I. A 2,100-Year-Old Bible Manuscript
Some Palestinian Bedouins had the good fortune of making one of the most important discoveries ever made in the Old Testament field during the past winter. In a cave near the northern shore of the Dead Sea they found big earthenware jars containing leather and parchment scrolls wrapped in linen and covered with a black wax.
Four of the scrolls were sold by the Arabs to the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of Saint Mark in Jerusalem, and the others to the Hebrew University in the same city. Toward the end of February, 1948, the metropolitan of the Syrian Monastery visited the scholars of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem and requested them to work on the manuscripts and publish them. Millar Burrows, professor of Biblical theology at Yale University, and director of the Schools of Oriental Research for 1947-48, made the first official announcement of the phenomenal find on April TI. This was after the manuscripts had been carefully studied, completely photographed, and brought outside Palestine, because of the danger in which they were in that unhappy land under present circumstances.
BOOK OF ISAIAH!—I was present when Prof. W. F. Albright, the famous Orientalist of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, announced the discovery to his students early in April, and showed them sample photographs of the scrolls and texts which had been sent to him from Jerusalem. Real excitement took hold of the small group of students, consisting of Protestant and Catholic ministers, and a few Jewish Rabbis, when Professor Albright said that a complete copy of the book of Isaiah was among the Hebrew manuscripts, written in the beginning of the second century B.C. The dream of Old Testament students has become true in finding a Hebrew Bible book, which was already two hundred years old when Jesus based His Sabbath sermon on the book of Isaiah while in the synagogue at Nazareth. (Luke 4:16-21.) This find is of tremendous value because its Isaiah manuscript is a thousand years older than the most ancient Hebrew Bible manuscript known so far. The oldest previously known manuscript whose date can be accepted with certainty, containing the major and minor prophets, is now in Leningrad and bears the date A.D. 916. Some other manuscripts may originate from the ninth century, as the Pentateuch in the British Museum, but they are withOut date.' One small leaf, however, which contains the Ten Commandments—the Nash Papyrus—was written in the late Maccabean time, about roo B.C., and constitutes the oldest witness of the Hebrew Bible text so far. Professor Albright, who established the date of the Nash Papyrus, is convinced that the new manuscripts are far older and were written in the first half of the second century B.C.' Dr. E. L. Sukenik's independent study of the scrolls in the possession of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem roughly agrees with Albright' s view in stating that they are over two thousand years old.
G. E. Wright, professor of Old Testament at the McCormick Theological Seminary, has already pointed out that the newly discovered Isaiah text disproves one theory of the higher critics who taught that the last chapters of Isaiah had not been written before 200 B.c. A preliminary study of the text shows, furthermore, that this text agrees with the known Bible text on the whole, although some parts seem to support the readings of the Septuagint more than the Hebrew Masoretic text. The orthography is archaic and provides the proof for the first time that the copyists of pre-Masoretic times used the current spelling in producing new copies of the Hebrew Old Testament. This fact disproves the theory that the present form of the Hebrew Bible text reveals its age. It has been said, for instance, that the book of Daniel could not have been written before the third century B.C., because the language of the book with its grammar and orthography belongs in that century. The new find shows, however, that the text was adapted to a more modern spelling and grammar from time to time, just as the modern Bible editions are revised regularly to fit the current usage in spelling and expression.
HABAKKUK.—Besides the book of Isaiah, a commentary to the book of Habakkuk was among the scrolls, and a manual of discipline of an unknown Jewish sect. The fourth scroll bought by the Syrian Monastery has not, been identified yet, because it was in such a precarious state of preservation that it has not been unrolled for fear of its crumbling into dust.
OTHER BOOKS.—Of the books which are in the possession of the Hebrew University, in Jerusalem very little is known because of the present political unrest and disruption of communications. But from a press report released by Dr. E. L. Sukenik, of the Hebrew University, it is learned that another "Book of Isaiah, a book of hymns similar to the Biblical psalms, and several apocryphal books never known in Hebrew, but only in Greek translation," are among the manuscripts. One text contains "a colorful description of a war between the Jews and undetermined enemies."—Biblical Archaeologist, May, 1948.
Scholars of the Old Testament are most grateful for this unexpected phenomenal discovery. Although Greek manuscripts of the New Testament books exist which were written only two hundred years after the death of their authors, students of the Old Testament long ago regretfully decided that they would never be in a like fortunate position as their New Testament colleagues. All ancient Hebrew manuscripts seemed to have been lost completely. This wonderful find will revolutionize the textual criticism and interpretation of the Old Testament, and antiquate many present theories.'
II. The Historicity of Mordecai
The historicity of the book of Esther has never been highly esteemed by modern theologians of the critical school. Although it has been generally recognized that the author of the book was well acquainted with Persian court ceremonial and customs, the narrative was usually considered to be based on legends. Many are the commentators who called the book a pious fiction or a historical novel.
A happy discovery made during the past war in one of the museums in Germany has shown that Mordecai was a high official in Shushan under Xerxes, so that Professor Albright, in mentioning this discovery to me recently, declared that this fact proves that a historical nucleus must be the basis of the book of Esther.
