More on the Great Isaiah Scroll display in the Israel Museum

EXHIBITION: Ancient words unrolled: Israel Museum displays Great Isaiah Scroll. Rare four-month exhibition offers the first full public viewing since 1968 (Sharon Altshul).

This is a good review of the display, with a few new details. Regarding this paragraph:

Textual comparison shows the scroll is approximately 95–98% identical to the Masoretic Text in modern Hebrew Bibles. Differences are largely spelling variations or minor grammatical shifts. There are no significant theological additions or deletions.

That final sentence needs some clarification. I prefer to think in terms of "variations" rather than additions or deletions, so as not to pre-judge which readings are original and which secondary. Off the top of my head I can think of two variations in the Fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13-53:12) which could count as theologically significant.

The first is in 52:14, where the Masoretic Text says of the servant, "Thus his appearance was marred (משחת) more than a man." 1QIsa^a can be understood as saying, "Thus I (the speaker is God) have anointed (משחתי) his appearance more than a man." This could represent the first attested theological reading of the Fourth Servant Song as royal/messianic. I'm inclined to take it as a secondary exegetical variant, but I can't prove that.

The second is in Isaiah 53:11, the same Servant Song. The Masoretic Text reads "He (the servant) shall see (the result?) of the toil of his soul." The object of the verb is unexpressed. But 1QIsa^a includes a direct object: "He shall see light (אור) from the toil of his soul." One could make a case either way about the originality of the reading. Some English Bible translations accept it.

I'm not sure that the latter variant is theological exactly, but it does add vividness to the phrase. And arguably it may have influenced the light-darkness imagery of the New Testament Johannine literature.

I was about to press publish when I noticed this PaleoJudaica post from 2016. The fifth paragraph of my posted response to Catrin Williams's paper notes these two variants and more, all potentially messianic and therefore theological. And this post is also relevant.

For more on this Israel Museum exhibition and on the Great Isaiah Scroll, start here and follow the links.

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