Editing Scribe (section)

====Corrections and editing====
[[File:מימין לשמאל יושבים הרב יונתן שטנצל הגאון רבי אשר וייס הרב דוד יצחק מנדלבוים כתיבת ספר תורה ביתר עילית.JPG|thumb|Completing the writing of the text for an [[inauguration of a Torah scroll]]]]
Priests who took over the leadership of the Jewish community preserved and edited biblical literature. Biblical literature became a tool that legitimated and furthered the priests' political and religious authority.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/origins-written-bible.html |title=Origins of the Written Bible |first=William M. |last=Schniedewind |author-link=William M. Schniedewind |date=18 November 2008 |access-date=9 July 2018 |publisher=[[PBS Online]] |work=Nova}}</ref>

Corrections by the scribes ([[Tiqqun soferim]]) refers to changes that were made in the original wording of the Hebrew Bible during the second temple period, perhaps sometime between 450 and 350 BCE. One of the most prominent men at this time was [[Ezra|Ezra the scribe]]. He also hired scribes to work for him, in order to write down and revise the oral tradition.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://booksnthoughts.com/ezra-changed-the-torah-text/ |title=Ezra changed the Torah text |first=Israel |last=Drazin |date=26 August 2015 |access-date=9 July 2018 |website=Jewish Books}}</ref> After Ezra and the scribes had completed the writing, Ezra gathered the Jews who had returned from exile, all of whom belonged to [[Kohen|Kohanim]] families. Ezra read them an unfamiliar version of the Torah. This version was different from the Torah of their fathers. Ezra did not write a new bible. Through the genius of his ‘editing', he presented the religion in a new light.<ref>{{cite book |first=M. |last=Okouneff |title=The Wrong Scribe: The Scribe Who Revised the King David Story |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3XFdjwEACAAJ |publisher=[[CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform]] |date=23 January 2016 |pages=146 |editor-first=John |editor-last=Greenburg |isbn=9781523640430}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-who-wrote-the-torah-1.5318582 |title=Who Wrote the Torah? |last=Gilad |first=Elon |date=22 October 2014 |access-date=9 July 2018 |newspaper=[[Haaretz]]}}</ref>