🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5vhm5m$i...@winter.news.erols.com>,  <mei...@erols.com> wrote:
>I agree with your concern for our sanity.  This one point should be
>worth the time.  What is the difference between digitized format and
>what results if one just types the text on a computer.  Aren't most
>new books in Hebrew written on a computer or typeset using a computer.
>Isn't this adequate for testing for codes. Do you mean something
>different by digitized? .

The reason this is so difficult is that manuscripts, unlike printed
texts, are subject to some degree of interpretation. In addition, since
each manuscript is in its own way unique, it is more difficult to deal
with faded ink, spots, notes, and degradations of all sorts.  (Books
can suffer from similar problems, but with a manuscript they are
greatly magnified.) Remember that since the manuscripts were not
*originally* typed into a computer, digitizing must be done by a human
being. (Of course these days we are gaining productivity from scanning
and OCR technology, but there is nothing like that available for
medieval Hebrew manuscripts.) 

But let me hasten to say that even if someone did decide to digitize
Erfut 3 (to name just one of a dozen or so that would be required) so
that it could be compared with the Leningrad Codex (I believe the one
mss which has been digitized is L, but corrections are welcome), there
are so many other issues that Ripps, Witzum, Drosnin et al are
blissfully ignorant of that we will not have gained much. (For example,
the ten dotted places in the Torah, the impact of q'ri versus k'tiv
throughout, the tiqunei soferim, and on and on). But if this pries
loose a little bit of funding so that we can accomplish that work, I
suppose we can apply the adage "'Tis and ill wind..."

Shavu`a tov,

--Jack
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Jack F. Love
Opinions expressed are mine alone, unless you happen to agree