DELIBERATELY DIVERSE | by Mitch Drummond
Deliberately Diverse represents the thoughts and opinions of a group of Taylor friends who almost never entirely agree on anything, but appreciate the opportunity to share opinions and discussions in our beloved community.
The Tanach, known as the Old Testament, is the foundation of Judaism, especially the first five Books of Moses, the Torah. All were, and are, traditionally, written as scrolls. Unless you are a highly trained Hebrew scholar, you would have trouble reading any scrolls.
The reason?
The biblical scrolls were, and still are, written without vowels and punctuation.
Imagine if you saw an English word that read BRS. This could be bars, bares, bears, bras, boars and many others. The Tanach has over 300,000 words without punctuation and vowels.
An old TV series, ”F Troop,” had a plot that depended on punctuation. A telegraph is received reading, “Uncle Harold died and left you a million. Thanks for past favors.” Then a corrected one arrived saying, “Uncle Harold died and left you. A million thanks for past favors.”
For over 1,200 years, the correct reading was transmitted orally. Around 920 C.E., it became apparent that differences had developed among the widely dispersed Jewish communities. Consistent interpretation was in jeopardy.
So, a project began in Tiberias. The best scribe, Shlomo ben Buya’a, inscribed the text and Aaron Ben Asher, who knew all 24 books by heart, dictated them to Shlomo. The result, called the Aleppo Codex, became the definitive text for us.
A codex is an early book form.
We know about ben Asher and ben Buya’a because they added a cover page to the codex describing their efforts. The Aleppo Codex became the definitive guide to the correct words and punctuation for Jews. The story of how the Codex got to Aleppo in Syria from Tiberias in Palestine and eventually to Israel is full of intrigue, espionage and smuggling.
“The Aleppo Codex” by Matti Friedman describes its journey through time, war, fire, etc.
Although the Codex is the authoritative text for most Jews, modern scholars question some of its word choices. Annotated Bibles note some differences between the Codex and the Samaritan Pentateuch, and between the Codex and the Septuagint. Both predate the Codex by centuries. Most of the differences are in infrequent words.
So how do the Karaites come into this account?
Few people have ever heard of them, but they are an ancient Jewish sect. The Karaites now number less than 75,000, but from the 8th thru the 12th centuries they were the only serious challenge to rabbinic Judaism, and I hope to write an article about them.
They are mentioned because many modern scholars think that Aaron Ben Asher was a Karaite.
A subsequent column will describe this unusual branch of the Jewish sect.
Sorrow is a longtime resident of Taylor and an amateur historian.
