Is there any point to those letters? Seem like a waste of ink to me. Some say Allah is deliberately trying to confuse people with those letters.
By the way, some of the Tafsir scholars died before the Hadith were codified into the collections we know today (e.g. Kutub al-Sittah for Sunnis). It's plausible to assume that disagreements they had aren't only due to Hadith because the Hadith we know today didn't exist in their time. e.g. al-Bukhari hadn't even been born when Ibn Abbass was writing.
By the way, some of the Tafsir scholars died before the Hadith were codified into the collections we know today (e.g. Kutub al-Sittah for Sunnis). It's plausible to assume that disagreements they had aren't only due to Hadith because the Hadith we know today didn't exist in their time. e.g. al-Bukhari hadn't even been born when Ibn Abbass was writing.
