Beginning in the 40’s, with the first discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, by a shepherd boy, archaeologists have uncovered many more caves and a whole community area. Within the Cave number 4, scrolls and fragments were numbered by the order in which they were discovered, amongst the scrolls and fragments of Hebrew and Aramaic documents, there were fragments of scrolls in Greek. The Greek fragments were of the Minor Prophets. You can see very clearly the Greek script, with Hebrew Script inserted in certain places. The Hebrew script is Paleo-Hebrew. The insertions of the Paleo-Hebrew, are of the name YHWH. The Paleo-Hebrew is varied, from the hands of different scribes. The Paleo-Hebrew is the same as that of the 6^th century BCE. Similar to that of the Arad Ostraca. The Greek Septuagint translation, which was done sometime around 250 BCE, was believed to have been done in similar fashion. The text was Koine Greek, with Paleo-Hebrew script for the name YHWH. Since it is not known, whether Greek texts of Scripture were done prior to the Septuagint, scholars can only estimate the time of these Minor Prophets fragments to be some time around 250 BCE to 70 CE.

YHWH written in Paleo-Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, similar to the Arad and Lachish ostraca examples.

Please see the Ancient Alefbeth Chart for comparison.

Also, please see the Thehilliym Scroll, also found at Qumran, for another example of the scribes retaining the name YHWH in the Paleo-Hebrew, while the rest of the text was in the more modern Squared Aramaic Hebrew script.

Kathryn QannaYahu