Dead Sea Scrolls Textual Critical Edition – Genesis

4QGenb, Mas, LXX: be gathered. 4QGeng has the variant spelling יקאו. Due to this just being a spelling variant, there’s no change of meaning to the text.

4QGenb, Mas: the heavens. 4QGeng reads לשמים meaning to the heavens. As this is being read in conjunction with the previous word מתחת, it changes the meaning from under the heavens to underneath the heavens.

4QGenh1, LXX: gathering. Masoretic and 4QGenb read מקום meaning place. Not a great change of meaning; two different nouns are being employed to refer to similar things, although one focuses on the completion of the command be gathered.

4QGenk, LXX: And the waters under the heavens were gathered to their gatherings; and the dry land appeared. 4QGenb, 4QGeng, 4QGenh1, Masoretic, and the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) omit these words. This was done either due to homoeoteleuton (ויקוו starts off similarly to ויקרא of v10), or omitted as superfluous.

4QGenb, Mas: third (plene spelling). 4QGeng reads the defective spelling שלשי.

4QGeng, 4QGenk: Lights (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic read מארת, which is either a defective spelling, or possibly represents an early development in the forming of noun-forms. The suffix ות- is what is usually attached to feminine nouns to make them plural compared to singular, however the vowel ו may not necessarily be used.

4QGenb, 4QGenk, SP, Mas: and let them exist. 4QGeng reads ויהיו meaning and they were. Slight change of tense, one indicating what something will be in the future; the other indicating what they actually exist as.

4QGeng, 4QGenk: signs (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic read לאתת. The same principle for the endings of feminine nouns, discussed in Chapter 1v14n1, apply here too.

4QGenk: lights (plene spelling). 4QGenb reads למארת (as in v14), and the Masoretic reads למאורת. All of them display differences of spelling - with the inclusion of omission of the vowel ו. You’ll see this throughout the writings found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

4QGeng: lights (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic read המארת. See notes Chapter 1v14n1, Chapter 1v14n3, and Chapter 1v15n1.

4QGeng: the smaller (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic have the defective spelling הקטן.

4QGeng: to rule (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic have the defective spelling ולמשל.

4QGend: the darkness (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic have the defective spelling החשך.

1QGen: let them swarm (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic have the defective spelling ישרצו. With their vowel system, the Masoretes usually pointed the ר in ישרצו as רְ or רֶ, to give the pronunciation re, and only once did they point it in ישרצו to read רֹ pronounced ro (Eze. 47:9). From the spelling seen in 1QGen, it is quite probable that the Masoretes were wrong in their vowel pointing for ישרצו.

4QGend, 4QGeng: reptiles (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic have the defective spelling התנינם. Like with the suffixes to feminine nouns (see Chapter 1v14n1), the suffixes to masculine nouns to make them plural is usually ים, but the י can be dropped and ם can be used by itself. We usually find in the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts that the plene (‘full’) forms of words are preferred to the defective spelling seen in later manuscripts, including those produced by the Masoretes.

4QGend: to their kinds (plene spelling?). 4QGenb and Masoretic read למינהם. The issue here is the fact that we could just have a change of spelling (inclusion/omission of vowel י), or the singular noun מין is here actually a plural, with the יהם- ending following conventional Hebrew syntax for plural masculine nouns with a pronominal suffix.

4QGend: them (plene spelling). 4QGenb and Masoretic have the defective spelling אתם.

4QGeng, SP: they shall. 4QGenb and Masoretic read ירב meaning let them.

4QGen-Exoda: she bore. SdeirGen and Masoretic read ילד meaning was (singular) born. The LXX and SP have were (plural) born. The best reading that account for the rest is that of 4QGen Exoda, which references back to Zilpah. During transmisison of the text, the final ה was omitted (probably by accident), to which the LXX and SP attempted to correct to have ילד be grammatically correct references to בני/sons.

4QGene: standing (plene spelling). 4QGenc and Masoretic have the defective spelling עמד.

4QGene, Mas: God. 4QGenj reads האלהם, which is probably just a scribal mistake.