There Was Never One Version of the Bible

John Barton, “Canon and Content,” in When Texts Are Canonized, ed. Timothy H. Lim, BJS 359 (Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 2017), 82–94 [p. 84].

Such editorial changes are rare in the MT for the Pentateuch, but some manuscripts from Qumran, the Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch contain extensive harmonizations. Editor’s note: See the discussions in Emanuel Tov, “Textual Harmonization in the Five Books of the Torah: Summary,” in Textual Developments: Collected Essays, Volume 4, VTSupp 181 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 172–192; and idem, “Textual Harmonization in Exodus 1–24,” TC 22 (2017).

καὶ ἑψήσεις καὶ ὀπτήσεις καὶ φάγῃ. This is also the solution found in 2 Chronicles 35:13, in its account of Josiah’s Passover celebration. Editor’s note: For more on this contradiction and attempts to solve it, see Robert Harris, “Korban Chagigah from the Torah to the Seder Plate,” TheTorah (2015); and the discussion under “Roasting the Pesach” in Isaac S. D. Sassoon, “The Stone Chumash: Reviewing Its Torah,” TheTorah (2022).

‏^{שׁמות כ:יא} כִּי שֵׁשֶׁת יָמִים עָשָׂה יְ־הוָה אֶת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֶת הָאָרֶץ אֶת הַיָּם וְאֶת כָּל אֲשֶׁר בָּם וַיָּנַח בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי עַל כֵּן בֵּרַךְ יְ־הוָה אֶת יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת וַיְקַדְּשֵׁהוּ.

^{Exod 20:11} For in six days YHWH made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them and rested the seventh day; so YHWH blessed the Sabbath Day and hallowed it.

^{דברים ה:טו} וְזָכַרְתָּ כִּי עֶבֶד הָיִיתָ בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם וַיֹּצִאֲךָ יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ מִשָּׁם בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה עַל כֵּן צִוְּךָ יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לַעֲשׂוֹת אֶת יוֹם הַשַׁבָּת.

^{Deut 5:15} You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and YHWH your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand an an outstretched arm. Therefore YHWH your God commanded you to perform the sabbath.

Editor's note: For further discussion, see Esther Eshel, “The Oldest Known Copy of the Decalogue?” TheTorah (2015); and Sidnie White Crawford, “The Many Recensions of the Ten Commandments,” TheTorah (2019).

John J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 198-199.

Editor's note: See Aaron Koller, “A More Religious Megillah: The Jewish-Greek Version of Esther,” TheTorah (2014).

All Reworked Pentateuch translations follow The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, ed. Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov, 6 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2004–2005), with modifications.

^{בראשׁית לא:י} וַיְהִי בְּעֵת יַחֵם הַצֹּאן וָאֶשָּׂא עֵינַי וָאֵרֶא בַּחֲלוֹם וְהִנֵּה הָעַתֻּדִים הָעֹלִים עַל הַצֹּאן עֲקֻדִּים נְקֻדִּים וּבְרֻדִּים. ^לא:יא וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלַי מַלְאַךְ הָאֱלֹהִים בַּחֲלוֹם יַעֲקֹב וָאֹמַר הִנֵּנִי. ^לא:יב וַיֹּאמֶר שָׂא נָא עֵינֶיךָ וּרְאֵה כָּל הָעַתֻּדִים הָעֹלִים עַל הַצֹּאן עֲקֻדִּים נְקֻדִּים וּבְרֻדִּים כִּי רָאִיתִי אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר לָבָן עֹשֶׂה לָּךְ....

^{Gen 31:10} “Once, at the mating time of the flocks, I had a dream in which I saw that the he-goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled, and mottled. ^31:11 And in the dream an angel of God said to me, ‘Jacob!’ ‘Here,’ I answered. ^31:12 And he said, ‘Note well that all the he-goats which are mating with the flock are streaked, speckled, and mottled; for I have noted all that Laban has been doing to you….’”

Unfortunately, this passage is badly broken, so it is not clear whether the dream account has been moved up from the conversation between Jacob and his wives, a technique we see in Reworked Pentateuch’s narrative of the daughters of Zelophechad (4Q365 36), which combines the two accounts in Numbers 27 and 36 into one free flowing story, or whether the dream appears in both places in the text, an editorial technique characteristic of expansions in the Samaritan Pentateuch. The insertion of a revelatory dream is also one of the changes made in the LXX of Esther.

^{ויקרא כד:ב} צַו אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִקְחוּ אֵלֶיךָ שֶׁמֶן זַיִת זָךְ כָּתִית לַמָּאוֹר לְהַעֲלֹת נֵר תָּמִיד.

^{Lev 24:2} Command the Israelite people to bring you clear oil of beaten olives for lighting, for kindling lamps regularly.

See Alex P. Jassen, “The Wood Offering Celebration—‘As Written in the Torah’,” TheTorah (2018). The wood offering is also known to Josephus and to the Mishnah. See also Marvin A. Sweeney, “The Three Shavuot Festivals of Qumran: Wheat, Wine, and Oil,” TheTorah (2018).

Each scribe’s handwriting is distinctive, allowing scholars to recognize manuscripts written by the same scribe.

Sidnie White Crawford, “Three Fragments from Qumran Cave 4 and Their Relationship to the Temple Scroll,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 85 (1994): 259–273. Since one fragment overlaps a portion of the Temple Scroll, which contains a very extensive account of God’s commandments for constructing the Temple (11Q19 3–13, 30–47), they argued that it might have been a source for, or a different edition of, the Temple Scroll.

See Molly M. Zahn, “4QReworked Pentateuch C and the Literary Sources of the Temple Scroll: A New (Old) Proposal, DSD 19 (2021): 133–158; Michael Segal, “Reconsidering the Relationship(w) between 4Q365, 4Q365a, and the Temple Scroll,” RevQ 30 (2018): 213–233.

Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3d ed, rev. and exp. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 174–180. Editor’s note: See also Tov’s articles on scribal and textual traditions: “The (Proto-)Masoretic Text: A Ten-Part Series,” TheTorah (2017).

See Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 15–27.

This stabilization of the texts appears in material found in the Judean desert; manuscripts dated to the period immediately after the destruction of the Temple, up to the time of the Bar-Kochba rebellion (135 C.E. that date to the period ca. 70–135 C.E.), all have a consonantal text identical to the medieval Masoretic manuscripts.