Manuscript Evidence
4QTestimonia: A Scripture Anthology from Qumran
30-second summary
4Q175 (4QTestimonia) is a single Qumran scroll, copied by one scribe in the Hasmonean era (roughly 100-50 BC), that strings together Deuteronomy 18's 'prophet like Moses,' Numbers 24's 'star out of Jacob,' Deuteronomy 33's priestly blessing, and a Joshua-based line against a rival figure. It is physical, pre-Christian evidence that Jewish scribes were already practicing the same technique of excerpting and combining Scripture texts that the Church would later use - and call testimonia - to present the case for Christ from the Old Testament.
Scripture
[18] I will raise them up a prophet out of the midst of their brethren like to thee: and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. [19] And he that will not hear his words, which he shall speak in my name, I will be the revenger.
[18] prophetam suscitabo eis de medio fratrum suorum similem tui et ponam verba mea in ore eius loqueturque ad eos omnia quae praecepero illi. [19] qui autem verba eius quae loquetur in nomine meo audire noluerit ego ultor existam.
The Claim
4Q175 (4QTestimonia), a single-sheet scroll from Qumran Cave 4 copied by one scribe in the Hasmonean era (paleographically dated to roughly 100-50 BC), strings together Deuteronomy 5:28-29 and 18:18-19 (a coming prophet), Numbers 24:15-17 (a star and scepter from Jacob), Deuteronomy 33:8-11 (a priestly blessing), and a Joshua-based line against a contemporary rival. The excerpting-and-combining technique is the same one later Christian writers used - Justin Martyr, then Cyprian's Testimonia ad Quirinum (commonly dated c. AD 248) - and Acts 3:22 applies this same Deuteronomy 18 text to Jesus.
- Corroboration
- The scroll is a surviving physical artifact: excavated, photographed, catalogued, and held in the Jordan Museum's collection, with its quoted Scripture content matching the Deuteronomy 18 text reproduced in this entry. Its scribal hand is linked by paleographic judgment to 1QS and a Cave 4 Samuel manuscript, placing it in the Hasmonean era, decades before Christianity.
- Discovered
- Recovered from Qumran Cave 4 in the West Bank following the cave's discovery in September 1952, among the roughly 15,000 fragments and scrolls unearthed there.
- Current location
- The Jordan Museum, Amman, Jordan.
Why this level?
4Q175 is a surviving physical scroll: excavated, photographed, catalogued, and held today in the Jordan Museum, its Deuteronomy 18 wording matching the text quoted here. That anchors the core claim solidly - a Jewish scribe, writing on Hasmonean-era Qumran soil no later than the mid-first century BC, physically excerpted and combined Deuteronomy 18's coming prophet, Numbers 24's star out of Jacob, and Deuteronomy 33's priestly blessing into a single working document, decades before Christianity existed. Reading that scroll as an example of the excerpting technique the Church would later call 'testimonia' is an interpretive step this entry takes on top of the artifact - a reasonable and well-anchored one, but not itself independently attested by a second, unrelated source. That combination of a solid physical/textual anchor plus one interpretive step places the entry at Level 2.
Dig deeper
A pre-Christian scrapbook of Messianic texts
Among roughly 15,000 fragments recovered from Qumran's Cave 4 sits a single, modest sheet catalogued as 4Q175 and nicknamed 4QTestimonia. A scribe of the Qumran community - working in the Hasmonean era, roughly 100-50 BC by the paleographic evidence (dating estimates for the hand range from the early to the mid-first century BC) - copied out four blocks of Scripture with no narrative linking them: Deuteronomy 5:28-29 and 18:18-19 ("a prophet... like to thee"), Numbers 24:15-17 (the "star out of Jacob"), Deuteronomy 33:8-11 (Moses' blessing on Levi), and a citation of Joshua 6:26 paired with a line from the sectarian "Psalms of Joshua" (4Q379) directed against a contemporary rival.
The same hand, on paleographic grounds, is widely linked to the Community Rule (1QS) and to a Cave 4 Samuel manuscript - the work of one disciplined scribe assembling Scripture for a purpose. What he produced is a genuine anthology: passages about a coming prophet, a rising star and scepter, and a blessed priestly line, gathered onto a single sheet. This is the same basic technique later Christian writers used to build their case for Jesus from the Old Testament - Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho (c. AD 155-160), and then Cyprian of Carthage's three-book Testimonia ad Quirinum (commonly dated c. AD 248), from which the modern name "testimonia" comes. 4Q175 shows Jewish scribes doing this decades before Christ was born.
The overlap with the New Testament is direct: Acts 3:22 applies this same Deuteronomy 18 "prophet like Moses" text to the risen Jesus, preaching to the same Jewish audience that would have recognized it as one of the classic awaited-figure texts - the very passage this Qumran scribe had already flagged as significant. The Church did not invent the practice of reading Deuteronomy 18 as pointing to a coming figure, nor the method of collecting such texts into a single argument; both were already current in Second Temple Judaism, and 4Q175 is physical proof of it.
The scroll survives today in the Jordan Museum in Amman, recovered from Cave 4 after its discovery in September 1952 - a durable, inspectable witness to how Jews of Jesus' own era were reading and organizing these very texts.
Keep digging
Citations
- Academic
4Q175 (Testimonia)
Supports: Discovery in Qumran Cave 4; Hasmonean-era paleographic dating; scribal-hand attribution to 1QS and a Cave 4 Samuel manuscript; the document's structure (four sections, five biblical quotations); and current custody in the Jordan Museum collection.
- Archeological
Dead Sea Scroll 175 (Testimonia) photograph and description
Wikimedia Commons file: Dead Sea Scroll 175, complete, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman
Supports: Photographic documentation of 4Q175 as displayed at the Jordan Museum, Amman, consistent with its custody listing.
- Academic
Testimonia - West Semitic Research Project (USC Dornsife)
USC Dornsife West Semitic Research Project, 'Testimonia' entry on 4Q175
Supports: A dating estimate placing the manuscript around the middle of the first century BC, and a description of the document as five biblical quotations connected by interpretation.
- Academic
Three Books of Testimonies to Quirinus - Britannica
Britannica entry on Cyprian of Carthage's Ad Quirinum (Testimonia)
Supports: The commonly cited c. AD 248 date and description of Cyprian's Testimonia ad Quirinum as a later Christian scriptural proof-text anthology in the same genre as 4QTestimonia.
- Historical Source
Deuteronomy 18 - Douay-Rheims (DRBO)
Deuteronomy 18:18-19, Douay-Rheims Bible
Supports: Exact Douay-Rheims English wording of Deuteronomy 18:18-19, the 'prophet like Moses' text quoted in 4QTestimonia.
- Historical Source
Deuteronomy 18 - Clementine Vulgate (vulgate.org)
Deuteronomy 18:18-19, Clementine Vulgate
Supports: Exact Clementine Vulgate Latin wording of Deuteronomy 18:18-19.
- Historical Source
Acts 3:22 - BibleHub (Douay-Rheims)
Acts 3:22
Supports: The New Testament (Acts 3:22) applies the same Deuteronomy 18 'prophet like Moses' proof-text used in 4QTestimonia directly to the risen Jesus.