Manuscript

The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll (8ḤevXII gr)

Also known as 8HevXIIgr · the Naḥal Ḥever Minor Prophets Scroll · the Cave of Horror scroll

dead-sea-scrollsold-testamentseptuagintminor-prophets

Summary

A Greek Old Testament from the Judaean desert that somebody had already gone through and corrected against the Hebrew — and that leaves the name of God in the old letters.

Copied c. 50 BC – AD 50.
Written in greek (with the divine name in hebrew letters) on parchment.
Kept at Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem.
Contains The Twelve Minor Prophets (parts, in Greek).

Sources (3)

The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library (Israel Antiquities Authority) · accessed 2026-08-06The Israel Antiquities Authority's own imaging of the scrolls.
Emanuel Tov, The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Naḥal Ḥever, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert VIII (Oxford, 1990) · accessed 2026-08-06The official edition. Cite-only.
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 parts of the twelve Minor Prophets in Greek, found in the Cave of Horror in Naḥal Ḥever, in a ravine used as a refuge during the Bar Kokhba revolt. More fragments were recovered by archaeologists in 2021.

The Greek is not the plain Septuagint. It has been systematically revised to line up more closely with the Hebrew, and Dominique Barthélemy's study of it in 1963 showed that this revision — now called kaige — lies behind several later Greek versions and behind parts of the Greek text quoted in the New Testament.

And the divine name is not translated. Where the Hebrew has the four letters of God's name, this Greek scroll writes them in palaeo-Hebrew characters, in the middle of the Greek.

Manuscript details

Date: c. 50 BC – AD 50
Language: Greek (with the divine name in Hebrew letters)
Script: Greek book hand, with palaeo-Hebrew for the divine name
Material: Parchment
Held at: Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem
Found: 1952
Found at: The Cave of Horror, Naḥal Ḥever, Judaean desert (further fragments recovered in 2021)
Contains: The Twelve Minor Prophets (parts, in Greek)

Why it matters

It shows Jews revising their Greek Bible against the Hebrew before the New Testament was finished — which explains why some New Testament quotations match neither the standard Greek nor the standard Hebrew exactly. The apostles were quoting a real, circulating text.

The passages the manuscripts argue over

The words used here: Septuagint

Septuagint: the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures made by Jewish scholars before Christ.

The places where the manuscripts differ, the ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery, the three heavenly witnesses, with the case each way.

Where the manuscripts differ, all 15 places →Every handwritten copy, shelved and in date order →