'A' is for 'Apple'
Hebrew poetry often makes use of a technique that in English poetry is usually only found in children's rhymes, such as the familiar nursery doggerel of "A is for Apple, B is for Ball, C is for Cat" and so on. This is the technique known as the acrostic, in whcih each line or verse commences with a letter of the alphabet. A classic example of this is found in the Lamentations of Jeremiah.
There are twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet and four of the chapters in Lamentations have twenty-two verses, each verse beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Chapter 3 has sixty-six verses and every three verses begin with the same Hebrew letter. Psalm 119 goes one better with 176 verses. Every block of eight verses begins with the same Hebrew letter and some Bibles actually write the name of the letter before each block.
All this found an interesting sequel in a Dead Sea Scroll conference that was held recently in Montreal, Canada. Here it was pointed out that Psalm 145 is an acrostic, but there are only twenty-one verses. The verse starting with the letter 'N' is missing.
One of the scholars studying the Dead Sea Scrolls has noticed that one of the manuscripts includes the missing verse. Verse 14 should read "God is faithful and glorious in all His deeds." The present verse 14 will then become verse 15.
The texts of the Biblical scrolls found by the Dead Sea have some slight variations from the Bibles we possess today, but there is no significant difference in meaning. The text we have today in the Bible is essentially the same as that written by the prophets thousands of years ago.
The first scroll was discovered in 1947, so 2007 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the finding of the scrolls, a propitious time for a convention on the subject. Eleven caves yielded some 900 scrolls, one of the greatest archaeological finds ever made and arguably the most important. The earlist scrolls have been dated to about 250 BC and the latest to AD 68, just before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman armies under Titus.
During 2007 some scrolls are being exhibited in several Canadian cities and are expected to attract around 400,000 visitors.
