Evidence · Case 03 · Reliability of Scripture
Deuteronomy
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Sources
Israel Antiquities Authority
Cambridge University Library; a second century BC copy of the Ten Commandments and the Shema
Objections & responses
- The All Souls Deuteronomy (4Q41) isn’t a straight copy. It’s an excerpted liturgical text, and its Ten Commandments reads differently from both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, including a longer Sabbath command.
That is accurate. 4Q41 is an excerpt collection, probably for devotional use, and its Decalogue blends the Exodus and Deuteronomy forms. The honest description is the oldest surviving text of the Ten Commandments in an excerpted and slightly harmonized form. The harmonization itself is telling: scribes working from both books presupposes that both were already fixed enough to harmonize, which supports rather than undermines the stability of the underlying texts.
- Deuteronomy 32:8 in 4QDeut-j reads “sons of God” where the Masoretic Text reads “sons of Israel.” That’s a theological change in the transmitted text, not a spelling slip.
Yes, and it is one of the best-known substantive variants, where the Scrolls and the Septuagint preserve the older reading and the Masoretic scribes apparently altered it. Modern translations such as the ESV now follow the Scrolls here. This is textual criticism doing its job in public: the difference is visible, can be studied, and has been corrected in the Bibles people read. A hidden corruption would leave no such trail. Faithful transmission includes preserving the evidence of where the text once differed.