Hi guys,
saw this video today on the finding of the Silver Scrolls in Jerusalem.
An amazing video well worth watching if history interests you…
I was particular taken in by the method used in unroll the silver so the contents of the scrolls could be read.
The translators eventually realised that the silver scrolls contained ancient text from Numbers 6, and that its virtually identical to existing translations today.
They are an amazing testiment to the accuracy of biblical copying by hand over centuries B.C.
Of all the texts in the Bible, this one is particularly famous because it is also used in the inaguration of US Presidents.
What is even more interesting about this prayer…God gave it to Moses explicitly to teach the Israelites. It was a priestly prayer of blessing to the people, and one which we often use today in Christian churches for benedictions.
This prayer is the direct word of God spoken to Moses on how to pray a prayer of blessing.
The finding of the Silver Scrolls is a testiment to not only the accuracy of the Bible record, but a testament to the historicity of Moses and the Exodus. This prayer exists specifically because God taught it to Moses to pass onto the Israelite priests…and now we have it as a powerful benedictory blessing used for the inaguration of the most powerful leader in the world…amazing stuff.
I find this kind of stuff fascinating and very humbling.
24‘May the LORD bless you and keep you; 25may the LORD cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26may the LORD lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace.’
I don’t see proof that ages old documentation can be unblemished, just because some portion of it survives unaltered. Interpolation happens. Unblemished transmission happens.
thats interesting because the standard uniformatarian view is that what we see today IS representative of the past…so how do you manage to make that concusion goven the scientific approach is the exact opposite and supports this claim?
Also, the claim is about “evidences”…we also note that other archeological findings also support that the bible text has remained consistent over millenia.
Of the claimed errors in the bible and various translations, it is only about 1% that are not directly attributed to minor things such as spelling and grammatical mistakes. The biblical scholars ive listened too generally agree that these are of no issue.
So to answer your point directly, “blemish/unblemished” is not an argument that supports twisting the verses to suit a different belief (in this case that the Biblical narrative of Moses and the Exodus are not a real historical record)
The fact is, Numbers 6 is a verse that is given to us directly from the mouth of God of the Old Testament to Moses specifically…it is not allegorical in any way. It is as historical as the Lords Prayer in Mat 6 where Christ spoke it to the disciples.
Matthew recorded what Christ spoke just as Moses recorded what God spoke in Numbers 6.
Irony…both are in chapter 6 of the books in which they are recorded.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It is exciting to see new evidence that pertains to our Judeo-Christian heritage. I had never heard of the Silver Scrolls (600 BCE) that recited the Priestly Blessing in Number 6:24-26. The scrolls add to the authenticity of other ancient documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls (300 BCE), the Samaritan Torah (500 BCE) and the Septuagint (300 BCE). When placed alongside the dates for the writings/ redactions of the Torah by the Yahwists (900 BCE) and Priestly (500 BCE) writers we see an ordiliness to the evidence supporting the scriptures.
Scholars believe Numbers was a Priestly redaction done after the Babylonian exile in 520 BCE but done from an earlier original. Scholars also believe that the Yahwist writers edited Numbers 24-26. Since the Yahwists preceded the Priestly writers we could legitamitely speculate that the original which they edited could have also included Numbers 6: 24-26 but not edited by them. The Silver Scrolls push that original back to pre 600 BCE and possibly 900 BCE. Could the original have been Moses who would have written the Torah around 1500 BCE? Again thanks for sending.
The video claims more than can be established. To say that this is a piece of full-fledged scripture is more than the evidence shows. We have numerous pieces of verses from the New Testament writings that have single verses on them, and they are not considered to indicate that the entire book they come from existed; that is only done when there are pieces of other verses attached, either and the front or end or on a line above or below (or occasionally on the back; I was fascinated at how a tiny manuscript piece was identified as coming from the Gospel of John because the letters and words on front and on back correlated with what would have been written if the script was penned continuously on the front of a page and then the back). A complete verse with nothing else attached is not testimony that the entire book it came from existed.
It’s awesome, though, to see that the Aaronic Benediction was known and used intact as it has come down to us, from the first temple period; I remember reading some articles that claimed this benediction was an invention of scribes during the Exile or even early in the Return, and it tickles me to know that those writers have been smacked down.
That’s more than the evidence can support – all that these scrolls establish is that the Aaronic Benediction was in use c. 680 BCE, which is a pretty hefty blow to older scholarship claims all by itself. It’s quite possible (not that I believe this) that the Benediction itself was in use without the entire book we call Numbers having been in existence – it could well be an ancient blessing incorporated into a later work.
the Silver Scrolls (Ketoff Hinnom) predate any other extant writing we have. They are proven to be the oldest of any ancient biblical writing in existence presently.
Also, they are 800-600 BC …not 600 BC.
The importance of the above is that those scrolls were likely written during, or very near to, the time of the prophet Isaiah in about 700BC. It also tells us that they were certainly written at the same time as the first temple period when Solomons temple was still standing in the old city of Jerusalem. Those evidences make these one of the most (if not the most) significant archaeological biblical finds in modern history.
you see there is a little problem with that claim St Roymond…
the only known source of the benediction is found in the Bible.
given the only known source of its inception is biblical, and the bible also claims that it was Moses who was directly given these lines by God during the Isarelite time in the wilderness of Sinai…
academically, your research skills and comprehension as a result of sound research are failing you badly.
The fact that your entire scientific belief is based on hypotheses from which extrapolations about time are made, I’m surprised that you are incapable of accepting the same method when it comes to biblical historicity.
