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Of the 900-plus scroll fragments found in the eleven caves at Qumran above the Dead Sea, some 200 are Biblical texts. So far, all but one book (Esther) is represented. The three most widely represented books of the Hebrew Bible are Deuteronomy (30 distinct scrolls), Isaiah (21) and Psalms (36).
Coincidentally, these come from the three traditional divisions of the Bible: Torah, Prophets, Writings. Yeshua alludes to the tri-fold Hebrew Scriptures in which "all things which are written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled" (Luke 24:44).
Of the twenty-one Isaiah scroll fragments found at Qumran, only one is complete. It is called the Great Isaiah Scroll, and was one of the original seven scrolls discovered in 1947. It is now designated 1QIsaa (which means: Isaiah manuscript "A" found in Qumran Cave 1). Scholars date the writing of the scroll to 125–100 BC/E, over a century before the time of Yeshua of Nazareth. The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) is 24 feet 5/16 inches (7.34 m.) long, and 10 5/6 inches (26.2 cm.) high, and is composed of 54 columns of text, written on 17 sheets of sheepskin (or parchment).
A link is provided to a 3-translation comparison in PDF of Isaiah 52:13—53:12 in modern English. The first is from The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (1996) edited by Abegg, Flint and Ulrich. The others include two Jewish Bible versions: Isaac Leeser's The Holy Bible (1865) and the Jewish Publication Society's Tanakh (1985). Also on this website is a photo-scan of Isaiah 52:13—54:4 from 1QIsaa — click Great Isaiah Scroll 53. For a sample of the 1QIsa Hebrew script see: Dead Sea (Qumran) Scroll Scripts. The entire Isaiah Scroll can be seen in a readable and seachable online format, produced by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Click here for their website: The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls. Other Qumran scrolls are included in their presentation. |
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Hebrew-Greek Transliteration [PDF]
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