copyist fidelity

Our eldest told me that he had attempted to explain to a co-worker the extreme care with which Jews copied their scriptures, and some of the methods they used for verification. The co-worker didn't believe him.

That's probably not a surprise. We produce new editions of books all the time. Books are rewritten for different audiences, rewritten to turn into movies, bowdlerized to fit the current social fashions--books are mutable. Why would a religious book be different?

The only things I could think of that we treat with the same literal care these days are contracts and treaties. Maybe he could try saying that they treated scripture as if it were God's contract with them.