Evidence · Case 03 · Reliability of Scripture
Hosea
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Hosea is preserved within the scrolls of the Book of the Twelve, the collection that holds the twelve Minor Prophets together, known as 4QThe Twelve-a through g, along with the Wadi Murabbaat copy.
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
- 4QXII-a places Jonah after Malachi, so the order of the Twelve wasn’t fixed at Qumran.
Correct, and it is the same pattern seen in Psalms: the individual books are stable while the arrangement of the collection was still settling. The Qumran and Murabba’at copies attest the Twelve with the Masoretic content, and the Greek Nahal Hever scroll shows the same text being carefully revised toward the Hebrew in the first century. Order of books and wording of books are different questions, and only the second bears on the claim.