Recently I have made two Bible purchases that have disappointed me when I got the text open. The first was a Koren Tanach with a beautiful cover and a gorgeous typeset text. What disappointed me was the way that kaf-sofit doesn't have the vowels inset (ךָ ךְ
but have them lower below the text line (which irritates my eye).
Today I went to the bookstore of the Bible Society in Israel in Tel Aviv. I looked at their copy of Rahlfs Septuagint, but didn't feel like paying nearly 400 shekels to buy it. I did buy a copy of ספר הבריתות - a Hebrew Bible that contains both the Tanach and the New Testament in Hebrew. It's leather-bound and very pretty. Once I walked out of the store and got on the bus back home, I opened up the book and started to read from Romans. In the very first chapter I found a typo, where in 1:23 we read אֶת כְּבוֹדוֹ "his glory," it has been written together as one word (אֶתכְּבוֹדוֹ
.
Why do such texts come with typos and typesetting problems? Shouldn't they have been fixed and perfected by now?