Bereishis (18:22) And the men turned their faces from there, and went toward Sodom; but Abraham still stood before the Lord.
Rashi (Bereishis 18:22) but Abraham still stood before G-d But surely it was not Avraham who had gone to stand before Him, but G-d had come to him and had said to him, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great” and it should therefore have written here, “And G-d still stood before Abraham”? But it is a tikun sofrim (a scribal correction) such as writers make to avoid an apparently irreverent expression which our Rabbis altered, writing it thus).
Bereishis Rabbah (49:07) BUT ABRAHAM STILL STOOD BEFORE G-d. R. Simon said: This is an emendation of the Soferim, for the Shechinah was actually waiting for Abraham
HaKtav VeHaKabalah (Berishis 18:22) BUT ABRAHAM STILL STOOD BEFORE G-d It should have written that G-d stood before Avraham but this is a tikun sofrim (scibal emendation) as noted by Rashi who quotes the medrash. This does not mean that the text of the Torah was altered. Nobody forges a text and then announce that it is a forgery because I changed it. But it simply means that in context it should have been stated differently and thus it was like a scribe making a change out of respect to G-d. .
Siifsei Chachimim (Bereishis 18:22) It is tikun sofrim (an emendation of the Scribes). This does not mean that the Scribes changed even one letter of what was written in the Torah, far be it. Rather, “emendation of the Scribes” denotes that they scrutinized each of those verses, and found that according to its context, its primary meaning cannot be as written in the text, but the verse bears a different meaning. Thus it should not have written, “Avraham was still standing,” but, “God was still standing” — except that Scripture changed the wording out of respect. It is called “emendation of the Scribes” only because they scrutinized it and commented that Scripture changed the wording. (Rashba)
Tiferet Yisrael (66:12) Concerning the verse “BUT ABRAHAM STILL STOOD BEFORE G-d” the Medrash says in the name of Rabbi Simon that this is a tikun sofrim (a scribal emendation) because in fact G-d came to Avraham and therefore it should have been written that G-d still stood before Avraham. However that is not respectful to G-d and therefore the Torah wrote that Avraham still stood before G-d Furthermore Avraham was clearly not standing before G-d because he was busy feeding the guests. This was clearly a tikun sofrim (scribal change) to say that Avraham still stood before G-d. The meaning is clearly not that human scribes changed the text of the Torah after Moshe wrote it down. But it means that it was originally written that way just as we find things expressed differently for proper understanding “the language of man (Berachos 31a) so the meaning of tikun sofrim is that it is a metaphor to explain changes in the Torah saying it is like a scribal emendation. So why isn’t tikun sofrim listed as halacha l’Moshe m’Sinai? I already have discussed that and it is because this is what Moshe actually wrote in theTorah exactlt as G-d said to him – thus it was not an external act that could be described as halacha l’Moshe. Thus in fact the Torah of G-d is perfect. There were no additions at all which is appropriate for the words of the eternal living G-d
It is not clear what the argument is here. Where exactly is the Tiqun or change?
ReplyDeleteWhat they seem to be saying is " we may be bible critics, but we are not Bible Critics"..
Given God is everywhere and everywhen, it is impossible to say that He came to stand before Avraham. The text assumes you understand that.
ReplyDeleteWhile we are here, on what basis were the Ketav /Qeri changes made? And who were the Sofrim? There were Sofrim who Saadia Gaon rejected because they were connected tot he early Karaite or Bnei Miqre, as in the ben Asher family.
ReplyDeleteHere's the dirty secret - the text has changed over time.
ReplyDeleteThere's 4 Rashi's that comment on words not found in our text. There are places in the Gemara where they quote non-existent pesukim. And Kri/Ksiv is cleaer evidence that there were once variant texts and the Massoretes did their best to clean things up and give us one consistent one.
There's a book by Rav Yaakov Weinberg ztl, the RY of ner Yisroel, on the 13 principles of maimonides.
DeleteIn there, he points out that the gemara counted the letters of the Torah and they reached the centre letter. Problem is, that it is not the centre letter anymore - so in the time of Chazal, the copy they had was not the same as what we have today.