Who were the Masoretes?

When the Arabs conquered those parts of the world where these learned Jews were chiefly settled, and when the earlier Caliphs in the eighth and ninth centuries patronised all kinds of learning;— a great impulse was given to the cultivation of the Hebrew language and literature, and to the critical study of the Bible. A succession of Jewish doctors then flourished in the East, who are styled the Masoretes, because their collection of writings is called the masorah or tradition. They directed their attention almost exclusively to the text of the Bible, selecting the best manuscripts, and rejecting what was corrupt. The scrupulous care they took may be judged from the fact that they have counted the number of words, and the number of letters in the Bible or in any particular parts. They have left on record what is the middle word, or the middle letter of the entire book; how many words begin with a particular letter, and many other minute labours of the same kind, trifling indeed, but still showing most remarkably how careful they were of even words and letters.

When the Arabs conquered those parts of the world where these learned Jews were chiefly settled, and when the earlier Caliphs in the eighth and ninth centuries patronised all kinds of learning;— a great impulse was given to the cultivation of the Hebrew language and literature, and to the critical study of the Bible. A succession of Jewish doctors then flourished in the East, who are styled the Masoretes, because their collection of writings is called the masorah or tradition. They directed their attention almost exclusively to the text of the Bible, selecting the best manuscripts, and rejecting what was corrupt. The scrupulous care they took may be judged from the fact that they have counted the number of words, and the number of letters in the Bible or in any particular parts. They have left on record what is the middle word, or the middle letter of the entire book; how many words begin with a particular letter, and many other minute labours of the same kind, trifling indeed, but still showing most remarkably how careful they were of even words and letters.

We must not further delay speaking of the history of the Text in the hands of scribes. Old Testament criticism was yet in its infancy when the Sopherim, or scribes, put forth their activity, down to about the sixth century after Christ. This was what has been called the age of the Talmud. The critical work of these scribes is of little account.

The consonants alone represent the Hebrew Text. Relics of the past, such as Inscriptions, Stones and Coins, have only consonants. As late as Jerome's day the Text was still unpointed. The Talmud, closed in the fifth or sixth century, never alludes to vowel-points: it gives instances of the different ways in which words were vocalised. In the appendices to Baer's editions will be found lists of ancient readings, which relate only to the consonants, and are called respectively 'Oriental' (or Babylonian) and 'Western' (or Palestinian) readings. On the other hand, in Walton's Polyglott, besides the Rabbinical Bibles and Baer's editions, we meet with lists associated respectively with the names of Ben Naphtali (Babylonian) and Ben Asher (Palestinian), which relate to the vowels and accents, and are said to belong to the eleventh century (A.C.)

The vowels had in the meantime been added by the Masorites, or authors of the Masora, who were Jewish critics between the sixth and tenth centuries. After the close of the Talmud, their work began in the Jewish Academies, as at Tiberias. Aben Esra says, 'We have received the whole punctuation from them:' see Bacher's 'Abraham Ibn Esra als Grammatiker' (1880), p.37 note. Another system of vocalisation appears to have obtained in the Babylonian schools, exhibited in the ancient MS. of which a facsimile was published by Strack in 1875. It is called the 'Codex of St. Petersburg.'

The Masorites then, amongst other things, laboured honestly to fix the pronunciation of the Text when Hebrew was becoming a dead language. This appears to have been their earliest and their best work. They must also have invented the elaborate system of accents which, besides being phonetic symbols, provide an analysis of the sentence, showing what words go together. The interpreter is rash who departs from them without very good reason. Amongst the minative with which the Masorites occupied themselves was the counting of words and letters; the attention of the reader is directed to the middle word of a book, and so on. They took note of every 'jot and tittle.' The points must have been intended as the permanent expression of the traditional pronunciation. Notwithstanding that they have been subject to much controversy from the days of Buxtorf (seventeenth century), all scholars agree in following them in the main. Thrupp says, 'Nothing can be more remote from the truth than that we are at liberty to supply vowels to the text at our own unfettered discretion'; and De Wette, 'On the whole, the Masoretic text is a much better witness for punctuation than the often ignorant versions and hasty critics.' The accents stand upon the same footing.

