In a message dated 8/17/2005 1:31:35 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
jwest AT highland.net writes:
I suppose I perceived that to mean that the pentateuch
consisted of 5 individual scrolls rather than just one mega-scroll.
And you were correct. The books were indeed written and used as 5
individual scrolls. As we know, many of the Qumran scrolls are individual
scrolls of
the books. You were simply incorrect that it could not physically have been
one scroll, since (as was pointed out) using one scroll is the universal
modern practice. This is eminently suited for liturgical practice, but I
certainly wouldn't want to lug it around in a book bag.
Interestingly, a printed book containing the five "books" is called Hamisha
Humshei Tora "the five fifths of Torah", or commonly (yet paradoxically) "a
Humash".
Does anyone have any evidence or citations for when the change to a single
scroll was made, and was any contemporary reasoning offered? (Yes, I'm sure
we can all offer good logical speculation, but do we have any documented
reason by those who did it?)