The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls

The oldest surviving text from the Old Testament can be found on the Ketef Himmon scrolls, two silver amulets in the shape of scrolls which were discovered at the Ketef Hinnom archaelogical site in the southwest portion of Jerusalem’s Old City in 1979. The Ketef Hinnom scrolls are important artifacts in biblical archaeology, as the scrolls preserve pre-Exilic citations from the Book of Numbers and contain parallels to texts of Exodus and Deuteronomy as well.

The Location of the Scrolls

Ketef Hinnom is a Judahite burial site located at the place where the valleys of Rephaim and Hinnom converge near the old road leading from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. The site consists of several rock-hewn burial chambers based around existing natural caverns. The tombs were in use from around 700 B.C. down to the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587. The cave tombs also contained repositories for secondary burial, that is, storage areas for the bones of the long deceased, whose movement to the repository opened up room for fresh burials in the cave tombs. The two amulets known as the Ketef Himmon scrolls were found in the bottom of one such repository by Gabriel Barkay’s 1979 excavation of the site. The two amulet scrolls are known as KH1 and KH2.

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The Ketef Hinnom Burial Site

The Content of the Scrolls

Each of the scrolls contained blessings strongly reminiscent of the texts of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers. The text of KH1 reads:

    1. …] YHWH …
    2. […]
    3. the grea[t … who keeps]
    4. the covenant and
    5. [G]raciousness towards those who love [him] and (alt: [hi]m;)
    6. those who keep [his commandments …
    7. …].
    8. the Eternal? […].
    9. [the?] blessing more than any
    10. [sna]re and more than Evil.
    11. For redemption is in him.
    12. For YHWH
    13. is our restorer [and]
    14. rock. May YHWH bles[s]
    15. you and
    16. [may he] keep you.
    17. [May] YHWH make
    18. [his face] shine …

This text of KH1 contains striking parallels to several passages in the Old Testament. For exmaple, compare lines 3-6 with:

    • “showing mercy to thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments” (Ex. 20:6)
    • “showing mercy to thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments” (Deut. 5:10)
    • “keeping covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations” (Deut. 7:9)
    • “keeping covenant and mercy to them that love Him, and to them that keep His commandments” (Dan. 9:4)
    • “keeping covenant and mercy for them that love Him and observe His commandments” (Neh. 1:5)
    • The omission of “thousands” may have originally appeared on line 7 as in Deuteronomy 7:9.

Even more striking, however, is the text of KH2, which contains verbatim the text of the famous Priestly Blessing of Numbers 6:24-26. KH2 reads:

    1. -h/hu. May be blessed h/sh-
    2. -[e] by YHW[H,]
    3. the warrior/helper and
    4. the rebuker of
    5. [E]vil: May bless you,
    6. YHWH,
    7. keep you.
    8. Make shine, YH-
    9. -[W]H, His face
    10. [upon] you and g-
    11. -rant you p-
    12. -[ea]ce.

Here we can see a direct citation of Numbers 6:24-26, which reads:

The LORD [Yahweh] bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

Dating the Ketef Hinnom Scrolls

Gabriel Barklay dated the scrolls from the late 7th to mid 6th century B.C. based on stratigraphic evidence, as well as the fact that the text of the scrolls are written in paleo-Hebrew, not Babylonian square letters of the modern Hebrew script. Barklay later amended his dating to the late 6th century, immediately preceding the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by Nebuchadnezzar.

This dating was challenged, however, by Johannes Renz and Wolfgang Rollig, who argued that the script was in too poor a condition to be dated with certainty as paleo-Hebrew and that an Hellenistic dating for the amulets was equally as likely. The debate thus hinged on whether the scrolls were pre or post-Exilic.

Disputes about the dating of the scrolls went on until 2004, when a comprehensive examination of the scrolls was undertaken by the West Semitic Research Project of the University of California. The 2004 study used advanced photographic and computer enhancement techniques which enabled the script to be read more easily and the paleography to be dated more confidently. The 2004 study conclusively dated the Ketef Hinnom scrolls to the generation or two immediately preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, between 650 to 587 B.C., roughly paralleling the reigns of King Josiah and his successors, and the ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. This conclusion is the generally accepted consensus today.

The Significane of the Ketef Hinnom Scrolls

The obvious significance of the Ketef Hinnom scrolls is in their relation to the texts of the Pentateuch which they parallel, especially the Book of Numbers. Beginning in the late 19th century, proponents of the so-called Historical Critical Method of biblical interpretation had insisted that the Pentateuch was the product of post-Exilic Judaism, the authorship of which was then anachronisically assigned to earlier centuries. The Ketef Hinnom scrolls directly challenge this assertion by demonstrating the existence of these pentateuchal prayers and blessings in the century prior to the Babylonian Exile. We must be careful not to assert more than we can prove, however. The dating of the scrolls does not necessarily prove the existence of the Book of Numbers in the 7th century B.C., since it is theoretically possible that the Ketef Himmon blessing and the Priestly Blessing of the Book of Numbers both derive from an oral tradition that predates the Exile. Even so, the scrolls do prove conclusively that the Book of Numbers could not have been a complete fabrication of the post-Exilic scribal class as often asserted by the Higher Critical school. The texts of the Book of Numbers—as well as the texts cited from Exodus, Deuteronomy, et. al.—clearly predated the Exile, demonstrating the existence and vitality of Old Testament Israelite Yahweh-worship during the kingdom period.

Phillip Campbell, “The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls,” Unam Sanctam Catholicam, June 14, 2025. Available online at https://https://unamsanctamcatholicam.com/2025/06/the-ketef-hinnom-scrolls