The oldest copy of the Hebrew Bible still in existence today is about 1000 years old. A group called the “Masoretes” (from as early as 600 and definitely by 800 C.E.) attempted to record and annotate what has become the “authentic” version of the Hebrew Scriptures. Their work is recognized today by Jewish religious leaders as being authentic. This group’s name comes from Hebrew word “MESORAH” which refers to the transmission of a tradition, which can refer either to the entire chain of Jewish tradition (i.e. the Oral Law). But when referring to the masoretic text, the word “MESORAH” has a very specific meaning: the diacritic markings of the text of the Hebrew Bible and the margin notes in manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words.
The Masoretes (sometimes called “Masorites”) apparently became dissatisfied with the traditional Hebrew text since it was written without vowels, or at least only with the three consonsants which can be treated as vowels (Yud, Hei, Vav). These three letters became known by their Latin name “matres lectiones”, which literally means “mother of meaning”. In other words, it was very difficult to read Hebrew without vowels until these three “helper” letters became used as vowels. They are also known in Hebrew as “Am Qiria” (mother of reading). The Yud and Vav are more often vowels than consonants.
The Masoretes began adding diacritic marks to provide information not found in the original Hebrew. For example, the letters SHIN and MEM-SOFIT can be read “SHEM” (meaning: name) or “SHAM” (meaning: there). Thus, a person reading the Biblical text would have to read “SHEM” or “SHAM” depending on the context. By adding vowel marks above, below, or in the middle of the consonants, the Masoretes made it obvious that the correct reading is either SHEM or SHAM. Basically, they added the “AH” sound (with a QAMATZ) or the “EH” sound a TZEREH. Later, some Latin-based language also added disacritical marks, such as the tilda, grave acccent, and umlaut.
The other difficult for beginning readers was that some letters like “SHIN” could be pronounced either as “S” or “SH”. So for instance, our word above could be “SHAM” or “SAM” (meaning: put) or “SHEM”. The Masoretes distinguished the two sounds by adding a dot to the upper-right or upper-left of this letter to distinguish between the “SIN” letter and the “SHIN” letter.
This group accomplished yet another useful function. In a Torah scroll, for example, most of the sentences run together, with only an occasional white space. The Masoretes added small amounts of punctuation, basically periods and the equivalent of a hyphen. Beyond the above, they added an intricate musical system for singing the text in liturgical settings.
The Tiberian Masoretes consisted of five families, but the two most well known are the ben-Asher and Ben-Naftali families. They actually disagreed, and other authors even discussed their differences, leaving us a record of the same. In addition to the Tiberian Masoretic system of vowels, two other, lesser-known systems have been preserved, the first being the Babylonian system, and the second being the “Land of Israel” system (often called “The Palestinian” system).
All serious students of the Hebrew text are familiar with the “Leningrad Codex”, housed in the National Libary of Russia. It dates back to 1009 C.E., and is the oldest complete version (containing all words) of the Hebrew scriptures. When most people think “Hebrew Bible” they are referring to this text or copies of it, whhich was created in the Massoretic tradition. Next time you are in St. Petersburg, check out it’s excellent condition and examples of medeival Jewish artwork.
