hdt (02/14/83)
Regardless of whatever botches have been made in the translations, the Torah has remained intact for over 5800 years, unchanged. The most meticulous care is taken in the copying of the Torah, and [this is what I remember from school, at least] if any mistake at all is found, the entire section is done over, and if the mistake is discovered afterwards, the correction can only be made in the margins, and when that Torah is copied, the errors and the marginal notes are copied as well. As far as we know, all existing Torahs agree 100% in content with alll the others, regardless of when and where they were made.
rhm (02/14/83)
I have heard the story of meticulous copying of the Torah before, but it doesn't seem to square with what happens whenever a really old manuscript turns up. The Dead Sea scrolls caused a lot of embarassment among biblical scholars when it was realized that it varied to an amazing degree with received texts.
jwp (02/16/83)
Perhaps people are more concerned about biblical accuracy than they are about
the accuracy of Plato's works because more people have died as a result of
disagreements about the former than have died due to disagreements about the
latter.
Anyway, I, at least, would be quite happy to see a summary of the argument
"... not based on any logical formalism but plain common sense ..." that
"... argues very simply and logically that the Bible is the Word of God ...".
John Pierce, Chemistry, UC San Diego
{ucbvax, philabs}!sdcsvax!sdchema!jwpnixon (02/20/83)
While looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls in a Jerusalem musueum, someone else in my group compared portions with a pocket Hebrew Bible. The text was basically the same. Brian Nixon.