Whilst we are on that topic, since when do you as an evolutionist take the shorter time period? You are convinced that it must be 600BC for what reason? The dating method says 800-600 BC…is the radiometric dating method inaccurate there by 200 years or is something else at play in your mind?
Clearly what is actually going on there is that you recognise that Biblical history must not be allowed to go back too far, because the farther it goes back, the more it must be accepted as literal fact!
Now to dispense with the bull here, the reason why the silver scrolls date back to as much as 800 BC is because of the other artefacts found in the tomb…its these artifacts that provide support for a 200 year window. It appears that this important aspect of the case has been completely ignored…and i find that habit of yours to be quite dishonest personally. You have the brains to provide decent informative academic responses here St Roymond, however, what i find is the “Donald Trump” evidence (where there are no evidences actually) front and centre most of the time. If you wish to convince me my arguments are wrong, then you need to do so with my own evidences…that is the way this works.
i largely agree with this. Although, i think it should be noted, the scientific method does exactly that with Old Age Earth claims, and in that way, its the evidences (plural) that make up the theory.
Therefore your own criticism there is self defeating to your own cause in as much as it is to mine.
I am going to make a seemingly insulting observation at this point…St Roymond, do you not think it wise to “look in the mirror” before testing such statements in a debate because this one refutes your own method in its entirety?
And before you play the numbers/scale of evidences card…you have a mere 1% of the fossil record most of which are “not” land based animals…do you not? Therefore, most of the evidence you have is of water deposited marine life fossils…hmm strange, given these are found in same layers all across the world, isn’t a global flood a logical reason for this?(I’m not asking you agree its the only reason, just that its a logical one that may be considered)
That all depends on the level of “alteration” you are talking about. There are plenty of manuscripts of various biblical texts…and in some cases citations in ancient sermons, commentaries and so forth. Changes or “mistakes” did occur but there are (in a lot of cases) other manuscripts, commentaries etc around – that some idea of the earliest or original text can be developed. It’s a big subject though. I want to know more about these Silver Scrolls.
Thanks…I just located a Biblical Archaeology Review article from 2023…thanks for the wikipedia refs. Here’s a snippet from BAR
Both inscriptions contain blessings with striking parallels to the so-called priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24–26: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” The inscriptions on the amulets are badly damaged, making attempts to read their texts extremely difficult. Still, the presence of the blessings on the amulets makes them some of our earliest artifacts containing the divine name Yahweh.
Not true: the silver scrolls are a source older than any biblical manuscript ever found; they were not part of a scroll; QED they are a source that is not the Bible.
Trying to link them to the Bible might qualify as a hypothesis, but since the only evidence we have are scrolls that are much, much younger it is a hypothesis with not even an inkling of substantiation. To assert this hypothesis as true without any evidence is what is called “wishful thinking”.
Do I share that wishful thinking? That’s a pointless because irrelevant question; my wishes don’t count as archaeological or textual evidence any more than yours do.
Nope – they just keep me from using wishful thinking as a premise in logic.
Are you ever going to stop the lying? If I had ten bucks for every time I’ve caught you lying here about someone’s beliefs I could afford a brand new laptop and the gas to drive the hundred miles to go get it.
The only scientific “belief” I have expressed here is that people shouldn’t lie about evidence and pretend to be doing science, and the bit about testing the age of rocks in the lab (which doesn’t require any hypotheses or extrapolations, only honest measurement).
Doubling down on the lie doesn’t make it true.
Who said I was convinced of anything? Taking the most conservative date is quite acceptable in terms of scholarship.
Go read Deuteronomy 5:20 again, also Exodus 23:1a.
Nope – the farther back it goes, the less it must be “accepted as literal fact”, because the farther back in history the farther from any concept of objective history. Moses didn’t know a genre called “history” that used literal facts (and the sources he got Genesis from were even older), so if Numbers was written by Moses then it most definitely can’t be “literal fact”. Heck, even by the time of the Maccabees they weren’t writing history that way (though they were a lot closer)1
So? Using 600 BCE is still the conservative approach – and still quite devastating for the folks who (used to) claim the Aaronic Benediction was written during the Exile.
You don’t approve of being conservative in scholarship?
I provided a conservative response. I know that some scholars will reach for the date that best fits their presuppositions, but just as I was trained to not assert anything the text does not support I was also trained to not go out on limbs – and taking the conservative date is the way to remain closest to the “trunk”.
If I were to have offered a response in line with my wishes, I would have tried to find a way to link these scrolls to Solomon’s reign, but my wishes are not a valid guide for scholarship. Taking the conservative date is still devastating to those old skeptical scholars, and in fact more so than taking the 800 BCE date because there is no wiggle room for them in the 600 BCE date.
Maybe for you, but that’s not how scholarship works.
Since when are fossils found in manuscripts or artifacts?
My method is to examine the text. Since there have never to my knowledge been any fossils found in ancient manuscripts, or on text-bearing artifacts, I don’t see the relevance of bringing up fossils.
No, because you have to invent a lot of bad science fiction to make it work, and bad science fiction doesn’t belong in the text! Since the text does not support a global flood, I see no reason to indulge in bad science fiction.
The results confirmed a date immediately prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586/7 BCE.
There’s another reason for sticking with conservative dating – less likely to be embarrassed by further investigation.
I also note that the Wikipedia article’s information demonstrates that the silver scroll KH1 is not a direct citation from Numbers but has wording that closely resembles passages from two other books of the Pentateuch plus Daniel and Nehemiah – an interesting possible connection that provides material for some fun discussions.
