The Process of copying the Old Testament by Jewish Scribes
🔸In 586 B.C., Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians. The Temple was looted and then destroyed by fire. The Jews were exiled.
🔸About 70 years later, the Jewish captives returned to Jerusalem from Babylon. According to the Bible,
🔸Ezra recovered a copy of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and read it aloud to the whole nation.
🔸From then on, the Jewish scribes solidified the following process for creating copies of the Torah and eventually other books in the Old Testament.
🔸About 70 years later, the Jewish captives returned to Jerusalem from Babylon. According to the Bible,
🔸Ezra recovered a copy of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and read it aloud to the whole nation.
🔸From then on, the Jewish scribes solidified the following process for creating copies of the Torah and eventually other books in the Old Testament.
1. They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.
2. Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.
3. The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.
4. They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.
5. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before writing the word "Jehovah," every time they wrote it.
6. There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
8. The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc).
9. As no document containing God's Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a genizah - a Hebrew term meaning "hiding place." These were usually kept in a synagogue or sometimes in a Jewish cemetery.
2. Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.
3. The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.
4. They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.
5. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before writing the word "Jehovah," every time they wrote it.
6. There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
8. The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc).
9. As no document containing God's Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a genizah - a Hebrew term meaning "hiding place." These were usually kept in a synagogue or sometimes in a Jewish cemetery.
The Masoretes copied God’s Word and words. People, of course make mistakes, but God didn’t simply inspire or give life to His Word and words and then leave them to fate or the fallacies of men. Why couldn’t the original writers then make mistakes as well? But God was so concerned that every generation and every nation should or at least could have exactly what He communicated in the autographs.
If there are discrepancies in the KJB, who can show them to me? I really NEED TO KNOW! It is a matter of life and eternity.
Pastor Fedena
If there are discrepancies in the KJB, who can show them to me? I really NEED TO KNOW! It is a matter of life and eternity.
Pastor Fedena