SCIENTISTS FINALLY READ THE OLDEST BIBLICAL TEXT EVER FOUND

[Chuckz]

SCIENTISTS FINALLY READ THE OLDEST BIBLICAL TEXT EVER FOUND

Scientists have finally read the oldest biblical text ever found

The charred lump of scroll sat in an archaeologist’s office, impossible to read without destroying it – until now

www.independent.co.uk

 

[The Pixie]

It is impressive what they have done, but...

The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that’s in use today has is more than 2,000 years old.

Is that right? There are documents over 2000 years old in the dead sea scrolls; surely they would be earlier evidence?

 

[Komodo]

It is impressive what they have done, but...

Is that right? There are documents over 2000 years old in the dead sea scrolls; surely they would be earlier evidence?

The piece said that the Bible passages in the older Dead Sea Scrolls (from about 300 B.C.E.) were significantly different from the versions used today, suggesting that the canon was solidified in its present form somewhat later.

 

[Chuckz]

It is impressive what they have done, but...

Is that right? There are documents over 2000 years old in the dead sea scrolls; surely they would be earlier evidence?

"The Book of Leviticus (/lɪˈvɪtɪkəs/) is the third book of the Torah and of the Old Testament; scholars generally agree that it developed over a long period of time, reaching its present form during the Persian Period between 538–332 BC."

Book of Leviticus - Wikipedia​

The question is really how old is that manuscript and can we put a date on it? The question I put to one theologian was met with silence and maybe that's because he is busy running a church.

 

[John t]

"The Book of Leviticus (/lɪˈvɪtɪkəs/) is the third book of the Torah and of the Old Testament; scholars generally agree that it developed over a long period of time, reaching its present form during the Persian Period between 538–332 BC."

You should know several facts about that nonsense from wiki:

The author does not believe in Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; therefore s/he is a liberal

Moses wrote the Pentateuch c. 1500 to 1200 BC. The author therefore claims that it was written during the Babylonian Captivity by someone other than Moses. Stating that makes the entire Pentateuch a fraud. That is because the author claims that it was "sneaked in" after all the prophets wrote, and after the Temple worship began. thus it it as implausible as it is improbable.

Chronologically, the first book of the OT is Job, and the last book is Malachi. No, you are not "dumb" because you did not know that; instead, you have never read stuff about that previously

FYI as a way to help, the Babylonian Captivity began in 586 BC. With the dates in the BC time, we count "backwards" . Our time goes 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 etc but the dates going forward to the birth of Jesus, 590 BC comes first in this string:590 BC, 589 BC, 588 BC, 587 BC, 586 BC. It can be confusing, but it does make sense if you think about it.

 

[John t]

It is impressive what they have done, but...

Is that right? There are documents over 2000 years old in the dead sea scrolls; surely they would be earlier evidence?

Have you ever heard of the Septuagint?

That was created c. 330 BC, the time of Alexander's death by rabbis who translated the Hebrew scrolls and Aramaic (Daniel 1-7) into Greek, the language most folk spoke then, without boring you with details, suffice it to say that it was scholarly accurate, and meticulously true to the then-existent scrolls. Thus when we read the Septuagint today, it is possible to recreate what the scrolls of the scribes contained.

Unfortunately, scrolls wear our through usage, and if memory serves me correctly, I believe that the unusable (or worn out) scrolls were burned as a matter of respect. It is what we do with the US flag when it is tattered. As a result, it is very unlikely to be able to have scrolls in Hebrew, and Aramaic or of the Septuagint available today.

The issue of the Essene scrolls found around the Dead Sea is different. We can date these to c.150. John the Baptizer may have been a member of this sect. We know from history and Maccabees, that the Roman occupation was brutal, and the leader of the Jewish revolt, John Hyrcanus met his death at Masada when the Romans built a road on the side of Masada to finally end the revolt, c. 125 BC

These scrolls were hidden, sometime during the Roman occupation of Palestine for the purpose of safe keeping in sealed clay urns. The issue of use and wearing out is not a part of this narrative. Instead, the main issue is that of preservation, and the process of unraveling the scrolls to read / photograph them is the focus.

