critical differences between manuscripts are of this little persnickety variety. The overall story of the textual readings of the Dead Sea Scrolls does show the marvelously high fidelity with which the text has been preserved for the millennia between these scrolls and the medieval Masoretic text. The very real textual problems we have with some individual verses shouldn’t be allowed to drown out this overall point. In following blogposts however, we will skip over the more common text critical differences which have a minimal affect on meaning, and focus on those which have more significant and interesting consequences.