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The Masoretes (Template:Langx, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> based primarily in the Jewish centers of the Levant (e.g., Tiberias and Jerusalem) and Mesopotamia (e.g., Sura and Nehardea).<ref>Template:Cite EJ</ref> Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes (niqqud) on the external form of the biblical text in an attempt to standardize the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions, and cantillation of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) for the worldwide Jewish community.
The ben Asher family of Masoretes was largely responsible for the preservation and production of the Masoretic Text, although there existed an alternative Masoretic text of the ben Naphtali Masoretes, which has around 875 differences from the ben Asher text.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> The halakhic authority Maimonides endorsed the ben Asher as superior, although the Egyptian Jewish scholar, the Saadya Gaon, had preferred the ben Naphtali system. It has been suggested that the ben Asher family and the majority of the Masoretes were Karaites.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> However, Geoffrey Khan believes that the ben Asher family was probably not Karaite,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Aron Dotan avers that there are "decisive proofs that M. Ben-Asher was not a Karaite."<ref>Template:Cite EJ</ref>
The Masoretes devised the vowel notation system for Hebrew that is still widely used, as well as the trope symbols used for cantillation.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
The nakdanim were successors to the Masoretes in the transmission of the traditional Hebrew text of the Old Testament.
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language, Chapter 5. Template:ISBN
- The Text of the Old Testament. Template:ISBN
- Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah. Template:ISBN
- Template:Cite GHG, Template:Cite GHG