a. [f. Heb. sōphēr scribe (see SCRIBE sb.1 1) + -IC.] Of or pertaining to the Jewish scribes or their teaching. Also Sopherism, the existence or authority of scribes as a learned class.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIII. 37/2. A vast amount of Sopheric literature not to be found in the canonical Mishnah.
1890. P. H. Hunter, After the Exile, II. xii. 241. Sopherism was still a comparatively new phenomenon in Jewish society.
