Everything I know about Jews and the Torah indicates that nobody EVER, EVER, EVER changes ANYTHING. Jews do not even touch the sacred pages of a scroll when they read it in the Synagogue: they use a special pointer.
Any variation that might creep into a text is generally small and easily identified. The Scriptures are the most sacred thing Jews have. It is protected and cherished: “make them known to your children and your children’s children.” Many people memorize the entire Torah.
The Masoretes, who are responsible for the most complete Hebrew Bible, would not change even an obvious error, but enter a note in the margin. Jews don’t mess with the Word of God (to put it in crude modern terms.)
More broadly, where variations in the text appear, they are not the SAME variation. So if you have
10 ancient manuscripts, and each of them has
one variation, it will not be the SAME variation. So from the remaining 9 manuscripts, it is possible to determine the original text.
One great affirmation of the authenticity of the Bible we have today is the fact that when ancient scrolls are discovered,
they match what we already have. This is true across wide tracts of geography and time.
Here is a link to the
Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Old Testament manuscripts. Lest you have reservations about accepting information from a Catholic source, be assured that
the references can all be checked and that the catalogs of manuscripts are all well known. This is an area of utmost importance, and
scholars require the most extreme scrupulosity in documenting everything accurately. The
Catholic Encyclopedia is old – published in 1913 – and much has been recovered and learned since then, so I advise you to look around for more current information.
The Qumran scrolls, discovered in 1947, were about 1000 years older than the earliest Jewish manuscripts known at the time,
and they match!
Please read that article in the Encyclopedia. It is full of important information.
