The Dead Sea Scrolls and Hebrew
Scrolls from the Judean Desert give Hebrew (and Aramaic) copies from around the last centuries BCE to the first century CE, without Masoretic pointing.
What they are
Finds from Qumran and nearby sites, widely reported from 1947 on, include biblical books, rewritten scripture, and community texts. The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) is the famous nearly complete prophetic copy. Dating of individual scrolls is a specialist argument; treat popular round numbers with caution.
How the Hebrew looks
No niqqud. Spelling is often fuller (more ו and י as vowel letters) than the Masoretic Text. Some copies write the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew. The scrolls confirm that the biblical books were already copied as scripture, while also showing real textual variation.
Isaiah
For a language student
Learn the Masoretic Text first. Use the scrolls later as a window on spelling, the unpointed page, and why editions carry a textual apparatus. They are not a beginner's parallel Bible.
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Paleo-Hebrew script
Before the square letters, Hebrew used a Canaanite linear alphabet closely related to Phoenician.
Ketiv and qere
The written consonants (ketiv) and the reading tradition (qere) sometimes disagree. Both are in the Masoretic notes.
Aramaic in the Bible
Most of the Tanakh is Hebrew. Several stretches are Imperial Aramaic, written in the same square letters.