So there are several issues before us regarding "the oldest Biblical text ever found" and that means

a) the longest extant scroll​

b) the scroll with the most ancient provenance​

c) the oldest copy of the Jewish OT​

​

I have left out of the discussion c) because in 600 onward, the Jews published the Masoretic Text. It forms the basis for out KJV OT.

Most Jews and Protestants consider the Masoretic Text the authoritative Hebrew Bible (Protestants call it the Old Testament). While it was written sometime between the seventh and tenth centuries AD, it was based on the meticulously preserved oral tradition and the best available manuscripts of the original Hebrew text....​

​

Rabbis were still confident in the combination of written and oral tradition and took steps to make them more accessible without corrupting the original Hebrew texts. But by the ninth century, Jewish tradition was being engulfed by Greek philosophy, and a popular Jewish sect known as the Karaites (“readers”) was advocating for Jews to abandon the rabbinic tradition and read the “unadulterated” (or rather, uninterpreted) Hebrew Bible.​

https://overviewbible.com/masoretic-text/

Thus, it is a much newer product than the DSS. Nevertheless, people do not understand that in the Isaiah Scrolls of the DSS and the MT (700 years later) there is a remarkable correlation of the two. That is a testament to the accuracy of the scribes.

Due to wear and tear of the "longest extant" scrolls both a) and b) are irrelevant. the reason for that is that the Jews did not think of the scrolls as museum pieces; instead, they were integral to their worship. Remember Jesus reading from Isaiah in the synagogue?

As far as your article is concerned, it is safe to say that you misread it. The scroll was "carbonized" in 79 AD or about 200 years after the DSS were hidden away:

The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that’s in use today has is more than 2,000 years old...​

​

Scholars have believed the Hebrew Bible in its standard form first came about some 2,000 years ago, but never had physical proof, until now, according to the study. Previously the oldest known fragments of the modern biblical text dated back to the 8th century.​

The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study.​

"This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed."​

Scientists have finally read the oldest biblical text ever found

The charred lump of scroll sat in an archaeologist’s office, impossible to read without destroying it – until now

www.independent.co.uk

Read what I made bold red above. This is an absolute proof for the inerrancy of Scripture, and that, Pixie, is the most important take away from your post.

 

[The Pixie]

Have you ever heard of the Septuagint?

That was created c. 330 BC, the time of Alexander's death by rabbis who translated the Hebrew scrolls and Aramaic (Daniel 1-7) into Greek, the language most folk spoke then, without boring you with details, suffice it to say that it was scholarly accurate, and meticulously true to the then-existent scrolls. Thus when we read the Septuagint today, it is possible to recreate what the scrolls of the scribes contained.

I think the LXX was translated over a couple of centuries. You may be thinking specoifically of the Torah, which was translated first, around that time.

The issue of the Essene scrolls found around the Dead Sea is different. We can date these to c.150. John the Baptizer may have been a member of this sect. We know from history and Maccabees, that the Roman occupation was brutal, and the leader of the Jewish revolt, John Hyrcanus met his death at Masada when the Romans built a road on the side of Masada to finally end the revolt, c. 125 BC

Actually, it is generally believed the scrolls were sealed in the caves between AD 66 and AD 70, the time of the earlier revolt. However, that would mean the scrolls themselves are older. it is believed they have various dates from as long ago as 300 BC.

So there are several issues before us regarding "the oldest Biblical text ever found" and that means

a) the longest extant scroll​

b) the scroll with the most ancient provenance​

c) the oldest copy of the Jewish OT​

What is the difference between the first and second?

Most Jews and Protestants consider the Masoretic Text the authoritative Hebrew Bible (Protestants call it the Old Testament). While it was written sometime between the seventh and tenth centuries AD, it was based on the meticulously preserved oral tradition and the best available manuscripts of the original Hebrew text....​

I appreciate you are quoting someone here, but this reads as though the Catholic church use a different text for the OT compared to Protestants. I appreciate there are seven extra books in the Catholic canon, but besides that the text itself is the same, as far as I knowe?.

