> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.simpleliberty.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How We Work - 4Q Scrolls - URL: https://www.simpleliberty.com/how-we-work-the-4q-scrolls/ - Published: 2026-07-21T14:04:40.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-03T16:58:39.000Z - Description: Four questions. One standard: What is true, and what is best for the common good. - Author: David Russell - Tags: Resource Library, #https-www-simpleliberty-com, Newsletter, #Migrated-1787608380199, #Import 2026-08-24 16:54 ### In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd boy was looking for a lost goat near the Dead Sea. He threw a rock into a cave and heard something shatter. When he investigated, he found clay jars containing scrolls that had been hidden for almost two thousand years. The scrolls were discovered in eleven caves around Qumran. They contained biblical texts, commentaries, and community rules. These documents confirmed the accuracy of Scripture we read today and revealed how a community of truth-seekers lived. The Qumran community didn’t just preserve truth. They built their lives around discovering it, testing it, and protecting it from corruption. They understood something most people today have forgotten - that truth is worth fighting for. Worth sacrificing for. Worth building your life around. They were so committed to preserving truth that they hid these scrolls in caves, sealed in jars, protected from the elements and from those who would destroy them. Just as the Qumran community tested every text against the standard of truth, 4Q Scrolls invites you to test people’s claims - including your own - against four cornerstone questions before you make decisions or build your life on them. ### How to test any claim - including your own 4Q Scrolls is a critical thinking process. Critical thinking is the disciplined practice of questioning assumptions, evaluating facts and evidence, and reasoning clearly to reach sound conclusions grounded in truth - rather than accepting information at face value or defaulting to emotion, bias, or habit. **The desired outcome is to find the best solution for the common good** based on facts and truth today and into the future. The 4Q Scrolls process works for individuals, groups and even nations. ### The name The "4" names the four questions. They are the four corners of a foundation. Each one has to be solid, because if one gives way, whatever we build on it falls. The "Q" stands for Questions. It also stands for Qumran, the settlement above the Dead Sea where a community spent generations copying and preserving sacred texts - and where, in 1947, a shepherd found the first of them still sealed in a jar. That community organized its life around study. Their Community Rule required that it never stop: Wherever ten of them gathered, one was always to be studying, day and night, each relieving the next. Together they gave a third of every night of the year to reading and study. Not scanning. Not reacting. Patient, diligent work on the text in front of them. Scholars found roughly fifteen thousand fragments in [one cave at Qumran](https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/?ref=simpleliberty.com) \- about five hundred separate manuscripts, close to ninety percent of everything recovered there. Every scroll from that cave carries the same prefix: **4Q**. In scholarly usage the "4" refers to Cave 4\. For us it also names the four questions. We didn't plan that. We just took it as a good sign. We adopted 4Q Scrolls to remind us what careful work looks like - and how long it lasts. ### The structure Every 4Q Scrolls inquiry begins by naming what is being examined. Four levels of structure come before the four questions are asked: Issue, topic, claim, and sub-claim. ### ISSUE The broad area where problems are considered and solutions developed. We organize our work into eight issues: Republic, Culture, Economy, Elections, Environment, Health, Justice, and Security. (link) ### TOPIC A narrower area within an issue. Simple Liberty examines more than 50 topics across all eight issues. EXAMPLE: The topics of Elections include Campaign Finance, District Integrity, Election Integrity, Primaries, and Voting Access. (link) ### CLAIM A claim is the core assertion made by an individual or group, to be tested against its strongest dissenting claims. Within a topic, there is a list of claims. Consider one at a time. Claims are best when clear, direct, and limited to a single idea. EXAMPLE: A claim within Election Integrity is: Government-issued photo ID and signature verification should be required at the time of voting. ### SUB-CLAIM Sub-claims are the affirming premises made in support of a claim. Every sub-claim is tested through all four questions - Meaning, Evidence, Impact, and Solution. Validated sub-claims strengthen a claim. Sub-claims that fail weaken it, and enough failures defeat the claim. There are also competing sub-claims - dissenting premises that oppose the claim. We test those the same way. EXAMPLE: The photo ID claim rests on sub-claims like these: - In-person voter impersonation occurs. - It is undercounted by current detection methods. - It occurs at a rate that could change the outcome of a close election. **NOTE:** Similar to protecting our freedoms and operating a responsible government, our work is ongoing. Issues, topics, claims, and sub-claims get added, renamed, and revised as we learn more. So do our conclusions - but only on new facts. Not on opinions voiced more loudly or more cleverly. This is the structure. Now let’s consider the 4Q Scrolls process, where the four questions do the work. ### The four questions Each question starts with its number and category - drawn from classic debate vocabulary and established critical-thinking frameworks - followed by its 4Q Scrolls question. **WARNING**: Never assume a claim is true and then work the questions to justify it. That produces biased rationalization, not truth. AI often follows a biased premise as readily as a fair one. ### Q1 - MEANING | What do you mean? Meaning questions confirm what the person or group means by their claim. In conversation, use active listening skills. Ask. Listen. Reply with a summary of what you think they said. Repeat this process until you understand their claim. The outcome of Meaning is to sincerely consider the person or group’s opinion and understand their claim. ### Q2 - EVIDENCE | Why do you believe that’s true? Evidence questions gather facts that support or contradict a claim. Be alert - partial truths, exaggerations, assumptions, and lies are not evidence that supports a claim. If you are in a conversation - and it’s appropriate - use active listening skills again to confirm your understanding. Do not judge. Do not try to change their mind. Thank them for their candor. Then, on your own, do your research. AI can help you find sources quickly. However, it makes mistakes. AI models invent citations, misattribute quotations, and state outdated facts with confidence. Use AI to find leads, then open the original documents and read them carefully yourself. If you can't get to a primary source, you don't have evidence. The outcome of Evidence is to determine whether the claim is fully true, partly true, or unsupported. Not to judge anyone, but to discern the truth of the claim. ### Q3 - IMPACT | Who and what are affected? Impact questions consider what happens if the claim becomes reality - who and what are affected. Measure the change by magnitude, the probability it happens as expected, and the time it takes to implement. Every choice for something is a choice against something else. Every decision carries positive and negative outcomes - large or small. The outcome of Impact is to know who gains, who loses, and by how much. ### Q4 - SOLUTION | What is best for the long-term common good? Solution questions determine the best way to serve the long-term common good based on the facts. The solution may differ from the claim. This step brings together what Meaning, Evidence, and Impact produced - including your own research - so the solution is based on facts rather than opinions or assumptions. The outcome of Solution is to name the solution that the facts support as best for the common good - today and into the future. ### Want to see it? We are just getting started. Check out our current issues in [The Commons](https://www.simpleliberty.com/the-commons). Do you want more? **Volunteer:** Help us expand our library of Issues and proposed solutions. Email [info@simpleliberty.com](mailto:info@simpleliberty.com) with your full name and three ways you’d like Simple Liberty to serve the common good of all Americans. We will train and support your work on claims that interest you most, and are aligned with our purpose. ### Why we show our work Because our standards are: Find the best way. | Do the right thing. | Everyone matters. If we missed something that adds value to our research and solution to an American problem — let us know. We will edit The Commons - and anything we write - based on new facts. Truth grows stronger when it is tested by people committed to doing what's best for the common good. Like our Founders. **We can do this.** *Acknowledgments* *4Q Scrolls is partly inspired by Greg Koukl’s first two Columbo questions (str.org), which were themselves inspired by the Columbo television series; the classic CWEI and Toulmin models of argumentation; and the testimony of the Qumran community, whose scrolls remind us that truth must be tested, preserved, and passed on.*