Copied by Hand for Centuries

We inherited the Bible as a printed object, so it is easy to forget the centuries when every copy was produced by hand, one letter at a time, by scribes working from an exemplar in front of them.
What that produced: in this period "many variant readings crept into the text of the Old Testament (including the Torah proper), producing several clearly discernible transmission chains (text-families)."
Three families are the main ones - the Masoretic tradition behind most English Old Testaments, the Hebrew behind the Greek Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch.
None of this is a secret discovered by sceptics. Jeremiah describes the process himself: Baruch writes the scroll, the king burns it, and another scroll is written with many similar words added.
Scripture links:
- Jeremiah 36:4 - "Baruch wrote on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah."
- Jeremiah 36:32 - "and many similar words were added to them."
- 2 Timothy 3:16 - "All Scripture is breathed out by God."
The Bible came to us through hands. It says so.