The text is a cuneiform tablet belonging originally to the Amherst collection, which Theo. G. Pinches had intended to publish fifty years ago. Pinches died before he had the opportunity of fulfilling his pledge. The collection was later dissolved, and its contents spread over various museums. When A. Ungnad worked on the tablets which had found their way to the Berlin Museum, he discovered that one of the texts records the payment of half a pound of silver to Mar-duk-a, the sipir of U.itanni in Shushan. Uitanni is known from other texts as one of the Persian satraps under Xerxes, and the title sipir is, that of an influential counselor.
Professor Ungnad says that it has been known for a long time that the Babylonian or Persian form of the name Mordecai is Marduka, and no possible doubt exists that both name forms designate the same person. If this is right, the conclusion is to be made that the tablet must date from a time when Mordecai had not yet taken over Haman's position, probably before he even held the responsible office in the palace gate (Esther 2:21), but when he was still a high officer in the local satrapy. But the fact that a man bearing the same name as the Biblical hero of the book of Either occupied a high government position in the same place and under the same king as the Bible reports, seems to indicate that the tablet speaks of the man who helped to save the Jews in a great crisis.'
III. Hittite Inscriptions
The Hittites are known to every Bible student, because of their frequent appearance in the Biblical narratives. But this nation had, nevertheless, been forgotten so completely in secular history that less than a hundred years ago critics of the Bible boldly stated that it had never existed. The discoveries of the last eighty years have changed this situation entirely, and today it is known that the Hittites were a great nation in Old Testament times, extending, their influence and power over great parts of Asia Minor and Syria.
The increase of knowledge concerning the Hittites is seen by a simple comparison of the length of articles devoted to this nation in subsequent editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The article on the Hittites in the eighth-edition of 186o consisted of only eight lines of one column, but in the latest edition of 1947 ten full pages of two columns each are filled with a description of their history, culture, and religion.
The excavations of Hittite cities have brought to light inscriptions written in cuneiform and in hieroglyphs. The first kind of writing has been deciphered with the help of similarity existing between the Babylonian and Hittite cuneiform scripts, but the hieroglyphic inscriptions have resisted all attempts of decipherment. After many scholars have devoted much time and ingenuity on them for more than half a century, only the personal and geographical names can be read with certainty, but the texts themselves are still unreadable. It has been stated many times that this situation would only be changed by a discovery of a bilingual inscription of which one language and script is known.
A discovery made during- the
Kst winter has finally provided long-sought bilingual inscriptions written in the Phoenician alphabetic script and in Hittite hieroglyphs. This discovery was made at Karatepe, a fortified hill at the bank of the Ceyhan River in Asia Minor, where H. T. Bossert directed excavations for the University of Istanbul and the museum at Ankara. He found the ruins of a border fortress of the late Hittite empire with a number of inscriptions on gates and palace buildings from the ninth to the seventh centuries B.c., mentioning the local king Asitawa(n)da as founder of the city which bore his name. These inscriptions are all bilingual. The left parts are written in the known Phoenician script and language, and the right part in the still enigmatic Hittite hieroglyphic form of writing. The population of the city probably consisted of Phoenicians and Hittites, requiring all official announcements to be made in both languages.
Professor Bossert, an authority on Hittite studies, is certain that both parts of the inscriptions have the same contents, and that it will now be possible to solve the riddle of the Hittite hieroglyphic script. All scholars interested in the field of Hittite history and culture are looking forward with keen anticipation to the publication of the inscriptions. They hope to decipher the text and find the key for the many inscriptions of the Hittites which cannot be read yet, and which are jikely to enrich our knowledge of the history of this people immensely.'
Notes:
1 Harry S. Gehman. "Manuscripts of the Old Testament in Hebrew," The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 8, (December, 1945)? P. 100; Frederic Kenyon. Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (New York : Harpers, 1940), PP- 44, 45.
2W, F. Albright. "A Biblical Fragment from the Maccabaean Age : The Nash Papyrus," Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 56 (1937), PP. 145-576.
The only communications published so far about the discovery of these manuscripts besides the press reports are : W. F. Albright. "Notes from the President's Desk," Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. rio (April, 1948), PP. 2, 3; G. E. Wright. "A Phenomenal Discovery,' The Biblical Archaeologist, vol. 9 (May, 1948), Pp. 21-23.
NOTE: The British archaeological journal Antiquity (no. 87, Sept., 1948, pp. 159, 160) reprints parts of W. F. Albright's statement from the Bulletin mentioned above, with unsigned notes probably emanating from one of the two editors (0. G. S. Crawford and R. Austin), stating that the additional information had been received by letter from Professor Albright. One note consists of a correction to the effect that only one copy of the book of Isaiah came to light ; the former statement that another one was in the hands of Dr. Sukenik had been due to a misunderstanding. The other additional note has the information that the whole find consists of ten rolls altogether, of which at least two are written in Aramaic.
The discovery of this tablet became known in this country only a few months ago, when the first copies of its publication reached American universities from Germany. A. Ungnad. "Keilinschriftliche Beitrage zum Buch Esra und Ester," Zeitscrift f hr die alt testamentliche Wissenschaft. Neue Folge, vol. 17 (1940-41), PP. 240-244; (1942-43), p. 219.
The first communication on this discovery besides press reports was made by one of the Turkish collaborators of the expedition, Halet Cambel. "Archaologischer Bericht aus Anatolien," Orientalia, vol. 17 (1948), pp. 255-261.
