“The Great Isaiah Scroll” 1QIsa(a)
Channel: Galen Currah
Date: 2017-08-05

“The Great Isaiah Scroll” 1QIsa(a)
The oldest manuscript of a whole book of the Holy Bible
www.wordwatchers.link

A leathern, hand-copied, Hebrew scroll of the entire, biblical Book of Isaiah, designated 1QIsaa, was discovered in 1947 in a cave near Qumran, in British-mandated Palestine. 

In the years following, fragments and pieces of some 20 other copies of the Book of Isaiah were found in various other caves.

Measuring 734 centimeters in length, 1QIsaa’s 54 columns of text contain all and only the 66 chapters of the Book of Isaiah, as scribes transmitted it through the centuries until modern times.

Mass Spectrometry radio Carbon dating conducted in the 1990s has determined that 1QIsaa was copied sometime between 230 and 250 BCE, making it to be about 1000 years older than all other existent copies.

Between two centuries BCE and 1000 CE, scribes copied and recopied the Book of Isaiah with astonishing accuracy. Most differences between the oldest and the latest copies consist of alternate spellings, equivalent expressions, scribal errors and corrections.

There are also a small number of variant readings that modern Bible translations have adopted or mention in footnotes. 

During the same centuries that 1QIsaa was copied, Jews translated all of the Hebrew Scriptures into Koiné Greek. This translation has come to be called the Septuagint.

At the start of his public ministry, Jesus Christ entered a synagogue where he opened the Book of Isaiah and read the following text from a Hebrew scroll similar to 1QIsaa:

‎רוח יהוה עלי יען משח יהוה אותי לבשר ענוים של חני ולחבוש לנשברי לב לקרוא לשבויים דרור ולאסורים פקח קוח‎ לקרוא שנת רצון ליהוה.

The Greek Gospel of Saint Luke recounts this event, quoting the same text from a version of the Greek Septuagint. In English:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.” Luke 4:18-19 ESV 2016

Those who heard Jesus that day tried to kill him, because he was making himself out to be the awaited anointed one, the Messiah of God.

Is it time for you to procure a Bible and to read for yourself this ancient Book of Isaiah? And then to read for yourself the Gospel of Jesus?