Endnote 10 – Is the Temple Scroll a Sixth Book of the Torah—Lost for 2,500 Years?

Dating the composition of the Temple Scroll to the second half of the fifth century B.C. results in some provocative suggestions for further research:

First: The Pentateuch as we know it from our Bible must have been finally redacted at least a century before the composition of the Temple Scroll; at least a century would be needed to develop all the additions and alterations of the text used in the Temple Scroll.

Second: Some scholars already noticed that specific aspects of the Temple Scroll are closely related to the Biblical Books of Chronicles—for example, the status of the Levites. The stage of development of the Hebrew language is similar in both Chronicles and in the Temple Scroll. These relationships and similarities are much easier to explain if both Chronicles and the Temple Scroll are contemporaneous compositions, but they would be puzzling if the Temple Scroll was composed about three centuries later as supposed by Yadin and those who agree with him.

Third: Over the centuries, even Palestinian Jews no longer continued to regard the Temple Scroll as a canonical book, as the sixth book of the Torah, as it was in the mind of its author. Nevertheless, the preserved text of Yadin’s Temple Scroll demonstrates the way in which some priestly families at the Jerusalem Temple interpreted, augmented and used the canonical Pentateuch during the first century of the Second Temple period. This insight will enable us to understand much better the way priestly teaching developed at the Jerusalem Temple before Ezra returned there.