Errors in the Hebrew Bible?
Errors in the Hebrew Bible?
Compiled by Ben Mordechai
Is the Torah, otherwise known as the Tanach or Old Testament or Hebrew Bible, factual and accurate and if so how does anyone know?
Believers will immediately approach this question with the notion that the Bible is indeed factual and cannot err since it is God’s Word, and God cannot err obviously, however how many of believers base their beliefs on facts versus on faith?
Non believers and skeptics on the other hand approach this question with the opposite notion, that the Bible is so filled with other-worldy, miraculous events which nobody has witnessed anything similar to since the days of Moses, that the Bible has to man made and wrong until proven right. However isn’t holding the Bible to an unfair double standard or in other words, guilty until proven innocent, as irrational as believers are by their relying solely on faith?
The fact of the matter is that we have a wonderful thing to help us all find answers, a kind of universal language of sorts that you may have heard of before that is called science in English. If there indeed is a God, then s/he gave it to us out of love for us and as a tool and a means for all of us to use in order to verify truth and dispel falsehoods. However science is not the silver bullet to finding truth or the end to a means, science is simply a tool that has sadly been turned into a religion unto itself.
If the Hebrew Bible is not a God given document but rather a man-made collection of books of metaphors, allegories, and fairy tales, then how does this reflect upon both Christianity and Islam and any other system of beliefs predicated on the the Hebrew Bible’s alleged divine nature? Major sections and passages and concepts in both Islam and Christianity are predicated on the Hebrew Bible being a divinely transmitted document and on the concept that Moses was a the great prophet that talked to God.
So back to the question, did the Creator of time and space and matter and anti matter and reality and existence give the Hebrew Bible to Moses or not and is the Torah specifically that is used today the same Torah as given to Moses at Mt. Sinai ?
To answer this question let’s take a good look at what a Torah is. The word Torah literally means “instruction”. The Torah is THE central ‘teaching’ for descendants of the tribes of Israel, or Jews in other words.
The Torah of today that can be found in your local Synagogue consists of the ‘Five Books of Moshe, or Moses in English:
|
HEBREW |
ENGLISH |
|
Bereshit |
Genesis |
|
Shemot |
Exodus |
|
Vayikra |
Leviticus |
|
Bamidbar |
Numbers |
|
Devarim |
Deuteronomy |
A Torah scroll is a scroll that contains the five books of Moshe:
Arabic-Asian Jewish Torah Scrolls
|
|
|
European Jewry Torah Scroll
The Torah scrolls are found in Jewish synagogues. A Torah scroll is written on scored cow hide with special black ink and quill. Each page is then sewn to the previous page using gut from a kosher animal.
Quills and Ink
The scribe makes quills for writing a Sefer Torah. The feathers must come from a kosher bird, and the goose is the bird of choice for many scribes. The scribe carefully and patiently carves a point in the end of the feather and uses many quills in the course of writing one Sefer Torah. The scribe also prepares ink for writing the Sefer Torah by combining powdered gall nuts, copper sulfate crystals, gum arabic, and water, preparing only a small amount at a time, so that the ink will always be fresh. Fresh ink is a deep black, and only this is acceptable for writing a Sefer Torah.
Letters in the Torah
There is three hundred and four thousand, eight hundred and five letters on a Torah scroll
|
Letters |
|
Letters |
||
|
? |
27,057 |
|
? |
21,570 |
|
? |
16,344 |
|
? |
25,078 |
|
? |
2,109 |
|
? |
14,107 |
|
? |
7,032 |
|
? |
1,833 |
|
? |
28,052 |
|
? |
11,244 |
|
? |
30,509 |
|
? |
4,805 |
|
? |
2,198 |
|
? |
4,052 |
|
? |
7,187 |
|
? |
4,694 |
|
? |
1,802 |
|
? |
18,109 |
|
? |
31,522 |
|
? |
15,592 |
|
? |
11,960 |
|
? |
17,949 |
|
Total |
304,805 |
|||
Letters and Words in the Torah
|
|
Words |
Letters |
|
Bereshit (Genesis) |
20,512 |
78,064 |
|
Shemot (Exodus) |
16,723 |
63,529 |
|
Vayikra (Leviticus) |
11,950 |
44,790 |
|
Bamidbar (Numbers) |
16,368 |
63,530 |
|
Devarim (Deuteronomy) |
14,294 |
54,892 |
|
Total |
79,847 |
304,805 |
Unbeknown to most people, a Torah has an amazing amount of coded information beyond the text itself. A Torah scroll contains numerous letters which are non-standard in terms of size, placement, and orientation. These unusual characters are exactly the same from one Torah scroll to the next. These are not mistakes, but rather they contain vast amounts of information.
