Secret Codes Protect Ancient Torahs

An anonymous reader writes "A story on Wired News reports the problems Jewish synagogues have protecting their Torahs from theft. The Torah scrolls, containing the five books of Moses, are hand lettered over the course of a year, are often hundreds of years old, and can sell for $50,000 or more. But Judaic law "dictates that not one character can be added to the 304,805 letters of the Torah's text", which makes them untraceable and easily sold on the black market. Rabbinic authorities have recently approved two computer-based systems to make the scrolls traceable: one takes a digital fingerprint of a Torah, a second makes microperforations in the parchment that yield a unique identifier."

Comments

All this time, money and effort...

[cr0sh]

I am all for protecting and insuring against theft (or other damage) intellectual works and histories, products of the human mind. Which, ultimately, is what the Torah is. We, as rational human beings, should never destroy any work of the mind, whether valueless/depraved, or priceless and inspired - because in the end, it is who we ultimately are, and serves as a "roadmap" of sorts, for future generations.

The Torah, and other religious works, should be saved in some form.

However, with that said, if we are ever to advance beyond our current barbarisms, we must realize these works of religion for what they are...myths. Religion has inspired many people to do good. Within most of the worlds "great" religions, and most of the lesser ones, lie messages of peace, hope, and goodwill for our fellow man. However, some of the darkest periods in history were results of, or were instituted by, so-called "religious" people, acting upon supposedly "higher" orders, or so they thought.

Mod me down as "flamebait" if you wish, it doesn't change the facts of the matter...