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I am writing a program to do various computations with the Torah. To do this I need to remove all punctuation, spaces and other notations.

I have removed the (פ) breaks and all non-Hebrew letters (including nikodot) from the sefaria chumash using the regular expression: "\\(.\\)|\\[.*?\\]|[^\u05D0-\u05EA]" (i.e. any single letter in parenteces, any non Hebrew letter, any hebrew letters with punctuation or any pattern within brackets - to account for kiris) . However I seem to still have 45 extra letters.

See http://www.filedropper.com/biblestats_2 for the output of the program. Each line has a before and after version of the text. At the end of each book I print out the stats thus far. At the end of the entire file, I print the stats of the entire Torah.

I am getting:

Total: Verses: 5846, Letters: 304850
Total Frequencies:
א: 27060
ב: 16345
ג: 2109
ד: 7032
ה: 28055
ו: 30533
ז: 2198
ח: 7189
ט: 1804
י: 31556
ך: 3358
כ: 8610
ל: 21570
ם: 10624
מ: 14466
ן: 4259
נ: 9867
ס: 1833
ע: 11250
ף: 830
פ: 3975
ץ: 1035
צ: 2927
ק: 4695
ר: 18125
ש: 15595
ת: 17950

However according to http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/en_pamphlet9.html and other sources there should be only 304,805 letters. Where are the extra 45 letters coming from?

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    Did you exclude by accident the dotted letters (eg. לנו ולבנינו)? Did you include by accident the upside down nuns?
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 14:07
  • What's the location of that verse? Luckily the inverted nun is not part of the \u05D0-\u05EA unicode character range.
    – Ani Yodea
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 14:08
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    Dotted letters are in eg. Dev 29 28, and nuns in the end of Bamidbar 10
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 14:10
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    Before: Deuteronomy (29, 28): הַ֨נִּסְתָּרֹ֔ת לַיהוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֑ינוּ וְהַנִּגְלֹ֞ת לָ֤ׄנׄוּׄ וּׄלְׄבָׄנֵׄ֙יׄנׄוּׄ֙ עַד־עוֹלָ֔ם לַעֲשׂ֕וֹת אֶת־כָּל־דִּבְרֵ֖י הַתּוֹרָ֥ה הַזֹּֽאת׃ (ס) After:Deuteronomy (29, 28): הנסתרתליהוהאלהינווהנגלתלנוולבנינועדעולםלעשותאתכלדבריהתורההזאת Seems fine.
    – Ani Yodea
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 14:13
  • 4
    Kri UKsivs will get you.
    – Shalom
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 14:27

1 Answer 1

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I think there are 304805 letters in a Sefer Torah but 304850 or 304848 letters in the text as found in a famous manuscript, the 'Leningrad codex', which many academics use. Sefaria is based on the Leningrad codex from tanach.us. I haven't seen a list of the differences, but an example is האלילם/האלילים in Leviticus 19:4.

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    @AniYodea Sefaria is probably a very accurate representation of the Leningrad Codex. Is there a specific other text of the Torah you are looking for?
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 23:43
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    @AniYodea "best for bible codes" Depends what your searching for :) Your link was probably using some other text (likely Minchat Shai's) to make its count.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 23, 2015 at 23:52
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    @AniYodea You should use whatever text was used by the 'discoverer' of that ELS 'code'. Other texts won't necessarily work. This is the main reason why ELS codes are stupid. Unless you're doing this as a programming exercise, I would encourage you to find something useful to do with your time.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 1:24
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    @AniYodea It's stupid because the Talmud already tells us we don't know how many letters there are in the Torah because we don't know all the matres lectionis. (Even one extra letter can ruin everything!) If you have a Mesorah from before that time about a relevant ELS code, fine. Otherwise, go do something productive.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 2:10
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    @AniYodea Kiddushin 30a.
    – Double AA ♦
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 13:12

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