Ya think? -- I would have guessed that the original parchments from each of the O.T. authors would still be around, and as such would be silly to expect that scribes were needed except for "extra copies" to pass around. And even those "extra copies" should still exist, because paper is so durable it doesn't get worn, or tear, or burn if the house catches fire. Yep, the ORIGINAL and all subsequent COPIES are INDESTRUCTIBLE.
There, does that help?
Bobby Jo
For the thinking audience:
Apparently in approximately 500AD the Masoretes started copying the O.T. texts and adding vowels to make pronunciations easier. The Dead Sea Scrolls were apparently written between 150BC to 70AD and were compared to the current copies of the Masoretic and Septuagint texts. In that analysis, the Masoretic text was much more faithful to the Dead Sea Scrolls (oldest available copy) than the Septuagint:
Apologetics Press :: Reason & Revelation
April 1995 - 15[4]:25-30
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Integrity
by Garry K. Brantley, M.A., M.Div.
THE SCROLLS AND THE MASORETIC TEXT
... First, for the most part, the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts of Daniel are very consistent in content among themselves, containing very few variants. Second, the Qumran fragments conform very closely to the MT overall, with only a few rare variants in the former that side with the Septuagint version. Third, the transitions from Hebrew to Aramaic are preserved in the Qumran fragments. Based on such overwhelming data, it is evident that the MT is a well-preserved rendition of Daniel. In short, Qumran assures us that we can be reasonably confident that the Daniel text on which our English translations are based is one of integrity. Practically speaking, this means that we have at our disposal, through faithful translations of the original, the truth God revealed to Daniel centuries ago.
And of course, any original
WORD is superior to a best available
word in another language. So if you want to find the specific thought being conveyed, your English translation may fail you. So it's always wise to go back to the ORIGINAL Masoretic text to determine
concisely what GOD was telling HIS creation.
Bobby Jo