Masoretes

The Masoretes do not appear in the biblical text as individuals or as a group. The term refers to Jewish scholars who, after the Bible was completed, copied and transmitted the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and recorded how that text was to be read. The text they compiled and handed down is called the Masoretic Text.

Background

The word "Masorah" derives from a Hebrew term meaning "tradition," that is, "that which has been handed down." The Masoretes are generally thought to have been active from about the sixth century to about the tenth century, although scholars divide this period in different ways. Their principal centers were Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and Babylonia.

Because ancient Hebrew Scripture was written with consonants only, the manner of reading it was passed down orally. To keep this tradition from being lost, the Masoretes undertook the following work:

• Vowel points: They added dots and strokes above and below the consonants to indicate pronunciation.
• Cantillation marks: They marked the intonation and the pauses observed when the text was chanted in the synagogue.
• Marginal notes: In the margins of the text they recorded information such as the number of times a word occurs, in an effort to prevent copying errors. Where the written letters differed from the word actually read aloud, they distinguished the ketiv ("what is written") from the qere ("what is read").

Among the several systems of notation, the Tiberian system became the standard, and within it the tradition of the Ben Asher family is the most representative. The tenth-century Aleppo Codex and the early eleventh-century Leningrad Codex are known as manuscripts that preserve this tradition.

Significance for the Bible as a Whole

The critical editions of the Hebrew Old Testament used in scholarship today, as well as most Protestant translations of the Old Testament, take the Masoretic Text as their base text.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered beginning in 1947, include manuscripts roughly a thousand years older than the work of the Masoretes. Two assessments of these manuscripts coexist. One holds that their consonantal text agrees substantially with the Masoretic Text and thus demonstrates the stability of the tradition; the other holds that they show the text existed in multiple forms at that time.

Interpretation and Issues

• Choice of text: The New Testament writers frequently quoted not only the Hebrew text but also the Septuagint. The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint as the authoritative text of the Old Testament. Modern Roman Catholic and Protestant translations are generally based on the Hebrew text while also consulting the Septuagint and other manuscripts.
• Origin of the vowel points: In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Protestant scholars debated when the vowel points originated. One side held that the vowel points were part of the original text, while the other regarded them as later additions. Scholars today generally hold that they were added in the time of the Masoretes.
• The name of God: The Masoretes attached the vowels of "Adonai" to the four consonants representing the name of God, so that the name would not be pronounced directly but read as "Adonai." Reading this notation literally is generally said to have given rise in later times to the form "Jehovah."
• Popular embellishments: Sermons sometimes attribute to the Masoretes practices such as destroying an entire scroll if even a single letter was wrong. However, many of these copying regulations come from rabbinic literature, so the periods and people involved are often confused in the retelling. Moreover, the "one jot or one tittle" of Matthew 5:18 speaks of the authority of the Law and does not refer directly to the work of the Masoretes.