How do the scrolls from Masada compare with the traditional Hebrew biblical text?

The biblical manuscripts discovered at Masada are distinct from many of the scrolls found at Qumrān in their relationship to the traditional Hebrew text. While the Qumrān collection contains a wide variety of text types—including some that differ significantly from the standard version—the fragments recovered from Masada are practically identical to the received Masoretic text.12

By the 2nd century ce, the Masoretic recension had gained dominance over other textual traditions. The findings at Masada, along with those from sites like Wadi Al-Murabba‘at and Naḥal Ḥever, reflect this stabilization, showing negligible variants from the text that eventually became the authoritative standard for the Hebrew Bible. This contrasts with the earlier, more diverse textual landscape evidenced by the Qumrān scrolls, which illustrate a period when multiple Hebrew text-forms of a given book were still in circulation.123