The scribes: a text profession

“Scribe” was a profession of the pen. At first it meant the recorders at court, royal secretaries (2 Sam 8:17). From Ezra, “a ready scribe in the law of Moses” (Ezra 7:6), it came to mean the men whose job was Scripture itself: copying it, counting it, teaching it, the scribes who debate Jesus in the Gospels. The rabbis read their Hebrew name (soferim) as “the counters, those who count the letters of the Torah.” A professional copyist was not permitted to rely on his memory: he copied from an expert-made model, letter by letter, under warnings like Rabbi Ishmael’s, “be careful in thy work, as it is a heavenly work, lest thou err in omitting or adding one iota, and so cause the destruction of the whole world.”