The letters of the Torah come in three sizes: large, small, and the standard letters with which most of the Torah is written. A large Alef is known as an Alef Rabbasi, a small Alef as an Alef Zeira. A medium-sized Alef is called an Alef Regila (a regular Alef). There are about 100 abnormal letters in the Torah which are listed in the Talmud. Most Jews do not know about these codes in the Torah among many other things, however very, very few non-Jews know this. One of the major tenants of Christianity and of Islam and of any other sects that are based on the Hebrew Bible is that they reject the Talmud utterly and completely as any kind of usable source of information.
There are seventeen places in the Torah where a letter is written extra-large or extra-small: the scribal terminology is majuscule and miniscule. There are six miniscules and eleven majuscules. For example, the first letter in the Torah, the bet in the word Bereshit, is a majuscule (this is probably the origin of the illuminated capital of medieval manuscripts). The most famous majuscules are certainly the ones from the Shema in Devarim (Deuteronomy) 6:4. In this case, the letters are large to avoid confusion: a large ayin in the word shema to avoid confusion with aleph: ‘perhaps O Israel.’ The large dalet to avoid confusion with resh: ‘the Lord is another’.
LARGE LETTERS
| Passage. |
Hebrew Word. |
Translation. | Hebrew Letter. |
| Gen. 1:1 | ,hatrc | beginning | bet |
| Gen. 30:42 | ;hygvcu | feeble | final pe |
| Gen. 34:31 |
vbuzfv |
harlot | zayin |
| Gen. 50:23 |
ohaka |
third generation | final mem |
| Ex. 2:2 |
cuy-hf |
good | tet |
| Ex. 34:7 |
rmb |
keeping | nun |
| Ex. 34:14 |
rjt |
other | resh |
| Lev. 11:30 |
|
lizard | lamed |
| Lev. 11:42 |
iujd-kg |
belly | vav |
| Lev. 13:33 |
|
shaven | gimel |
| Num. 13:31 |
|
stilled | samek |
| Num. 14:17 |
tb-ksdh |
be great | yod |
| Num. 24:5 |
|
how | mem |
| Num. 27:5 |
|
cause | final nun |
| Deut. 6:4 |
gna |
hear | ‘ayin |
| Deut. 6:4 |
sjt |
one | dalet |
| Deut. 18:13 |
|
perfect | taw |
| Deut. 29:28 |
ofkahu |
cast them | lamed |
| Deut. 32:4 |
|
rock | tzade |
| Deut. 32:6 |
vuvhk v |
Lord | first he |
| Josh. 14:11 |
|
strength | first kaf |
| Isa. 56:10 |
|
watchman | tzade |
| Mal. 3:22 |
|
remember | zayin |
| Ps. 77:8 |
|
forever | he |
| Ps 80:15 |
|
vineyard | kaf |
| Ps. 84:4 |
|
nest | kof |
| Prov 1:1 |
|
proverbs | mem |
| Job 9:34 |
|
rod | het |
| Song 1:1 |
|
song | shin |
| Ruth. 3:13 |
|
tarry | nun |
| Eccl. 7:1 |
|
good | het |
| Eccl. 7:13 |
|
conclusion | samek |
| Esth 1:6 |
|
white | het |
| Esth. 9:9 |
|
Vajezatha | vav |
| Esth. 9:29 |
|
wrote | first taw |
| Dan. 11:20 |
|
dawn | second pe |
| I Chron. 1:1 |
|
Adam | alef |
The large letters are used mainly to call attention to certain Talmudic and midrashic homilies and citations, or as guards against errors. References to them are in Masseket Soferim of the Talmud.
