For the source text click/tap here: Bava Metzia 14
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§ Shmuel said: What is the reason for the opinion of the Rabbis, who say that one can collect a debt from liened property even if the promissory note does not include a property guarantee? They hold that omission of the property guarantee from the promissory note is a scribal error, as one would certainly not lend money without a property guarantee.
It is important to distinguish between scribal errors and scribal corrections. The Talmud was copied by professional scribes and students in a centuries-long process. One manuscript was copied from another (sometimes more than one), and mistakes, known as scribal errors, crept in during copying. Sometimes copyists read the text incorrectly, while on other occasions, they accidentally omitted entire words, phrases, and whole lines. Thus, one class of variants derives from scribal errors.
We explore some examples of textual transmission and the effort to prevent scribal errors.