Thus, it is a much newer product than the DSS. Nevertheless, people do not understand that in the Isaiah Scrolls of the DSS and the MT (700 years later) there is a remarkable correlation of the two. That is a testament to the accuracy of the scribes.

Fair enough.

Due to wear and tear of the "longest extant" scrolls both a) and b) are irrelevant. the reason for that is that the Jews did not think of the scrolls as museum pieces; instead, they were integral to their worship. Remember Jesus reading from Isaiah in the synagogue?

Surely a) and b) are exactly the issue being discussed - what is the most ancient OT document?

As far as your article is concerned, it is safe to say that you misread it. The scroll was "carbonized" in 79 AD or about 200 years after the DSS were hidden away:

I thought you said the DSS were hidden away in 150 AD, so that would be 80 years after 79 AD.

The passages, which come from the Book of Leviticus, show the first physical evidence of a long-held belief that the Hebrew Bible that’s in use today has is more than 2,000 years old...

And the DSS do not do that?

The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study.

Okay, so it sounds like the text had changed between being recorded in the DSS and this later text then.

Read what I made bold red above. This is an absolute proof for the inerrancy of Scripture, and that, Pixie, is the most important take away from your post.

How does it prove inerrancy of Scripture?

All it shows is the text did not change appreciably over 2000 years, but the implication is that the text in the DSS is different, and therefore that it had changed earlier.

Furthermore, it says nothing about whether what is written there is actually true. That is quite a leap. Even when written in red.

 

[John t]

Actually, it is generally believed the scrolls were sealed in the caves between AD 66 and AD 70, the time of the earlier revolt. However, that would mean the scrolls themselves are older. it is believed they have various dates from as long ago as 300 BC.

Britannica does agree

The Dead Sea Scrolls come from various sites and date from the 3rd century BC to the 2nd century AD. The term usually refers more specifically to manuscripts found in 11 caves near the ruins of Qumrān, which most scholars think was the home of the community that owned the scrolls. The relevant period of occupation of this site runs from c. 100 BC to c. AD 68, and the scrolls themselves nearly all date from the 3rd to the 1st century BC. The 15,000 fragments (most of which are tiny) represent the remains of 800 to 900 original manuscripts. They are conventionally labeled by cave number and the first letter (or letters) of the Hebrew title—e.g., 1QM = Cave 1, Qumrān, Milḥamah (the Hebrew word for “war”); or 4QTest = Cave 4, Qumrān, Testimonia (i.e., a collection of proof-texts). Each manuscript has also been given an individual number.​

​

The documents were recovered in the Judaean wilderness from five principal sites: Khirbat Qumrān, Wadi Al-Murabbaʿāt, Naḥal Ḥever (Wadi Khabrah) and Naḥal Ẓeʾelim (Wadi Seiyal), Wadi Daliyeh, and Masada. The first manuscripts, accidentally discovered in 1947 by a shepherd boy in a cave at Khirbat Qumrān on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, were almost immediately labeled Dead Sea Scrolls. Later (especially from the 1950s to the mid-1960s) finds in neighbouring areas were similarly designated.​

Publisher Encyclopædia Britannica Date Published May 12, 2020
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint

Surely a) and b) are exactly the issue being discussed - what is the most ancient OT document?

Perhaps I was not sufficiently clear. My bad. I was thinking about Job. It supposedly predates the Pentateuch by so many years, and that is what I meant by using provenence.

How does it prove inerrancy of Scripture?

All it shows is the text did not change appreciably over 2000 years, but the implication is that the text in the DSS is different, and therefore that it had changed earlier.

That there were so many things that stayed the same 700 years apart speaks of the exactness and thoroughness of the scribes

 

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

The issue of the Essene scrolls found around the Dead Sea is different. We can date these to c.150.

Pardon?

John the Baptizer may have been a member of this sect. We know from history and Maccabees, that the Roman occupation was brutal,

What has Rome to do with the revolt of the Maccabees?

and the leader of the Jewish revolt, John Hyrcanus met his death at Masada when the Romans built a road on the side of Masada to finally end the revolt, c. 125 BC

Who was this John Hyrcanus that was involved in a Jewish revolt against Rome in 125 BCE? I am intrigued.