SMALL LETTERS
| Passage. |
Hebrew Word. |
Translation. | Hebrew Letter. |
| Gen. 2: 4 |
|
created | he |
| Gen 32:2 |
v,fcku |
weep | kaf |
| Gen. 27:46 |
|
weary | kof |
| Ex. 32: 25 |
|
enemies | kof |
| Lev. 1:1 |
trehu |
call | alef |
| Lev. 6:2 |
|
burning | mem |
| Num. 25:11 |
|
Phinehas | yed |
| Deut. 9:24 |
|
rebelious | first mem |
| Deut. 32:18 |
ha, |
unmindful | yod |
| II Sam. 21:19 |
|
Jaare | resh |
| II Kings 17:31 |
|
Nibhaz | zayin |
| Isa. 44:14 |
|
ash (tree) | final nun |
| Jer. 14:2 |
|
cry | Tzade |
| Jer. 39:13 |
|
Nebushazhan | final nun |
| Nah 1:3 |
|
Whirlwind | samek |
| Ps. 24:5 |
|
vain | vav |
| Prov. 16:28 |
|
whisperer | final nun |
| Prov. 28:17 |
|
man | dalet |
| Prov. 30:15 |
|
give | bet |
| Job. 7:5 |
|
clods | gimel |
| Job. 16:14 |
|
breach | final tzade |
| Lam. 1:12 |
|
nothing | lamed |
| Lam 2:9 |
|
sunk | tet |
| Lam. 3:35 |
|
subvert | ayin |
| Esth 9:7 |
|
Parshandatha | taw |
| Esth. 9:7 |
|
Parmashta | shin |
| Esth 9:9 |
|
Vajezatha | zayin |
| Dan. 6:20 |
|
very early | first pe |
How do we know that the Torah we have today is the same text given on Mount Sinai?
Well according to tradition, the Torah was originally dictated from God to Moses, letter for letter. From there, the Midrash (Devarim Rabba 9:4) tells us:
Before his death, Moses wrote 13 Torah Scrolls. Twelve of these were distributed to each of the 12 Tribes. The 13th was placed in the Ark of the Covenant (with the Tablets). If anyone would come and attempt to rewrite or falsify the Torah, the one in the Ark would “testify” against him. (Likewise, if he had access to the scroll in the Ark and tried to falsify it, the distributed copies would “testify” against him.)
How were the new scrolls verified? According to tradition an authentic “proof text” was always kept in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, against which all other scrolls would be checked. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Sages would periodically perform global checks to weed out any scribal errors.
To eliminate any chance of human error, the Talmud enumerates more than 20 factors mandatory for a Torah scroll to be considered “kosher.” This is the Torah’s built-in security system. Should any one of these factors be lacking, it does not possess the sanctity of a Torah scroll, and is not to be used for a public Torah reading.
The meticulous process of hand-copying a scroll takes about 2,000 hours (a full-time job for one year). Throughout the centuries, Jewish scribes have adhered to the following guidelines:
- A Torah Scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is added.
- A Torah Scroll is disqualified if even a single letter is deleted.
- The scribe must be a learned, pious Jew, who has undergone special training and certification.
- All materials (parchment, ink, quill) must conform to strict specifications, and be prepared specifically for the purpose of writing a Torah Scroll.
- The scribe may not write even one letter into a Torah Scroll by heart. Rather, he must have a second, kosher scroll opened before him at all times.
- The scribe must pronounce every word out loud before copying it from the correct text.
- Every letter must have sufficient white space surrounding it. If one letter touched another in any spot, it invalidates the entire scroll.
- If a single letter was so marred that it cannot be read at all, or resembles another letter (whether the defect is in the writing, or is due to a hole, tear or smudge), this invalidates the entire scroll. Each letter must be sufficiently legible so that even an ordinary schoolchild could distinguish it from other, similar letters.
- The scribe must put precise space between words, so that one word will not look like two words, or two words look like one word.
- The scribe must not alter the design of the sections, and must conform to particular line-lengths and paragraph configurations.
- A Torah Scroll in which any mistake has been found cannot be used, and a decision regarding its restoration must be made within 30 days, or it must be buried.
After the formation of the 3rd State of Israel in 1948, Torah scrolls from around the world have been compared to one another for veracity and astoundingly, they all matched exactly with the exception of scrolls from Yemen. However the differences between the Yemenite Torah scrolls and the Ashkenazi torah scrolls are really minimal – almost all are but a handful or two of plene-defective variants (usually whether to spell with a yod/waw or without). there is also the variant of the layout of ex 15:19, and 2 differences concerning the paragraphs (lev 7:22,28). The Jews in Yemen apparently date back to the time of the Bavelonian exile and will be discussed at the end of this article.
