Isaiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls

The appeal is often made to numbers as an indication of the surety of a version, e.g. 5000 manuscripts agree as against a small number of differing texts. Westcott/Hort tried to introduce the geneaological method to show the provenance of tramsmission of a single text-type, but have been refuted by many scholars (Burgon,Colwell, Lake, von Soden,Parvis, Aland, Zuntz, Metzger). They found it difficult to find a manuscript that could relate to a predecessor, let alone a family. With so many mixed-text types, the task of a translator remains one of wonder.

Hi, Cm, I haven`t access to the Facsimile edition (1991) but the DDS Uncovered--Eisenmann and Wise (1992) mentions the Facsimile edition in passing but contains no reference to Arabic material. Neither does the DSS--Wise, Abegg, Cook(1996) although there is a brief mention--'Ancient writings were also found in caves near the Wadi Murabba`at and the Wadi Baliyeh and in the ruins of Masada. Except for the Masada texts, the other discoveries came from times and milieus different from those at of the Qumran texts. Whether the Arabic text was left in the deposit at a later time, or was contemporaneous with the Bible texts is not countenanced. Maybe another Christian plot, huh?Re Whether fundamentalism is understood solely as a Christian concept would depend on your world-view. I think most cultures would accept fundies today as referring to groups adhering to the literalism of their Holy Book, and that would include Iran under the Ayatollahs, the Taliban, Wahabbism for openers. Unless YOU are in denial.

Hi, Cm, let`s take fundamentalism and Wahabbism to a separate thread.