Manuscript
The Samuel Scroll from Cave 4 (4QSamᵃ)
Also known as 4QSama · 4Q51 · 4QSamᵃ
A Hebrew copy of Samuel that often agrees with the ancient Greek translation against the standard Hebrew — and answers a puzzle the English Bible had been carrying for centuries.
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Overview
The Samuel Scroll from Cave 4 (4QSamᵃ)(c. 50–25 BC (on the handwriting))— Cave 4, Qumran
It preserves large stretches of 1 and 2 Samuel, and its text repeatedly lines up with the Septuagint where the Masoretic text differs.
That mattered immediately, because Samuel is the book where the Greek and Hebrew diverge most. Before Qumran, scholars had to guess whether the Greek translators were paraphrasing or working from a different Hebrew. Here is the different Hebrew.
The most quoted case is at the start of 1 Samuel 11, where this scroll carries a paragraph about Nahash the Ammonite gouging out the right eyes of the Israelites east of the Jordan. The Masoretic text does not have it, and its absence had always made the chapter's opening feel abrupt. Modern translations now print or footnote the passage on this scroll's evidence.
Manuscript Details
- Date
- c. 50–25 BC (on the handwriting)
- Language
- Hebrew
- Script
- Square Hebrew
- Material
- Parchment
- Current location
- Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem
- Discovery year
- 1952
- Discovery location
- Cave 4, Qumran
- Contains books
- 1 Samuel · 2 Samuel
- Tags
- dead-sea-scrolls · old-testament · samuel · septuagint
Significance
The clearest demonstration that the Greek Old Testament's differences are often faithful translations of a genuinely different Hebrew copy, not translator's licence. It is also the rare case where a scroll changed what a modern Bible prints.
The passages the manuscripts argue over
The places where the manuscripts differ — the ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery, the three heavenly witnesses — with the case each way.