However the story does not end there happily, apparently all of the scrolls that exist today are younger and slightly vary from the oldest surviving intact Hebrew Tanach, the Leningrad Codex, located in St Petersburg, Russia. The order of the books in the Leningrad Codex differs markedly from that of most printed Hebrew bibles for the books of Ketuvim. In the Leningrad Codex, the order of Ketuvim is: Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah.
However the Leningrad Codex was corrected by the Aleppo Codex which is several decades older than the Leningrad Codex. In his article: “maimonides and the aleppo codex,” in textus (a journal from the hebrew university) 9 (1981), and in his book: “nusah hatorah” etc. (from bar-ilan university press, ramat gan 1992), Professor Penkower proves conclusively that Maimondes relied on the Aleppo Codex when writing his hilkhot Sefer Torah, and when writing his own Sefer Torah. The Codex Cairensis (also: Codex Prophetarum Cairensis, Cairo Codex of the Prophets) is an old extant Hebrew manuscript containing the complete text of the prophets. It was written complete with punctuation by Moses ben Asher in Tiberias “at the end of the year 827 after the destruction of the second temple.
A large number of the biblical manuscripts in the Qumran Bible, or Dead Sea Scrolls as they are commonly known as, closely resemble the Masoretic text, or tenth century CE Codexs in other words, which became the standard Jewish biblical text. Some of the texts were written in a Hebrew dialect used by the Qumran community, and were apparently in use by the sect. A few texts represent the text type from which the Greek Septuagint was translated and a few are similar to the Samaritan Bible.
According to archaeological and paleographic examination as well as carbon-14 tests, the Dead Sea Scrolls were copied between the third century BCE and the first century CE; the majority of the texts were copied in the first and second centuries CE. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest and most valuable source for the Torah and Tanach’s veracity but our story does not end there.
The Bavelonian forces swept across the land of Judah in 576 BCE and later on in 586BCE, wiping out everything and mostly everyone in their paths in two separate waves a decade apart from each other, which culminated in Jerusalem being flattened and the holy Jewish temple being destroyed utterly. Hundreds of thousands of ancient documents in libraries were burnt down, tens of thousands of Jewish men of fighting age were killed in battle or possibly executed in captivity. Thousands of wise sages and along with them secrets and wealth of ancient knowledge were killed or exiled on a forced march thousands of kilometers away in Bavel. Jerusalem was forcefully depopulated and the country was left ruined as much of the elite population was exiled to Bavel.
The tablets containing the “Law” were stored in the portable tabernacle called the Ark of the Covenant which was housed in the first temple. The Ark disappeared when the Babylonians destroyed the Temple in 587 b.c.e., and it was not in the second temple. Half a century later, a small number of Babylonian Jews, probably mainly either Aramaic speaking or Hebrew-Aramaic bilingual, returned to Judah where they provided the leadership, under Persian imperial patronage, for a slow restoration of Jerusalem and a much reduced Judah known as the province of Yahud.
The Great Biblical Schism
What you have not been told about nor likely read before is that the Hebrew language that you know today and take for granted as God’s language only goes back until the return of the Bavelonian exiles. The Hebrew that is used today in every Torah scroll is called ktav Ashuri and it is not the exact Hebrew that God would have spoken to Moses with or that Moses would have transmitted to the people of Israel via Joshua and the priests and the judges, which we know as ktav Ivri. Ktav Ashuri was instituted by Ezra the prophet after the return of the Bavelonian exiles and during the time of the building of the second temple.
paleo-hebrew-comparisions
The ramifications of the entire holy, Hebrew language having being replaced with man made, different symbols once upon a time is massive in terms of todays sexy Torah concepts such as Kabbala, the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah, and Gemmatria and codes in the Torah. It can be argued that Hebrew was not replaced as much as it gradually shifted due to the Aramaic and Assyrian influences of the times. An important thing to note about the differences between ktav Ivri and ktav Ashuri is that one form is quite pictoral in structure and the other form is symbolic-phonetic. In terms of the the concepts of communication the transmission of information and cybernetics, a picture is worth a thousand words, so does the pictoral, ancient, original Hebraic script tell us more than we are getting using the Ashuri script?
