The Great Psalms Scroll (11Q5)
Summary
Forty-odd psalms from Qumran — in a different order from your Bible, with extra poems mixed in.
- Copied First half of the first century AD (c. AD 1–50).
- Written in hebrew on parchment.
- Kept at Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
- Contains Psalms (about forty, mostly from Psalms 101–150), Psalm 151, additional compositions.
Sources (3)
- The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library — 11Q Psalms · accessed 2026-08-06The Israel Antiquities Authority's own imaging of this scroll.
- The Israel Museum, Jerusalem — the Shrine of the Book · accessed 2026-08-06The holding institution's own record.
- Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (Fortress Press, 2012) · accessed 2026-08-06The standard handbook of Hebrew Bible textual criticism.
What it is
It carries about forty psalms, drawn mostly from the last third of the Psalter, arranged in an order that does not match the printed book. Between them sit compositions that are not in the Hebrew Bible at all, including Psalm 151 — which the Greek and Syriac Bibles do carry — and a prose passage crediting David with 4,050 songs.
Scholars read this two ways, and both are worth knowing: either the final shape of the Psalter was not yet fixed at Qumran, or this is a liturgical collection assembled for worship rather than a copy of the book. The scroll itself does not say.
Manuscript details
- Date
- First half of the first century AD (c. AD 1–50)
- Language
- Hebrew
- Script
- Square Hebrew, with the divine name written in palaeo-Hebrew letters
- Material
- Parchment
- Held at
- Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
- Found
- 1956
- Found at
- Cave 11, Qumran
- Contains
- Psalms (about forty, mostly from Psalms 101–150) · Psalm 151 · additional compositions
Why it matters
The passages the manuscripts argue over
The places where the manuscripts differ, the ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery, the three heavenly witnesses, with the case each way.