2. A Spelling Mistake
gopher {go'-fer} unknown (Ref 3) 
kopher {ko'-fer} pitch 
Did kopher become gopher? One would expect a scribe to make an error the other way round - a foreign word turning into a familiar word (gopher becomes kopher). Considering that this is the sole appearance of the word in the whole bible, this is a big claim - and untestable. There would need to be some collaborative evidence to label this a text error. Simply claiming the word looks like something else is insufficient evidence. Did the scribes have a lot of trouble mixing up g & k? Surely the next scribe would spot the imaginary word gopher and go back to kopher. Besides, if kopher was the original, the verse would have been "Make yourself an ark of pitched wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch." Seems to be bordering on tautology.
WWF: GOPHER WOOD or GO FOR WOOD? © Tim Lovett June 2004, Sept 04
