ben Naphtali was a rabbi and Masorete who flourished about 890-940

940

Year 940 was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.- Asia :* Saadia Gaon compiles his siddur in Iraq.* Narita-san Temple is founded in Chiba, Japan....

 C.E.

Common Era

Common Era ,abbreviated as CE, is an alternative designation for the calendar era originally introduced by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century, traditionally identified with Anno Domini .Dates before the year 1 CE are indicated by the usage of BCE, short for Before the Common Era Common Era...

, probably in Tiberias. Of his life little is known. His first name is in dispute. Some medieval authorities called him "Jacob"; two Tchufut-Kalè manuscripts have "Moses b. David"; a third contains his autoepigraph

Epigraphy

Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...

, which unfortunately is incomplete, only "ben

Ben

Ben is often a shortened version of the given name Benjamin, Benvolio, Benedict, or less commonly Bentley, although it is also used as a formal given name in its own right...

 David ben Naphtali" remaining.
ben Naphtali wrote a Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 with vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

s, accents, and Masorah

Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...

, wherein he differed in some respects from his contemporary and rival, Aaron ben Moses ben Asher

Aaron ben Moses ben Asher

Aaron ben Moses ben Asher was a Jewish scribe who refined the Tiberian system for writing down vowel sounds in Hebrew, which is still in use today, and serves as the basis for grammatical analysis...

.