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The precision of the scribes of proto-MT is often mentioned in the rabbinic literature and this information exactly fits the scribes of proto-MT. On several occasions, rabbinic literature mentions a »corrected scroll« (sefer mugah).¹⁷ Furthermore, according to later rabbinic tradition, the Temple employed professional »correctors« whose task it was to safeguard precision in the copying of the text (b. Ketub. 106a):¹⁸ »Correctors (maggihim) of books in Jerusalem received their fees from the Temple funds.«

This description implies that the correcting procedure based on the master copies in the Temple was financed from the Temple resources that thus approved of the copying procedure. This was the only way to safeguard the proper distribution of precise copies of Scripture. These scrolls must have been used throughout the land of Israel, for public reading as well as for instruction, public and private, as suggested by b. Pes 112a, where one of the five instructions of R. Akiba to his student R. Simeon was: »And when you teach your son, teach him from a corrected scroll.« Another such precise copy was the »Scroll of the King,« which accompanied the king wherever he went. y. Sanh 2.20c and Sifre Deuteronomy 160¹⁹ tell us that this scroll was corrected to »the copy in the Temple Court in accordance with the court of seventy-one members.« The »Scroll of the King« may well be an imaginary scroll and its description may be equally imaginary, but the reality for which it accounts, namely a practice of correcting scrolls from master copies, fits the reality of the copies of proto-MT and the precision of its scribes. In my view, the Judean Desert texts that are closely related to MT may well have been corrected copies.