 

[John t]

Pardon?

Pixie believes that the Torah was translated in the LXX around Alexander's time, and the rest of the OT came centuries later. Since Alexander was c. 330, and the Romans came c.150 BC, that does not leave much time to have it done. I could be wrong.

Britannica says:

The Septuagint was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has established that the Torah, or Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament), was translated near the middle of the 3rd century bce and that the rest of the Old Testament was translated in the 2nd century bce.​

​

What has Rome to do with the revolt of the Maccabees?

I have my time line screwed up

 

[The Pixie]

Pixie believes that the Torah was translated in the LXX around Alexander's time, and the rest of the OT came centuries later. Since Alexander was c. 330, and the Romans came c.150 BC, that does not leave much time to have it done. I could be wrong.

What I said was "I think the LXX was translated over a couple of centuries. You may be thinking specifically of the Torah, which was translated first, around that time." and by "that time" I meant 330 BC, but looking at it again, it could have been a few decades later than that. According to Wiki it was completed by 132 BC, which would mean it took not much more than a century - but there is no reference, so I do not know where that figure comes from.

How that relates to what Hypatia_Alexandria was querying, which was the dating of the DSS to AD 150 I cannot imagine.

 

[Buzzard]

2 Kings 22:8
And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe,
I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.
And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.
...
11: And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law,
that he rent his clothes.

12 And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest,
and Ahikam the son of Shaphan,
and Achbor the son of Michaiah,
and Shaphan the scribe,
and Asahiah a servant of the king's, saying,

13 Go ye, enquire of the Lord for me,
and for the people,
and for all Judah, (Judicial = Lawyers = Goverment)
Woe unto you Lawyers, for ye shall receive the Double Damnation
concerning the words of this book that is found:
for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us,
because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book,
to do according unto all that which is written concerning us.


Dead Sea Scrolls
Discovered / found between November 1946 and February 1947

 

[En Hakkore]

The author does not believe in Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; therefore s/he is a liberal

This kind of dismissive labelling is neither fair nor productive. Rejection of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is a mainstream scholarly position and for very good reason... I would recommend Kenton L. Sparks' God's Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship (Baker Academic, 2008), specifically his section "The Problem of the Pentateuch" (pp 77-101). As can be deduced from the book title, Sparks is an evangelical Christian who believes the Bible is the 'word of God', yet he also accepts -- as do almost all biblical scholars -- the plethora of evidence for the Pentateuch being a pastiche of texts dating later than the conjectured time period of Moses. Scholars debate how the Pentateuch formed from various documents, not if it did --- that question was settled long ago except in the minds of a small clique of fundamentalist Jewish and Christian exegetes.

The author therefore claims that it was written during the Babylonian Captivity by someone other than Moses. Stating that makes the entire Pentateuch a fraud. That is because the author claims that it was "sneaked in" after all the prophets wrote, and after the Temple worship began. thus it it as implausible as it is improbable.

The Wiki citation to which you replied claimed that it developed over a long period of time and reached its final form in the Persian (not Babylonian) period... indeed, the contemporary mainstream scholarly position is not that a book such as Leviticus was written from scratch in either of these periods (that reflects the thinking of a much earlier generation of critical scholarship), but that its contents accrued over the course of centuries and reached a more or less stable form during the Persian period. It is important that you accurately characterize the current state of Pentateuchal scholarship, otherwise you're just swinging at a strawman...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

 

[En Hakkore]

I see that other posters have already engaged a number of problems in your post related to chronology so I'll focus on the major text-critical concern I have as it relates to your conclusion...

the Septuagint ... was scholarly accurate, and meticulously true to the then-existent scrolls. Thus when we read the Septuagint today, it is possible to recreate what the scrolls of the scribes contained.

The various translators were not nearly so uniform or perfect in their work as the above suggests... they sometimes misread or simply didn't understand their conjectured Vorlage. On average, however, their literal approach to the task of translation allows scholars to reconstruct their source texts reasonably well and sometimes LXX represents a better reading than that found in MT.

As far as your article is concerned, it is safe to say that you misread it.

