SCRIBAL PRACTICES AND APPROACHE S ... - Emanuel Tov

24 Chapter 2: Scribes
In the last century BCE and the first centuries CE, scribes were involved mainly in the transmission
process, but prior to that most (except for the proto-Masoretic (proto-rabbinic) family, evidenced
from 250 BCE onwards) often considered themselves also to be petty collaborators in the creation
of the books. This is the only possible explanation for the early differences between the texts and
groups of texts. See, for example, the differences between the parallel nonbiblical texts listed
below. In the biblical realm, 4QSam a , which is basically a precisely transmitted scroll, nevertheless
incorporated some rewriting in small and large details (inserted by either the scribe or his source).
Accordingly, from the point of view of later developments, early scribes were often
considered imprecise, but such a characterization would be anachronistic, since the concept of an
exact transmission had yet to be created. We do not know when that concept came into being. One
could say that it was conceived together with the creation of MT, but the Vorlage of the LXX
was probably also a precise text. Also the pre-Samaritan 4QpaleoExod m was a careful copy.
Different types of approaches are also visible among nonbiblical texts, but in this category
precision had no religious significance, although this may not necessarily be true for the Qumran
sectarian writings. The main copy of the Temple Scroll (11QT a [11Q19]) was executed carefully,
as were certain copies of H, M, S, etc.
The modernizing of the orthography and morphology must have been permitted throughout
the transmission of the biblical text, since the 9th–7th century practices are not reflected in the
later copies. By the same token, the script was changed, final letters were inserted (see ch. 5g),
and possibly word-division was added as well (see ch. 5a1). From a certain period onward,
however, such modernizing was no longer permitted in certain textual traditions, definitely not in
the circles that carefully transmitted MT. Other scribes allowed for continued modernization in
orthography and morphology, as visible in the texts written in the Qumran scribal practice (ch.
8a2), the Torah copy of Rabbi Meir (Tov, TCHB, 123), and to a lesser extent in the SP.
• External shape. Precision in copying is usually accompanied by elegant external features in
the handwriting and the scroll (high-quality leather, adherence to margins, consistently sized
columns and margins, high-quality handwriting). It is unknown whether this scribal precision was
matched by such external elegance by the fifth-fourth centuries BCE, but this definitely is the case
for the late copies among the Judean Desert scrolls (first century BCE, first century CE). The most
elegant among them were probably luxury scrolls (see ch. 4j), mainly evidenced for Scripture
scrolls. Such manuscripts were found mainly outside Qumran, and were probably copied from
master copies in the temple court.
The rabbinic sources are well aware of the differing levels of scribal skills and precision, as evidenced by the
praise expressed for careful scribes. The following terms are used in that literature for careful scribes (cf. Krauss,
Talmudische Archäologie, III.135–6): rlbl ˆmwa, ‘a skilled scribe’ (b. Shabb. 133b); µynmwa µynbtwk, ‘skilled
copyists’ (y. Meg. 1.71d), pertaining to the scribes of the Hagira family; anqwd arps, ynqwwd yrps, ‘(an) accurate
scribe(s)’ (b. Ab. Zar. 10a; b. Menah≥. 29b); rjbwm bf ˆbtk, ‘an exceedingly skilful copyist’ (Qoh. Rabb. 2:18).
In the case of the scribes copying biblical texts, precision is a conditio sine qua non according to rabbinic
sources. This precision is reflected in the dictum in b. Qidd. 30a: ‘The ancients were called soferim because they
counted (saf e ru) every letter in the Torah.’ The meticulous care in the transmission of MT is also reflected in the
words of R. Ishmael: ‘My son, be careful, because your work is the work of heaven; should you omit (even) one letter
or add (even) one letter, the whole world would be destroyed’ (b. Sot≥. 20a). This precision even pertained to matters
of orthography, since various halakhot, ‘religious instructions,’ were, as it were, fixed on the basis of the exact
spelling of words. For example, the number of the walls of the sukkah (four) is determined by the number of letters in
the spelling t/Ksu (b. Sukk. 6b), rather than that in the full spelling twkws, with five letters. Some of the examples of
this type actually were formulated at a later period. The mentioned precision is reflected in the biblical texts from all
sites in the Judean Desert other than Qumran, and slightly less so in the proto-Masoretic texts from Qumran (ch. 4j).
The so-called Masoretic corrections of the scribes (tiqqunê soferim) also reflect a greater degree of liberty than one
would connect with the term scribe (see above § a).