Presence

Please explain. If we say that 'rov paskens a vadai' (and we do), then we DO have the Torah as it was written by Moshe. For each instance of questionable text, the majority of the discovered scrolls (2 in each case) indicates the proper tradition. So, while none of the discovered scrolls were individually correct, the outcome of the comparison process yields perfect results.

This is not 'Nam, there are rules.

Bill,

That's halakhah but not necessarily metzius. The halakhah has enough flexibility within it to enable halakhah to be a practical system of law. If, for example, the halakhah would not have allowed for a majority reading then we would have no Torah text. Luckily the halakhah provides a solution for us to have, practically speaking, a Torah text which we can consider halakhically proper.

But the majority doesn't change metzius. It is possible that the original Torah of Moshe had one of the minority readings. Halakhah allows us to get past that possibility as a practical matter, but it doesn't ensure that we have a way to divine the metzius.

In fact, the Gemara says that Ezra 'dotted' ten words in the Torah which he had concerns about reasoning that in the future Eliyahu Ha-Navi could confirm those readings, in which case the dots will be removed, or discredit those readings in which case the words could be removed. All Ezra felt empowered to do, according to the Gemara, was make a note of the problem. Clearly the Gemara recognizes that there are doubts. What if all ten--or one--of the dotted words are in error?

I posted a bit on this a short while ago here:

http://parsha.blogspot.com/2005/09/torah-codes-and-yeterchaser.html

While I did present it there as going after the rov, one is not forced to say this. As I mentioned in my analysis, if A is the original sefer Torah, and each of these three are three separate families of scroll (such that one does not inherit from the other), then the easiest thing to say is that each of these scrolls had one (or one series) of mistake introduced. Otherwise, if you say that the unique feature of the scroll is preserved in the one scroll against the two, then you must posit the somewhat dubious assertion that the same exact error (and basically just that error) cropped up in two separate scrolls.

Thus, if one asserts that each of the three scrolls were not the original, then the attempt was to recreate the original based on sound argument, such that the Torah we have now IS the one the Moshe had.

(I also point out that "Zatutei" for naarei is one of the 10 changes made by the 70 elders in the true Septuagint, which had its genesis hundreds of years after Ezra, and suggest that associations with Ezra might stem from the word HaAzarah.)

>Otherwise, if you say that the unique feature of the scroll is preserved in the one scroll against the two, then you must posit the somewhat dubious assertion that the same exact error (and basically just that error) cropped up in two separate scrolls.

That's a good point, but those specific errors may have proliferated after copying from an original scroll with that error. The majority readings in the two scrolls could be descendents of an original Torah that had the error, at least in theory.

I'm going to post a follow up to this post based on a conversation I had with Bill S. and which Josh and S were somewhat "mechavain" to.