What I am saying, ZC, is that knowing orthography is one thing; interpreting words is an altogether different thing. We all read the Bible in English, yet many people interpret it differently. The rabbis appear to have preserved the correct way of identifying the words, but that doesn't mean the correct (theological) interpretation; just gramamtical.
If we drop the vowels in English Bibles, we could run into words with more than one possible meaning. For example "shp" can mean ship, shape, sheep, shop, etc.
Obviously the words preceding and following will determine what "shp" is supposed to be. That's not necessarily the same as correctly interpreting the theology of the text containing 'shp."
If we drop the vowels in English Bibles, we could run into words with more than one possible meaning. For example "shp" can mean ship, shape, sheep, shop, etc.
Obviously the words preceding and following will determine what "shp" is supposed to be. That's not necessarily the same as correctly interpreting the theology of the text containing 'shp."
The theology is found not only in the words and sentences, but in the letters themselves. Every letter must be written in precisely the correct manner or the scroll will not be kosher and cannot be used in worship. These factors include the sizes and shapes of the letters, the "crowns" that appear on some of the letters, and even the spaces between the letters. The correct text, the mode of writing, and the interpretation of the text all have the same source--from G-d to Moses on Mt. Sinai. G-d gave Moses not only the Written Torah but the Oral as well, and the correct hermeneutic/exegetical method for "psaq"ing the text. In addition to this, the forty years in the Midbar (and I know you don't believe in them) were spent in the most arduous systematic study. Maimonides in one of his works (I think Mishneh Torah though it could be Moreh Nevukhim) explains the mode and method of this study.
Now of course I realize that all of this requires me to assume the truth and authenticity of the Rabbinic Tradition. If you are asking me why, after being in so merciless in my rationalistic rejection of the "new testament" I suddenly return to being a "fundie" with regard to these other things, I doubt I will ever be able to satisfy you. I could say that I have learned things about the history of the transmission of the text and of the secrets and mysteries hidden therein that (to my mind) confirm my assumptions, but that is still begging the question of where my "faith" comes from. I don't know where it comes from. I have never claimed to be able to convince an unbeliever of the truth of the Torah and all my arguments with chr*stians is based on the fact that they accept the Torah and acknowledge that it came first; therefore, given A (the Torah) B (chr*stianity) simply does not follow at all. But why do I believe in A in the first place? I can't tell you that.
The front of my Bible has always held a peculiar power over me. My defense of the early chapters of Genesis, which have somehow morphed into a "chr*stian" text that Jews "don't believe in anymore," follows from this same mysterious power. I can say in my defense that this Rabbinic Tradition is as close as we will ever come to the true meaning and that I adhere to it as the most trustworthy. But that still doesn't tell us where my "faith" comes from.
Why do any of us believe what we believe? My sister is a very conventional Southern Baptist, my mother is an "uneducated" (by the standards of the academic world) traditional cultural/folk fundamentalist who believes implicitly in the Bible and listens to the preachers but still thinks for herself when it comes to doctrine (though never with regard to G-d or the Bible themselves). And my later father is absolutely inexplicable--a man who grew up in the rural Bible Belt in the Twenties and Thirties who never let it touch him, who would say very little about his religious beliefs except that no one was really going to heaven (they weren't good enough) and who placed his faith in folk astrology (not the Hollywood type but the rural Southern variety) and superstitions (never burn a fingernail or hair, don't spin a chair on its leg, if you sit a rake or hoe on the front porch someone will die).
And then there is me. I can explain it no more than you can.