To briefly comment on the article linked in the thread opener, the sensationalized claim in its title is flat out wrong as The Pixie pointed out in the first response to the thread... there are manuscript fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls older than the earliest date range suggested for this charred text, as is the so-called Nash Papyrus. Whoever wrote this article does not have a good grasp of the field of Hebrew Bible text criticism, which is why one should be going to reputable scholarly sources rather than the media. Furthermore, there were already proto-Masoretic manuscripts among the Qumran biblical scrolls so the recently-read contents of this find at En-Gedi do not alter our current understanding of the Hebrew Bible texts as they existed in the late Second Temple period.

The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study.

"This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed."​

[link removed]

Read what I made bold red above. This is an absolute proof for the inerrancy of Scripture, and that, Pixie, is the most important take away from your post.

Have you read Tov's book Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible? He would balk at you using his comment -- already irresponsibly used by the reporter -- as proof of biblical inerrancy since it is invoked myopically, ignoring the plethora of evidence -- including that of the Dead Sea Scrolls -- that render this doctrine untenable. Inerrancy is embraced by the same small clique to which I earlier referred in discussion about Pentateuchal origins... mainstream biblical scholars, including many evangelical ones, do not debate if there are errors and internal contradictions in the earliest recoverable forms of the biblical books, but what they tell us about how these books formed and the practices of scribes who copied them. As Komodo pointed out early on in this thread, the Dead Sea Scrolls (also) witness to divergent forms of the text, which demonstrate textual plurality in the Second Temple period, not the uniformity required by the idea of inerrancy. This brings us back to the LXX, whose conjectured Vorlagen represent at times radically different forms of the text. The text-critical evidence does not support your position... only by offering up a quote irresponsibly planted by an ignorant journalist of a scholar who doesn't agree with you in the least and ignoring all the counter evidence can you come to the conclusion you have. I would implore you to see reason, John... many Christians have escaped the strictures of inerrancy with their faith intact.

Kind regards,
Jonathan

 

[e v e]

As usual the learned pharisees have the podium. Sad.

 

[SteveB]

Amusing.... all the claims of the bible having been changed by politicians, for manipulative purposes, and here we have a document which the resaaerchers say---

The text discovered in the charred Ein Gedi scroll is "100 percent identical" to the version of the Book of Leviticus that has been in use for centuries, said Dead Sea Scroll scholar Emmanuel Tov from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who participated in the study.​

"This is quite amazing for us," he said. "In 2,000 years, this text has not changed."​

oops.
so much for the "politicians changed the bible" claim.

 

[En Hakkore]

Amusing.... all the claims of the bible having been changed by politicians, for manipulative purposes, and here we have a document which the resaaerchers say---

oops.
so much for the "politicians changed the bible" claim.

Unfortunately Steve, you are the one who is being misled by a sloppy journalist ignorant of the field of Hebrew Bible text criticism. I would encourage you, as I did John, to actually read the work of the scholar quoted in the article (Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible [Fortress Press, 2012]) and you will find therein many documented changes to the text of the Hebrew Bible over the course of its transmission. I don't find your denial of the text-critical evidence amusing, however, just sad...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

 

[SteveB]

Unfortunately Steve, you are the one who is being misled by a sloppy journalist ignorant of the field of Hebrew Bible text criticism. I would encourage you, as I did John, to actually read the work of the scholar quoted in the article (Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible [Fortress Press, 2012]) and you will find therein many documented changes to the text of the Hebrew Bible over the course of its transmission. I don't find your denial of the text-critical evidence amusing, however, just sad...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

As the article plainly stated that the text hasn't changed in 2000 years, I'm not the one having a problem here.

I will however say that unless your views regarding the resurrection of Jesus have changed since you were here several years ago, I'm not going to have this conversation with you.

 

[En Hakkore]

As the article plainly stated that the text hasn't changed in 2000 years, I'm not the one having a problem here.

The problem is that your knowledge of the subject at hand (Hebrew Bible text criticism) is as limited as that of the journalist and therefore you cannot appreciate the restricted nature of Tov's comment (the fragment in question) and how it has been irresponsibly used in the article to mislead people such as yourself into thinking it can be applied to the Bible generally when it was never intended to and, indeed, cannot be based on the manuscript evidence taken as a whole.

