One Letter, Two Readings: Cyrill von Büttner Reopens the Orthography of the Great Isaiah Scroll

When a Single Letter Changes the Meaning

In the Great Isaiah Scroll, discovered among the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls, a seemingly minor orthographic feature creates significant interpretive questions. Some plural nouns ending in -ot are written with a waw (the Hebrew letter representing the vowel o/u sound), while others are written without it. This is not random scribal variation—it is systematic enough to deserve scholarly attention.

The distinction between "plene" spelling (with the waw) and "defective" spelling (without it) might appear to be a matter of convention or scribal habit. But Cyrill von Büttner's research demonstrates that these orthographic choices affect how we read the consonantal text and, in some cases, whether a form should be understood as singular or plural.

Orthography as Textual Evidence

Why does orthography matter for biblical interpretation? Because the Hebrew Bible was originally written without vowels. Readers supplied vowels based on context, morphological knowledge and interpretive tradition. When we encounter a manuscript like 1QIsaᵃ that includes some vowel-letters (matres lectionis), those letters become evidence for how the scribe—and potentially earlier tradition—understood the text.

A plural form written with a waw indicates one reading; the same form written defectively might indicate another. In some cases, the defective form could theoretically be read as a feminine singular, creating genuine textual ambiguity that scribes resolved through orthographic choice.

The Great Isaiah Scroll as Laboratory

The Great Isaiah Scroll is one of the oldest complete biblical texts we possess, dating to approximately the second century BCE. It represents the Hebrew Bible from an era when the text was still in active scribal transmission, before standardization of the Masoretic tradition. This makes it an invaluable laboratory for understanding how ancient Hebrew scribes made morphological and orthographic choices.

The scroll is also notable for its consistent and thoughtful scribal practice—not careless copying, but deliberate textual work. When we see patterns in how the scribe handles plural forms, we are witnessing real linguistic and interpretive decisions, not accidents.

Implications for Biblical Hebrew

Von Büttner's work contributes to a broader understanding of biblical Hebrew morphology and the relationship between ancient manuscripts and the consonantal text we inherit. It also illustrates why careful study of the Dead Sea Scrolls remains essential for biblical scholarship. Each orthographic pattern tells us something about how Hebrew speakers and scribes understood their language.

The Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature recognizes that historical inquiry into Hebrew language requires precisely this kind of attention to manuscript evidence, textual transmission and the details of how language was actually written and used.