We must now consider the history and condition of the Text represented by the MSS. The existing MSS. are based upon a strictly Jewish arrangement of the Text belonging to Christian times. Upon this 'Recension' — if the expression be correct have we to depend; so that there is no such variety of MS. evidence for any Hebrew readings of Old Testament texts as may be obtained for Greek readings in the New Testament writings. This doubtless damps the ardour of critics, which finds vent in an often too free use of versions: this is all that they have to fall back upon. The Text must for the most part have acquired a fixed form before the birth of Christ, as Aquila and the other Greek translators, of whom we shall have more to say, depart from it less than do the LXX. Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel, the Targumists, or Chaldee Paraphrasts, also follow it very closely. The essential agreement of the Hebrew MSS. of the Old Testament is beyond comparison greater than that of Greek MSS. of the New. The former do on the whole give the same Text, that is, the Text which underlies the Masora: it is in the truest sense substance of tradition (cf. chap. 10). The Jews have so far been faithful to their trust. We may contrast with it the corrupt state of Mahommedan texts of which Arabic scholars complain. A proof of the general accuracy of the Hebrew Text we possess is afforded by the variation that exists between parallel passages, in which the temptation to alter would be strong: cf. Pss. 14 and 53; Ps. 18 and 2 Sam. 22. The state of the Greek Text of the New Testament in this respect stands on a much lower level.

"It is well known that among the Jews it was the profession of the Masorites, or doctors of tradition, to transcribe the Scriptures. We know to what extent these indefatigable scholars carried their respect for the letter; and when we read the rules under which their labours were carried on, we understand the use that the providence of God (who had 'confided his oracles to the Jews') made of their reverence, severe exactitude, and even of their superstition. They reckoned the number of verses, words, and letters in each book. They tell us, for instance, that the letter A occurs forty-two thousand three hundred and seventy-seven times in the Bible; the letter B thirty-eight thousand two hundred and eighteen times; and so on to the end. They were scrupulous of changing the position even of a letter, though evidently misplaced, but limited themselves to noting it in the margin, supposing some mystery was involved. They tell us which is the middle letter of the Pentateuch, as well as of each of the books of which it is composed. They never allowed themselves to correct their manuscript; and if any mistake escaped them, they rejected the papyrus or the skin which they had blemished, and recommenced upon a fresh one; for they were equally interdicted from even correcting one of their errors, and from retaining for their sacred volume a single parchment or skin in which an erasure had been made. …

"These facts, we repeat it, together with the astonishing preservation of the Hebrew text (1200 years more ancient than that of the Septuagint), plainly tell us how the intervention of the mighty hand of God was needed in the destinies of this sacred book.

As to spelling, we cannot do better than repeat a remark made by Dr. Payne Smith: 'Fixity of spelling is a modern idea, the result of printed books.' Two forms of a name may occur in one verse: see 2 Chron. 23:5, and cf. 2 Kings 8:21, 11:2, 12:2; Jer. 28:12 (Heb.) This of course connects itself with what has been said as to the transposition of letters. The unusual size or shape of letters sometimes in the Text is an indication doubtless of various readings, and so with Gen. 23:2, of which the Jews have as usual a puerile explanation.

Very little has been fixed on the Jews (and that not quite certainly) of intentional corruption of the Text. 'The servile minuteness,' to use the words of the late Isaac Taylor ('Transmission,' pp.176-8), of the Jewish copyists in transcribing the Hebrew Scriptures' and 'unexampled exactness afford security enough for the safe transmission of the text; and if there were any grounds for the suspicion that the Rabbis, to weaken the evidence adduced against them by the Christians, wilfully corrupted some particular passages, we have other securities, as we shall see, against the consequences of such an attempt' (p.178). The following passage from Taylor is as interesting as it is important: 'The Hebrew nation has almost throughout the entire period of its history, been divided both by local separation, and by schism. Probably the Israelites of India, and certainly the Samaritans, have been the keepers of the books of Moses, apart from the Jews, during a period that reaches beyond the date of authentic profane history. Throughout times somewhat less remote the Jews have not only been separated by distance, but divided by at least one complete schism — that on the subject of the Rabbinical traditions, which has distinguished the sect of the Karaites from the mass of the nation.' Again: 'As to the Jewish Scriptures … evidence reaching far beyond the mere proof of antiquity and genuineness is ample and precise enough to establish the integrity of nearly the entire text of the books in question. These writings were not simply succeeded by a literature of a similar cast, but they actually created a vast body of literature altogether devoted to their elucidation; and this elucidation took every imaginable form of occasional comment upon single passages — of argument upon certain topics, requiring numerous scattered quotations and of complete annotation, in which nearly the whole of the original author is repeated. From the Rabbinical paraphrases, and from the Works of the Christian writers of the first seven centuries, the whole text of the Scriptures might have been recovered, if the original had since perished.' (p.182).

