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The Masoretes (ba'alei hamasorah, Hebrew ???? ??????) were groups of scribe
Scribe

A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing....
s and Bible
Tanakh

The Tanakh is the Bible used in Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew language Acronym and initialism formed from the initial Hebrew alphabet of the Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim - hence TaNaKh....
 scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries, based primarily in Israel in the cities of Tiberias
Tiberias

Tiberias is a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Lower Galilee, Israel. It was named in honour of the emperor Tiberius....
 and Jerusalem
Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its List of Israeli cities in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if Positions on Jerusalem East Jerusalem is included....
, as well as in Babylonia
Babylonia

Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , Babylon as its franklin. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad....
. Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes on the external form of the Biblical text in an attempt to fix the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions and cantillation
Cantillation

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Bible in synagogue Jewish services.The chants are rendered in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points....
 of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh
Tanakh

The Tanakh is the Bible used in Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew language Acronym and initialism formed from the initial Hebrew alphabet of the Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim - hence TaNaKh....
, for the worldwide Jewish community.






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The Masoretes (ba'alei hamasorah, Hebrew ???? ??????) were groups of scribe
Scribe

A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing....
s and Bible
Tanakh

The Tanakh is the Bible used in Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew language Acronym and initialism formed from the initial Hebrew alphabet of the Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim - hence TaNaKh....
 scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries, based primarily in Israel in the cities of Tiberias
Tiberias

Tiberias is a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Lower Galilee, Israel. It was named in honour of the emperor Tiberius....
 and Jerusalem
Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and its List of Israeli cities in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if Positions on Jerusalem East Jerusalem is included....
, as well as in Babylonia
Babylonia

Babylonia was a state in Lower Mesopotamia , Babylon as its franklin. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad....
. Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes on the external form of the Biblical text in an attempt to fix the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions and cantillation
Cantillation

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Bible in synagogue Jewish services.The chants are rendered in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points....
 of the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh
Tanakh

The Tanakh is the Bible used in Judaism. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew language Acronym and initialism formed from the initial Hebrew alphabet of the Tanakh's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim - hence TaNaKh....
, for the worldwide Jewish community. (See the article on the Masoretic text
Masoretic Text

The Masoretic Text is the Hebrew language text of the Jewish Bible . It defines not just the Development of the Jewish Bible canon, but also the precise letter-text of the biblical books in Judaism, as well as their niqqud and cantillation for both public reading and private study....
 for a full discussion of their work.)

The Ben Asher family of masoretes was largely responsible for the preservation and production of the Masoretic Text, although an alternate Masoretic text of the Ben Naphtali
Ben Naphtali

Ben Naphtali was a rabbi and Masorete who flourished about 890-940 Common Era, probably in Tiberias. Of his life little is known. His first name is in dispute....
 masoretes which differs slightly from the Ben Asher text existed. The halakhic authority Maimonides
Maimonides

Moses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Maimon , the Rambam, and Musa ibn Maymun , was born in C?rdoba, Spain, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204.....
 endorsed the Ben Asher as superior, although Saadya Gaon had preferred the Ben Naphtali system.

The Masoretes devised the vowel notation system
Niqqud

In Hebrew language orthography, niqqud or nikkud is the system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of consonants of the Hebrew alphabet....
 for Hebrew that is still widely used as well as the trope
Trope (music)

The term trope derives from Greek language "turn, turning", from - tropos "turn, direction, way" related to the root of - trepo, "to turn, to direct, to alter, to change"....
 symbols used for cantillation
Cantillation

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Bible in synagogue Jewish services.The chants are rendered in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points....
.

Further reading

  • In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language, Chapter 5. ISBN 0-8147-3654-8
  • The Text of the Old Testament. ISBN 0-8028-0788-7
  • Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah. ISBN 0-89130-374-X


External links

  • Masorah