Building the Bible · Stop 2 of 9
Stop 2. The ground breaks open: the Dead Sea Scrolls
Before 1947, the oldest big Hebrew copies of the Old Testament came from about nine hundred to a thousand years after Jesus. Then scrolls were found in caves near the Dead Sea, and more turned up over the next nine years.
Those scrolls pushed our oldest Hebrew copies back by a thousand years or more. The good news came first. The Great Isaiah Scroll, from about 125 BC, agrees closely with the standard Hebrew text. The scribes copied with great care.
Then came the surprise. The scrolls show that the Hebrew text was already being copied in more than one form. In a few places, they agree with the old Greek Bible against the standard Hebrew text.
Isaiah 53:11 is one place. Deuteronomy 32:8 is another. The standard Hebrew says the nations were divided by the number of the "sons of Israel." The scrolls say "sons of God." The Greek says "angels of God" in most copies. Both point to heavenly beings. Five modern Bibles put the older wording in their text: the ESV ("sons of God"), the NET ("heavenly assembly"), the NLT ("heavenly court"), the NRSV ("the gods") and the NABRE. The KJV (King James Version) follows the standard text with no note. The NIV, the NKJV, the CSB and the 2020 NASB follow it too, and they tell you about the older wording in a footnote.
In 2025, a team of scientists dated the scrolls again. They used carbon dating, which is a way to measure how old something is, on 30 manuscripts. Then they trained a computer program that studies handwriting and used it to date 135 more. They found that the old handwriting dates were often too young. Many scrolls are older than people thought.
What the scrolls do not do is show that the Bible was lost or changed. A few places where copies differ is what you would expect after two thousand years of copying by hand. The surprise would be if there were none. And the scrolls give us something priceless: older witnesses to compare.
On the tree, this is box 2.
The tree as text
Title and subtitle
- The Bible Tree. Every Bible on the shelf grows from the same roots. The Old Testament is where the branches split, most sharply in the 1500s.
Roots (below ground: no original survives, the deeper the root the older the copy)
Old Testament roots, Hebrew and Aramaic:
- Dead Sea Scrolls, 250 BC to AD 68. Checked by modern Bibles at hard spots.
- Septuagint, Greek, 3rd to 2nd century BC. Main text of the Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles.
- Masoretic Text, Hebrew, AD 9th to 11th century. Main text of the KJV line and most Protestant Bibles.
New Testament roots, Greek:
- Later Greek copies, most of what survives. Main text of the KJV line and the Orthodox Bibles.
- Great codices, 4th century. Weighed by modern Bibles, not the KJV.
- Earliest papyri, about AD 125 to 250. Weighed by modern Bibles, not the KJV.
Trunk, the 4th century
- 27 New Testament books named (AD 367).
- Jerome's Latin Bible written (c. 383 to 405).
Four branches
Ethiopian, 81 books (by tradition; Geʿez, from the Greek):
- Geʿez Bible, 4th to 6th century
- Amharic Bible
Orthodox, about 76 to 77 books (Greek Old Testament):
- Brenton, 1800s
- NETS, 2007
- Orthodox Study Bible, 2008
Catholic, 73 books (Latin Bible, longer Old Testament). Jerome's Latin Bible, itself translated from Hebrew and Greek, stands two steps from the roots:
- Douay-Rheims *
- NABRE, 2011
- Catholic American, 2027
Protestant, 66 books (1500s: back to Hebrew and Greek). It splits into three twigs:
Received Text line (KJV tradition):
- King James, 1611
- NKJV, 1982
- Reina-Valera, 1960
Revised line (from the ASV, 1901):
- Living Bible
- RSV, 1952
- AMP, 1965
- NASB, 1971
- NRSV, 1989
- ESV, 2001
Fresh translations (from the originals):
- NET, 2005 (the project's text)
- CSB, 2017
- CEB, 2011
- NLT, 1996
- NIV, 1978
- CEV, 1995
- The Message, 2002
- Good News
- NIV Reader's
The box on the picture, "Where each branch gets its text" (v101: redrawn and checked; explained in Stop 4)
- Received Text line (KJV, NKJV, Reina-Valera): Old Testament from the Masoretic Text, the standard Hebrew text; New Testament from later Greek copies, the 1516 Erasmus text.
- Revised and fresh Bibles (ESV, NIV, NET, NLT and others): Old Testament from the Masoretic Text, with the Scrolls and Greek checked at hard spots; New Testament from papyri, codices and later copies weighed against each other.
- The NET (this project's text): Old Testament from Biblia Hebraica (Masoretic), with corrections from other witnesses; New Testament from a Greek text weighing all copies, departing in places from NA27.
- Older Catholic Bibles (Douay-Rheims): both Testaments from Jerome's Latin Bible, itself a translation.
- Modern Catholic Bibles (NABRE): Old Testament from the Hebrew, with Scrolls and Greek checked; New Testament from Greek copies, weighed.
- Orthodox Bibles: Old Testament from the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint); New Testament from later Greek (Byzantine) copies.
- Ethiopian Bible: Old Testament from the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint); New Testament from Greek.
- Under the box: The KJV never saw the Scrolls (found 1947) or the oldest Greek codices (1844 and later).
Notes at the foot of the picture
- * The Douay-Rheims is English made from the Latin Bible, which was itself translated from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. That is two steps from the roots, and each step can lose fidelity. Modern Catholic Bibles go to the roots.
- Leaves are translations; years are first publication, and 2027 is an expected date. Orthodox and Ethiopian branches are shown from the Greek Old Testament (Asale 2016; Orthodox Study Bible introduction).
- Canon counts: Bible Gateway (2026); the Ethiopian 81 is a tradition (Asale 2016). Roots and trunk: project sources and Bible Gateway. Lines checked 2026-10-27; see the sources page. Not shown: Syriac, Coptic and Armenian Bibles.
How to read the leaves (the box at the right of the trunk)
- A revision grows from an older English Bible: KJV, 1611 leads to NKJV, 1982.
- A fresh translation goes straight to the roots: Hebrew roots and Greek roots lead to the NET. No English Bible stands between them.
- Leaves on one twig share roots. They are not copies of each other, and their order on the twig means nothing.
Boxes on the picture
- 1. One trunk: by the 4th century the church had named the same 27 New Testament books. The Old Testament list is where the branches differ.
- 2. The Scrolls changed the roots: found from 1947, they show the Hebrew text in more than one form. Some Bibles follow them where the Masoretic Text differs.
- 3. The NET is a fresh leaf: made from Hebrew and Greek, not from an older English Bible. Its notes show where the roots disagree. A gold star and the words "The NET is here" mark its leaf.