It will at this stage be convenient to speak of the two sets of readings by which a reader of the Hebrew Bible is confronted at the outset of his studies. They are technically called Chetivs or textual, and Keris or marginal readings. As transmitted to us side by side, they are further evidence for the scrupulous dealing of the Jews with the Text. As to the respective vocalisation of the Chetiv and Keri, see Gesenius' smaller Grammar, § 17.

The Keris are due to the Masorites. The materials they employed in their work would seem to have been traditional, but they evidently compared MSS., and used their own discrimination to a large extent. Citations from the Talmud seem to be usually according to the Keri. For this reason perhaps it is that Kennicott puts a high value on the Keris. The learned Dr. John Lightfoot believed they represented the readings of copies going back to the time of the Captivity (see his English Works, 1684). Modern critics, however, generally follow De Rossi's views as to the marginal readings. Gesenius amongst the Germans, speaks of the 'false critical judgment' by which easier and more euphonious readings were preferred to harsh and archaic forms, in violation of the rule, proclivi scriptioni proestat ardua. The present writer believes Dr. Payne Smith right in saying (Comm. on Jeremiah) that whenever the Chetiv gives a fair sense, it is to be preferred; and that 'there was a tendency with scribes to substitute the Keri, not merely because it was regarded as an authoritative correction, but as being suggested by the memory, the Keri being always read in the synagogue.'

The Masora may be studied under the guidance of Ginsburg, who is the chief recent authority in England. Buxtorf's 'Tiberias' is an older (1620), but not yet quite antiquated, work. Steinschneider, a Jewish scholar, speaks of it as 'the most thorough book by a Christian upon the Masora.'

[14] In Hebrew consonants alone are normally used in writing; vowels are omitted and simply added when texts are read. However, this resulted in ambiguity, since several words contained the same consonants in the same order (e.g. DM can mean either aDaM or eDoM). In the 8th century B.C. the Masoretes introduced a system of pointing: dots and tiny symbols above or below the consonants indicated which vowels were to be inserted. If there was more than one possibility of vocalizing a word, a decision had to be made. This was the case here. In the original text stands ‘NZR’ – the question is whether NeZeR (crown) or NaZiR (Nazarite) is the correct reading.

Bomberg's Rabbinical Bible of 1526 was edited by Jacob ben Chajjim. This is the Hebrew Text settled by the Masora — or Massorah, the body of Jewish traditional textual criticism — rather than by MSS. It has however been the staple of later editions. It contains Rabbinical commentaries opposite to the original Text, and what is called 'the Great Masora,' besides some variant readings.

Buxtorf's Rabbinical Bible (1618) is useful for the Targums, and for the commentaries of the Rabbins. It, like Bomberg's Bible, contains the Masora and lists of readings. The editor was the most learned Christian Hebraist of his day.

Again in 2 Sam. 14:21, the Masoretic text punctuates "thou hast done," referring to Joab, whilst all the versions, and some MSS., agree with the English translation, which adheres to the written text or ch'thib, "I have done." In 2 Sam. 12:21, for "he called," some MSS., with the Syriac, Targum, and approved of by the Masora, read "she called," speaking of Bathsheba.

A comparison of the variations of the Hebrew with those of the Greek, will show that in the latter the alterations are often more important, and affect more materially the sense and form of a passage, than is generally the case in the former. This is easily accounted for by the reverence amounting almost, if not quite, to superstition with which the Jews regarded the originals. Though blinded to the full meaning of the word, they took great care of it. They would not alter, as a rule, a letter of the text, even if that letter was enlarged, reversed, or misplaced. They handed down the text as they found it, after they had settled in an early age of the Christian era, what they believed it to be; but noted in the margin what they conceived should be read. Such corrections are termed K'ri, "read," and the text ch'thib, "written." Again, if a word had been accidentally dropped out of the text, they did not insert it. Its vowels would be found without the consonants to which they belonged, and a note would tell the reader that such a word should be read; see, for an example of this, Judges 20:13. Yet, with all the care bestowed on the text, we cannot say it is faultless, or that readings have not crept into it, which were not in the originals as they came from the inspired writers. On the other hand, we should not be hasty in altering it, but we might have the important differences noted in the margin of the English Bible, as is already done in the case of some of the examples given above.

The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) omits several verses: chapters 10:6-10; 17:1-4; 27:1.7.13 and in some cases 17-22; 29:16-20; 33:14-26; 39:4-13; 51:44-49; 52:28-30 and other references. The chapters 46 to 51 follow in changed order after chap. 25:13. Many scientists however agree that the Alexandrian translators who were trained in Greek thinking have tried to smooth the difficult construction of the Hebrew book of Jeremiah. The Hebrew Masoretic text of the book which has been preserved therefore deserves clearly the priority.