Objection · Case 03 · Reliability of Scripture

The Great Psalms Scroll has a different order, omits some psalms, and adds others, including a prose piece about David’s compositions. Some scholars think it’s an alternative Psalter. Isn’t that a different book, not a wrinkle?

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

Suggest a correction

Response

The debate between liturgical collection and alternative Psalter is real and unresolved, and wrinkle undersells it. What the scroll shows is that the last third of the Psalter was still being arranged in the first century BC while the individual psalms themselves were stable. Content was fixed; ordering was not fully fixed. That distinction matters, because it is exactly the sort of nuance a hostile reader will suspect is being hidden, and it applies to the Book of the Twelve as well.

About this exhibit

This objection is to Psalms.

Psalms is the most copied book at Qumran, with roughly 36 to 40 copies. The main one, 11QPsalms-a, the Great Psalms Scroll from the Herodian period, arranges the psalms differently and includes a…

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.