Addressing the Claim of the Torah's Perfect Copy
May 28, 2019 4:14:06 GMT
Post by Admin on May 28, 2019 4:14:06 GMT
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An often repeated claim is that the Torah has been perfectly copied, letter for letter, exactly how it was supposedly received by Moses, directly from God
A Sefer Torah (Hebrew: ספר תורה; "Book of Torah" or "Torah scroll"; plural: ספרי תורה Sifrei Torah) is a handwritten copy of the Torah, the holiest book in Judaism. It must meet extremely strict standards of production
All copies with mistakes get rejected, and or buried in accordance with strict law
A Sefer Torah (Hebrew: ספר תורה; "Book of Torah" or "Torah scroll"; plural: ספרי תורה Sifrei Torah) is a handwritten copy of the Torah, the holiest book in Judaism. It must meet extremely strict standards of production
All copies with mistakes get rejected, and or buried in accordance with strict law
The list of letters in the Torah given on the website aishdas.org gives 304,805 as the official count of letters in the Torah, this is also repeated for sites like Wikipedia as well as many sites oriented towards Judaism and Torah articles
" Did God give Moses a Torah with precisely that number of letters? We do not know for sure but we know that it was very close to that number. The reason we cannot be certain is twofold. First, the Gemara in Kiddushin 30a says that we are not experts in chaser and yeter. There are certain vowel sounds in Hebrew that can be spelled with (yeter) or without (chaser) an assisting letter. It is important to note that the presence or absence of this letter make no difference in terms of meaning and pronunciation. The words and verses mean exactly the same whether they are spelled chaser or yeter, which may be how these uncertainties crept in. Because of this, there are certain discrepancies between even good versions of the Torah in this respect. Beginning in the 8th century, the Masoretes tried to standardize the spelling of chaser and yeter words by recording them in their masoretic notes. Surprisingly, even some excellent manuscripts do not follow this Masora precisely (see R' Mordechai Breuer's introduction to The Aleppo Codex and the Accepted Text of the Bible, par. 20). However, this standardization of chaser and yeter came after the talmudic statement that we are not experts in them so the standardization is not final (see Rama, Orach Chaim 143:3). Therefore, there remain differences between texts in terms of chaser and yeter. Again, it is important to emphasize that these minor differences do not change the meaning or pronunciation of the words (see ).
The second reason that there might be slight discrepancies between Torahs is that there are some words whose spelling is a matter of dispute
In the Torah itself, there are two major questions
Genesis 9:29 has a word that may be spelled ויהי or ויהיו. Ashkenazi Torahs have the former and Yemenite Torahs have the latter. The difference is between singular and plural and is insignificant enough to be lost in translation from Hebrew to English. Small as it is, it is still a difference. Similarly, there is a question in Deuteronomy 23:2 whether a word should be spelled דכא or דכה "
" As a final note, the Gemara in Sanhedrin 22a offers two opinions why the Torah's script is called Ktav Ashurit
One is that the Jews brought it back to Israel with them from Babylonia/Assyria (Ashur). The other is that it is a beautiful script (me'usheret). Since the literal translation of Ktav Ashurit is "Assyrian script", we must ask why the Gemara even asks such a basic question. It is called Ktav Ashurit because the Assyrians used it "
" Did God give Moses a Torah with precisely that number of letters? We do not know for sure but we know that it was very close to that number. The reason we cannot be certain is twofold. First, the Gemara in Kiddushin 30a says that we are not experts in chaser and yeter. There are certain vowel sounds in Hebrew that can be spelled with (yeter) or without (chaser) an assisting letter. It is important to note that the presence or absence of this letter make no difference in terms of meaning and pronunciation. The words and verses mean exactly the same whether they are spelled chaser or yeter, which may be how these uncertainties crept in. Because of this, there are certain discrepancies between even good versions of the Torah in this respect. Beginning in the 8th century, the Masoretes tried to standardize the spelling of chaser and yeter words by recording them in their masoretic notes. Surprisingly, even some excellent manuscripts do not follow this Masora precisely (see R' Mordechai Breuer's introduction to The Aleppo Codex and the Accepted Text of the Bible, par. 20). However, this standardization of chaser and yeter came after the talmudic statement that we are not experts in them so the standardization is not final (see Rama, Orach Chaim 143:3). Therefore, there remain differences between texts in terms of chaser and yeter. Again, it is important to emphasize that these minor differences do not change the meaning or pronunciation of the words (see ).
The second reason that there might be slight discrepancies between Torahs is that there are some words whose spelling is a matter of dispute
In the Torah itself, there are two major questions
Genesis 9:29 has a word that may be spelled ויהי or ויהיו. Ashkenazi Torahs have the former and Yemenite Torahs have the latter. The difference is between singular and plural and is insignificant enough to be lost in translation from Hebrew to English. Small as it is, it is still a difference. Similarly, there is a question in Deuteronomy 23:2 whether a word should be spelled דכא or דכה "
" As a final note, the Gemara in Sanhedrin 22a offers two opinions why the Torah's script is called Ktav Ashurit
One is that the Jews brought it back to Israel with them from Babylonia/Assyria (Ashur). The other is that it is a beautiful script (me'usheret). Since the literal translation of Ktav Ashurit is "Assyrian script", we must ask why the Gemara even asks such a basic question. It is called Ktav Ashurit because the Assyrians used it "
The other letter count is 304,856
Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, abbreviated as BHS or rarely BH4, is an edition of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible as preserved in the Leningrad Codex, and supplemented by masoretic and text-critical notes
This leaves 51 letters difference between the two editions
Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, abbreviated as BHS or rarely BH4, is an edition of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible as preserved in the Leningrad Codex, and supplemented by masoretic and text-critical notes
This leaves 51 letters difference between the two editions
This means the Torah has not been copied perfectly from the time Moses supposedly walked the earth according to Rabbis
There are also no copies of Torah older than approximately 1155 and 1225, the date of the oldest known complete scroll
There are also no copies of Torah older than approximately 1155 and 1225, the date of the oldest known complete scroll
The oldest sign of a complete Torah is the Dead Sea scrolls, however none of the strict form observed in later Sefer Torah can be seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls, again proving there has been no " perfectly copied Torah "
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