According to Aish Das:
The Gemara in Sanhedrin 21b-22a tells us what at first seems very surprising. However, after a careful reading and placing the events in an historical context they do not seem surprising at all.
Mar Zutra and some say Mar Ukva said: Originally the Torah was given to Israel in Ktav Ivri (paleo-Hebrew characters) and in the holy lanugage. It was given again to them in Ezra’s time in Ktav Ashurit (Assyrian characters) and in Aramaic. Israel selected for themselves Ktav Ashurit and the Hebrew language… It was taught: Rebbe said: Torah was originally given to Israel in Ktav Ashurit. When they sinned it was changed to Roetz (Ktav Ivri). When they repented, Ktav Ashurit was reintroduced… R’ Shimon ben Elazar said in the name of R’ Eliezer ben Parta, who said in the name of R’ Elazar Hamodai: This writing was never changed…
We see three opinions regarding the script of the Torah. According to Mar Zutra, the Torah was given to Israel in Ktav Ivri and in Hebrew but Ezra changed it to Ktav Ashurit and Aramaic. The people, however, only accepted Ktav Ashurit and Hebrew. According to Rebbe, the Torah was given in Ktav Ashurit but was changed to Ktav Ivri due to the people’s sins. According to R’ Elazar Hamodai, the script of the Torah never changed.
This passage raises a number of questions. How could Ezra change the script of the Torah? How could he change the Torah’s language from Hebrew to Aramaic? Furthermore, if he found the authority to do so, how could the people determine an outcome against his decision? According to Rebbe, why would the script of the Torah change based on whether Israel sinned or repented?
R’ Reuven Margoliyot (Margoliyot Hayam, Sanhedrin ad loc,; Hamikra Vehamesora, ch. 9) answers all of these questions with the following historical reflection. It is known that some ancient cultures had one script for sacred purposes and one for everyday use. For example, the Indians only used Sanskrit for religious purposes and not for the mundane. The talmudic sages mentioned in the above passage were debating the extent of this practice of having a script for only holy purposes in Israel. However, according to everyone this was the practice, similar to the talmudic dictum, “Something that is used for the sacred may not be used for the profane” (Avodah Zara 52a).
According to Mar Zutra, the first tablets of the ten commandments were written in Ktav Ashurit (see Responsa Radbaz 3:442) but once Israel sinned with the Golden Calf they were deemed unworthy. They could not be trusted to use Ktav Ashurit for purely sacred matters. Therefore, the second tablets and the Torah scrolls written for general use were in Ktav Ivri. This can, perhaps, be seen from the fact that in Megillah 2b Rav Chisda says that the mem and samech in the tablets were miraculously hanging in the air. This can only happen in Ktav Ashurit and not in Ktav Ivri. However, in the Gemara in Sanhedrin quoted above, Rav Chisda seems to agree with Mar Zutra that the Torah was originally given to Israel in Ktav Ivri. Therefore, it seem that Rav Chisda would have to say that the tablets were in Ktav Ashurit and the Torah in Ktav Ivri. Or, as the Radbaz suggested, everything was originally in Ktav Ashurit but after the sin of the Golden Calf the second tablets and the Torah were in Ktav Ivri. But not all of the Torahs were in Ktav Ivri.
That the original tablets were given in Ktav Ashurit but not the second tablets can be seen hinted in a number of sources. For example, the Gemara in Pesachim 87b says “the tablets broke and the letters floated in the air”. Exactly what it means that the letters floated in the air is unclear. However, on that same page the Gemara says, “Three things returned to their origin… the script of the tablets”. That sounds like Ktav Ashurit being replaced with Ktav Ivri. Similarly, the Mechilta on Exodus 17:8 says that after the tablets were broken “the heavenly writing returned to its place”. We perhaps also see evidence of the disappearance of Ktav Ashurit much later in history. The Tanchuma on Vayeshev 2 says, “What did they do [in response to the Samaritans]? Ezra, Zerubavel, and Yehoshua gathered the community to the sanctuary… and excommunicated the Samaritans with the sacred name of G-d, with the script that was written on the tablets, with the decree of the heavenly court,…” The use of the “script that was written on the tablets” is important for two reasons. First, it seems that this script was unique. Furthermore, we know from the Gemara in Sanhedrin and from other historical sources that the Samaritans used Ktav Ivri. The contrast between the Samaritans and the “script that was written on the tablets” implies that this script was not Ktav Ivri. We thus see that there is ample material supporting the Radbaz’s claim that the first tablets were in Ktav Ashurit.
