Fun Additions from the Dead Sea Scroll

Sitting in on a class exploring the Septuagint (usually abbreviated with the Roman numerals LXX), which is basically exploring the how to use the Greek Old Testament in comparison with Hebrew Bible.

Obviously, we end up talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls quite a bit (which is usually identified as a find for the Hebrew Bible, but they did also find a few fragments of Greek Old Testament material).

Looking at a DSS manuscript for 1 Samuel, they note a longer reading in the DSS that’s made it’s way into the NRSV:

Of even greater interest, 4QSam^a contains a narrative that is found in neither the Greek nor the MT. Between 1 Sam. 10: 27 and 11: 1, the scroll includes a unique episode about King Nahash of the Ammonites. Comparison of the NIV, which follows the MT, and the NRSV, which accepts the Qumran reading, displays the difference:

NIV	NRSV
They despised him and brought him no gifts. But Saul kept silent.	They despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace. Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead.
Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh Gilead.	About a month later, Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead.

Jobes, Karen H.; Silva, Moisés. Invitation to the Septuagint (p. 195). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

So that’s kind of fun.