What were some of the safeguards used by scribes to copy Old Testament books accurately?

Answer 1

Until the Common Era, there was no systematic way to check the accuracy copies made of of the Hebrew scriptures. Then the middle letter of the middle word of every book was noted and numbered, so that a quick and accurate check could be made of every manuscript. From that time, the texts could be copied and passed on with considerable accuracy.

Answer 2

At first, biblical texts were simply copied as carefully as possible. This led to gradual changes which, if not detected, could become the standard for future generations. Thousands of fragments of paper, gathered from the tiny, bricked-up storeroom of a Cairo synagogue, show that a considerable change had taken place since the days of the Dead Sea Scrolls, due to the process of hand-copying, although in general the changes were minor.

There was a problem in reading and understanding the ancient texts. Traditionally, Hebrew words had been written with no gap between them and most vowels were omitted.Over the centuries, as the Jews spread throughout the ancient world, the language and accents were affected by contact with other people, and ancient words began to take on new meanings. A system of writing was developed by the ben Asher family of Tiberius in Galilee, to record precisely the traditional vocalisation of the Hebrew language and to introduce the precise separation of words, sentences and paragraphs. This not only made copying manuscripts easier and more reliable, but helped in reading them more correctly.

Another innovation was that the middle letter of the middle word of every Book was noted and numbered, so that a quick and accurate check could be made of every manuscript as it was written.