I will repost as this was ignored on another thread.
"The utmost care and attention were bestowed upon spelling, crowning certain letters (Taggin), dotting others, copying abnormalities, and upon the regulations as to spacing for parashiyyot and sections. Some soferim were careful to begin the columns of the Sefer Torah with a word commencing with a "waw," allowing an equal number of lines to every column. Such columns were known as "wawe ha'ammudim" or "waw-columns." The preparation of phylacteries and mezuzot required a similar exercise of watchfulness. R. Ishmael said to a sofer: "My son, be careful in thy work, as it is a heavenly work, lest thou err in omitting or adding one iota, and so cause the destruction of the whole world" ('Er. 13a). The sofer was required to copy the text from a model form made by an expert, and was not permitted to rely on his memory. "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee" (Prov. iv. 25) is the advice given to a sofer. R. Ḥisda, finding R. Hananeel writing a Sefer Torah from memory, said to him: "Indeed thou art able to write the whole Torah by heart; but our sages have forbidden the writing of even one letter without an exemplar" (Meg. 18b).
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13356-scribes
"The Masoretes also added a system of checks and balances to make sure that the text was copied accurately by their scribes and the system was very, very, thorough. Numbers were placed at the end of each book, telling the copyists the exact number of words that a book contained in its originaly manuscript. If the copy had a few more words or a few less words than the original, the copy was thrown away. At the end of each book, the Masoretes also listed the word or the phrase that would have numerically been found in the exact middle of the book. Again, if the copy did not have the right word or phrase in its middle, it was thrown away.
To double-check for accuracy, after one scribe had finished writing, another scribe would begin to count his words and to look for the phrase that appeared in the middle of the book. If he found everything as it should be, the copy would be kept and used for reading and studying. If the scribe found so much as one error, the copy would be discarded and the writing scribe would have to start all over again on another copy. Talk about a frustrating job! A scribe could spend up to several months copying the Book of Ezekiel, only to find that he was one word off the number count and he must now start all over again.
Another footnote the margins included was the
ketib / qere. The
ketib meant “what is written” and the
qere meant “what is read.”
10 These footnotes were included to indicate what the reader was supposed to read out loud and what he was not supposed to read out loud. There was the written material and there was the read material (read “out loud in front of an audience” material).
Hebrew Old Testaments were read out loud in synagogues to the Jews and the Masoretes believed that there were some things in the text that were not intended to be read out loud. For instance, the name
Yahweh was considered sacred to the Jews. It was so sacred that the Masoretes felt that it should not be pronounced out loud. What if someone sneezed while reading it? Wouldn’t that be blasphemous? What if someone mispronounced it or burped or hiccupped while saying it? Would that not be a dishonor to God’s holy name? To ensure that none of that happened, the Masoretes included a footnote above the name
Yahweh every time it appeared in the text. The footnote referenced a note in the margin which gave another name to be read in its place. The
ketib was
Yahweh. The
qere was usually a name like
Adoniah.
How accurate were the Masoeretes at copying the Old Testament? By all accounts, the Masoretes were incredibly, we could even say supernaturally, accurate. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, a complete copy of the Book of Isaiah was found from 125 B.C.
11 When it was compared with a scroll of Isaiah from A.D. 900, a scroll copied 10 centuries later, it was found to match in 95 % of its contents. The material that did not match included simple misspellings or slips of the pen. No doctrinal material was affected by the discrepancies. And it can be certain that the Masoretes and their Jewish counterparts played a great role in the accuracy of that text. And there are other examples from ancient history that show the exactness of the copying of the Old Testament.
12"
http://www.justthesimpletruth.com/was-the-bible-copied-accurately/
