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  1. Torah was dictated by G-d to Moses and is exact by letter.

  2. Mishnah and Gemmorah (and all subsequent books) are man-made and written loosely (at least not letter-exact - see תנא ושייר and more).

The tradition says that the books of Na"ch were written by people with Ruach Hakodesh, not strictly dictated by G-d. [@Loewian suggested to differentiate between Prophets and Writings as they don't share the same level of ... something]

In what category of exactness do the books of Na"ch fall?

Al Berko
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    the middle one. – Loewian Jul 11 '19 at 21:16
  • Also, sifrei neviim were written b'nevuah (prophetically), not just with the ruach hakodesh (divine inspiration) of kethuvim. – Loewian Jul 11 '19 at 21:18
  • @Loewian So was the book of Yehoshua dictated to Yehoshua in prophecy or ti someone else? – Al Berko Jul 11 '19 at 21:20
  • It seems pretty accepted that none of the books of the prophets were "dictated" to the prophets, at least inasmuch as prophecy is traditionally described as experiential for the prophet rather than verbal (see e.g. Maharal's first introduction to Gevuroth Hashem). – Loewian Jul 11 '19 at 21:23
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    @Loewian Please continue - so what level of exactness do those prophecies exhibit? – Al Berko Jul 11 '19 at 21:25
  • Presumably not as much as the Pentateuch; probably more than Writings, which, in turn, are presumably more precise than subsequent and/or lesser Torah scholars... – Loewian Jul 11 '19 at 21:29
  • @Loewian I added your point to the Q. – Al Berko Jul 11 '19 at 21:31
  • I think the overlap with https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/105507/how-a-prophet-translates-a-vision-into-words/105526#105526 is great enough to warrant combining them into 1 Q. – Micha Berger Jul 12 '19 at 15:08

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