4Q41

Discovered in 1952 in a cave at Qumran, near the Dead Sea, it preserves the oldest existing copy of the Ten Commandments.

[2] It was later purchased for "several thousand dollars" on the black market by Frank Moore Cross and Roland de Vaux with money supplied by an anonymous member of the Unitarian Church of All Souls (Mr. Thayer Lindsley) in New York.

[8] Its script is unusually tiny and the letters waw and yod are almost indistinguishable, making some readings uncertain.

[12] The text of the decalogue generally follows Deuteronomy, but is in some places modified to bring it in harmony with the parallel version in Exodus.

[13] One significant variant, unique to this manuscript,[14] is the addition of the reason for the institution of the sabbath, normally found only in the account in Exodus.