I will however say that unless your views regarding the resurrection of Jesus have changed since you were here several years ago, I'm not going to have this conversation with you.

For your benefit, Steve, even if you don't respond, and for that of lurkers, here is what Tov actually says about the text of the Hebrew Bible in the introduction to his own academic publication cited in my previous post:

Corruptions as well as various forms of scribal intervention (changes, corrections, etc.) are evidenced in all textual witnesses of Hebrew-Aramaic Scripture, including the group of texts now called the medieval Masoretic Text as well as in its predecessors, the proto-Masoretic (also named proto-rabbinic) texts. Those who are unaware of the details of textual criticism may think that one should not expect corruptions in M, or any other sacred text, since these texts were meticulously written and transmitted. The scrupulous approach of the soferim and Masoretes is indeed manifest in some of their techniques. They even counted all the letters and words of M. Therefore, one would not expect corruptions to have been inserted into the the text through their work, or corrections to have been made. Yet, in spite of their precision, even the manuscripts that were written and vocalized by the Masoretes contain corruptions, changes, and erasures. More importantly, the Masoretes, and before them the soferim, made their contribution at a relatively late stage in the development of the biblical text; at that time the text already contained corruptions and had been tampered with before the scribes began to treat it with such reverence and before they put their meticulous principles into practice. Therefore, paradoxically, the soferim and Masoretes carefully perserved a text that was already corrupted. The discussion in the following chapters will expand on the subject of these corruptions that occurred in all manuscripts of the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible, including the manuscripts of M. (pp 9-10)

Indeed, the next couple hundred pages of Tov's book documents these introductory claims with numerous examples. The evidence is there and you are welcome to keep ignoring it, if you so choose, but you do your religion no credit by so willfully turning a blind eye to it...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

 

[SteveB]

The problem is that your knowledge of the subject at hand (Hebrew Bible text criticism) is as limited as that of the journalist and therefore you cannot appreciate the restricted nature of Tov's comment (the fragment in question) and how it has been irresponsibly used in the article to mislead people such as yourself into thinking it can be applied to the Bible generally when it was never intended to and, indeed, cannot be based on the manuscript evidence taken as a whole.


For your benefit, Steve, even if you don't respond, and for that of lurkers, here is what Tov actually says about the text of the Hebrew Bible in the introduction to his own academic publication cited in my previous post:

Corruptions as well as various forms of scribal intervention (changes, corrections, etc.) are evidenced in all textual witnesses of Hebrew-Aramaic Scripture, including the group of texts now called the medieval Masoretic Text as well as in its predecessors, the proto-Masoretic (also named proto-rabbinic) texts. Those who are unaware of the details of textual criticism may think that one should not expect corruptions in M, or any other sacred text, since these texts were meticulously written and transmitted. The scrupulous approach of the soferim and Masoretes is indeed manifest in some of their techniques. They even counted all the letters and words of M. Therefore, one would not expect corruptions to have been inserted into the the text through their work, or corrections to have been made. Yet, in spite of their precision, even the manuscripts that were written and vocalized by the Masoretes contain corruptions, changes, and erasures. More importantly, the Masoretes, and before them the soferim, made their contribution at a relatively late stage in the development of the biblical text; at that time the text already contained corruptions and had been tampered with before the scribes began to treat it with such reverence and before they put their meticulous principles into practice. Therefore, paradoxically, the soferim and Masoretes carefully perserved a text that was already corrupted. The discussion in the following chapters will expand on the subject of these corruptions that occurred in all manuscripts of the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible, including the manuscripts of M. (pp 9-10)

Indeed, the next couple hundred pages of Tov's book documents these introductory claims with numerous examples. The evidence is there and you are welcome to keep ignoring it, if you so choose, but you do your religion no credit by so willfully turning a blind eye to it...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

Wow....
For an individual who claims to have such a high level of education, I'm surprised that you have missed it.

The person who made the statement about the identicality of this new find, and the existing copies was not the journalist.

It was the Dead Sea Scroll Scholar, Emmanuel Tov, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.