Four (or Five) Words in Two Kaifeng Torah Scrolls

 

One of the unexpected elements of examining the Kaifeng Torahs scrolls in the Austrian National Library, and Southern Methodist University (for most of Genesis) is the issue of plene or full, and defective, or short, for want of a better word, spelling.  The Vienna Scroll, VS, as an abundance of plene spellings, especially in Exodus.  What is the origin of these spellings?  Is the origin a Corrector, who came along and 'fixed' spellings that are really not incorrect, but part of the original Torah text; did this person fix spelling that is supposed to be, technically, wrong*?

This seems to be the case in this cluster of words in Genesis 41:26 - 27.  This is from the VS:

Here, the words in boxes have vavs that seem to be inserted after the words was written.  We see this is especially the case for these two words:

The SMU scroll also has these words in plene form:

But I believe it is far harder to say that vowels were inserted into the SMU text.  The appear to have been written fully formed as part of all the words.  Both the VS and the SMU text reproduce the plene spelling for these four words, but with one expection, this word is plene is SMU but defective in VS:

Which is surprising as VS is far more prone to plene spelling that SMU.  So there are four plene spellings in the VS in this text, and five in SMU.  What are we to make of this?  Until I get more of the SMU scroll (and the others) it would seem that the Corrector of the VS was actually viewing another Kaifeng Scroll or Torah book, and inserting the vowels based on those scrolls.  Did the Corrector fail to notice the word above?  Unfortunately, most of the plene spellings in the VS Genesis text are in parts of the SMU text I do not have yet.  When I have these, I can either confirm or debunk this theory.

But based on what we have now, the Correct was not inserting vowels at will.  The Corrector was most likely working from a text. 

* there are no right or wrong spellings in Biblical Hebrew. as this Hebrew simply captures a time when spelling was not formalized.