Objection · Case 03 · Reliability of Scripture

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.

One objection from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.

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Response

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.

About this exhibit

This objection is to Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy is the second most copied book at Qumran, with roughly 30 to 37 copies. One of them, 4Q41, known as the All Souls Deuteronomy, preserves one of the oldest surviving copies of the Ten…

Under Claim 02: The Dead Sea Scrolls show the Old Testament text was copied with remarkable stability across about a thousand years, alongside a documented plurality of text forms.