Recall that Mar Zutra said that the Torah was given to Israel in Ktav Ivri. The Ritva deduced from this that the special Torah of Moshe that was kept in the ark and later in the Temple was in Ktav Ashurit. Only Torahs for the people were in Ktav Ivri. The ability to read Ktav Ashurit was maintained by priests and scribes, which is why King Yoshiyahu needed a priest to read to him from Moshe’s Torah when it was found in the Temple (2 Kings 22:8-11; Abarbanel). The king had never before seen Ktav Ashurit and his reaction to seeing it fo the first time, and in the Torah scroll that Moshe himself had written, demonstrates the deep religious emotion it evoked. We perhaps find hints of this in Isaiah 8:1 where the prophet is commanded, “Take a large tablet and write on it in common characters”. This is must have been referring to Ktav Ivri that was used by the common people (see Rashi). Ktav Ivri had gained such prominence that the existence of ending letters (?????) was forgotten by the masses and had to be restored (Megillah 2b-3a).
However, Ktav Ashurit was still studied by the priests and scribes, of which Ezra was both. When he saw that Ktav Ashurit was so forgotten that, when it was written on the wall of King Belshatzar of Babylonia, only Daniel could read it (Daniel 5) he realized that it must be reintroduced to the people. Yet, he still had the dilemma that people would then be writing Hebrew in the holy Ktav Ashurit for improper purposes. His solution was to translate the Torah into Aramaic and introduce the Aramaic Torah in Ktav Ashurit into common usage. That way people would become familiar with Ktav Ashurit without using it in their daily Hebrew writing. This is what is meant in Nehemiah 8:8, “So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation.” It was interpreted by translation into Aramaic (Megillah 3a). (This translation was later recreated by Onkelos). However, the people had lived their whole lives with a Hebrew Torah and were not ready to change the language of their holiest of books. Therefore, they decided to retain a Hebrew Torah in Ktav Ashurit but conduct their daily business in Aramaic. This would produce the results that Ezra desired because Ktav Ashurit in Hebrew would not be a part of the daily routine.
Rebbe agreed with this historical reconstruction but attributed the original transition from Ktav Ashurit to Ktav Ivri to the idolatrous era of the First Temple rather than the episode of the Golden Calf. According to Rebbe, it is even more plausible that the scholars always retained knowledge of Ktav Ashurit. It was only the masses who were busy with their daily lives and/or idolatrous ways who forgot Ktav Ashurit when the Torahs were changed to Ktav Ivri.
R’ Elazar Hamodai does not necessarily disagree that people forgot Ktav Ashurit. He only argued that the Torahs were never changed from one script into another. However, he agreed that people had forgotten Ktav Ashurit, the script used only for sacred purposes, and that Ezra had to re-educate the masses in the holy script (see Teshuvot HaRambam, ed. Blau no. 268).
As a final note, the Gemara in Sanhedrin 22a offers two opinions why the 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. Furthermore, the view that it is called Ktav Ashurit because the script is beautiful strains credibility. We already know that it is called Ktav Ashurit because it is an Assyrian script, as the words simply mean.
We have seen that many questions can be raised about the validity of our Torahs. However, Judaism, like any other serious thought system, is complex. While by necessity we were taught simplicites in our childhood, we need to sieze all available opportunities to broaden our perspectives and deepen our faiths. Rather than using questions as reasons to reject traditional Judaism, we must use them as opportunities for intellectual and religious growth.
The Yemenite Torahs
Is this number of 304,805 letters in the Torah exact? Did G-d give Moshe a Torah with precisely that number of letters?
The Gemara in Kiddushin 30a says that we are not experts in chaser and yeter,( the addition and subtraction of letters in the Torah anymore because the information was lost over time). 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
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 ???? or ?????. 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 ??? or ???.
Dead Sea Scrolls, Aleppo Codex, Crown of Aleppo, Ben Asher Chumash, cantilation, Leningrad Codex, copper scroll, jeremiah,
Not too reliable -
