Evidence · Case 03 · Reliability of Scripture
Genesis
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
About 19 to 25 copies of Genesis were found, including one written in the older paleo-Hebrew script. They date across the Hasmonean and Herodian periods.
Sources
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- Peter W. Flint, “The Significance of the Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 53.1 (2010), manuscript table (opens in a new tab)
Southwestern Journal of Theology 53, no. 1 (2010): 15-25
Objections & responses
- Nearly all the Genesis scrolls are small fragments. You can’t compare a fragment to the medieval text and conclude the whole book was stable.
True of each fragment individually; the argument is cumulative. Around twenty copies covering different portions of Genesis, all agreeing with the later text where they overlap, give a broad sample of the book across two centuries and many scribes. No single scrap proves stability, but two dozen scraps from different hands and decades, none of which shows a different Genesis, is strong sampling evidence. The claim is that nothing in the sample points to another version, not that any one piece proves the whole.