--~---------

~----------------------_.--------------~-------------

The Hebrew Bible

he printed editions of the Hebrew Bible that are in use today are based
on medieval manuscripts deriving from the school of the Masoretes of
Tiberias. The Masoretes were scholars who devoted themselves to pre
serving the traditions of writing and reading the Bible. Their name
derives from the Hebrew ter m masora or masoret, the meaning of which is gener
ally thought to be 'transmission of traditions'. The Tberian Masoretes were
active over a period of several centuries in the second half of the first millennium
CE. The medieval sources refer to several generations of Ma!;ioretes, some of them .
belonging to the same fami1y. The most famous,of these families s that of
Aharon ben Asher (tenth century).The Maso[etes continued the work of the
soferim C'scribes') of the Talmudic and Second Temple periods, who were a1so
occupied with the correct transmission of the bblical texto
The Tiberian Masoretic traditi{)n gradually took shape over two or three cen
turies and continued to grow until it was finally fixed and the activities of the
Masoretes ceased at the beginning of the second millennium. During the same
period, circles of Masoretes are known to have existed a1so in Iraq, but the
Tiberian Masoretc tradition had become virtually exclusive in Judaism by the late
Midd1e Ages and has be en followed by aH printed editions of the Hebrew Bib1e.
The Tiberian Masoretic tradition is recorded in numerous medieval manu
scripts. The majority of these were written after 1100 CE and are copies of older
manuscripts made in various Jewish communities. The earlier printed editions
are based on these late medieval manuscripts. The most authoritative of these
earIy editions was the so-called second Rabbinic Bib1e O.e. the Bible text C0111
bined with commentaries and trans1ations, known as Mi'lra' ot Gedolot) edited
by Jacob ben Hayyim ben Adoniyahu and printed at the press of Daniel Bomberg
in Venice between 1524 and 1515. This carne to be regarded as a textus l'eceptus
and was used as the basis for many subsequent editions of the H~brew Bible.
A small number of survivng manuscripts are first-hand records of the
Tiberian Masoretic tradition. The fixed traaition was transmitted by generations
of scribes. Some of the modern editions of the Bible are based on these early
manusqipts, for example, the Biblia Hebraica fro111 the third edition (1929-37)

60

The Hebrew Bible

'onwards, The Hebrew Urziversity Bible, ed. M. Goshen-Gottstein (1975, 1981), the
editiol1s by A. Dotan (1976) and M. Breuer (1977-82), and the modern edition of
the Rabbil1ic Bible by M. Cohen (1992- ).
The Tiberian Masoretic tradition can be divided into the following components:
1. The c011sonanta1 text of the Hebrew Bib1e.

2. The indicatons of divisions of paragraphs.

3. The accent signs, which indicated the musical cantillation of the text and a1so
the position of the main stress in a word.
4. The voca1izatio11, which indicated the pronunciation of the vowels and sorne

details of the pronunciaton of the conSOl1al1ts in the reading of the text.

5. Notes on the text, written in the margins of the manuscript.
6. Masoretic treatises. Sorne manuscripts have appendices at the end of the biblica1
text containing various treatises on aspects of the teachings of the Masoretes.
These six items are a11 in written formo In addition the Masoretic tradition a1so
contained al1 orally transrnitted component in the form of a reading tradition.
The 1'eading tradition was partially represented in graphic form by the voca1iza
tion and accent signs, but these did not record a11 of its detai1s. The orally
transrnitted Tiberian reading tradition, therefore, should be treated as an addi
tiona1 component of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition. The reading tradition
comp1emented the conson01nta1 text, but it was independent of it to acertain
degree, and sometimes contained a different reading from what was represented
by the consonanta1 text. In such cases the traditional Masoretic terminology dis
tingLlishes the qere ('what is read') from the ketiv ('what is written').
It is this complex of components, written and oral, that formed the Tiberian
Masoretic tradition. A careful distinction must be made between the compo
nents of the tradition that the Masoretes had a direct role in creating and the
components that were nherited from an earlier periodo The core components
that were inherited from earlier tradition include the consonal1tal text, the par01
graph divisions, the oral reading tradition, and sorne of the contents of the
textual notes. The other components, i.e., the accent and vocalization signs (but
not the reading tradion that the signs represented, and the majority of the tex
tual notes and treatises, were developed by the !vlasoretes in the Masoretic
periodo At the end of the Masoretic period the written components of tbe
Tiberian Masoretic tradition had become fixed and were transmitted in this fixed
form by later scribes. By contrast, tbe oral component, that is, the Tiberian read
ing tradition, was soon forgotten and appears not to have been transmitted much
beyond the twelfth century.
Within the Tiberian scho01 there were various streams of tradition that differed
f1'om one another in small details and were associated with the names of indi
vidual Masoretes. The differences that we know the 1110st about were between

Geoffrey Khan

Aharon ben Asher and Moshe ben Naphtali, who belonged to the last generation
of Masoretes in the tenth eentury. The points of disagreement between these two
Masoretes are recorded in lists at the end of many of the early Tiberian Bible man
useripts. A souree from the eleventh century refers to the possibility of following
either the sehool of Ben Asher or that of Ben Naphtali, without any evaluation.
The Ben Asher sehool finally beeame supreme onJy when it was espoused by
the influential Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides (1135-1204). When he was res
ident in Egypt, Maimonides examined a manuscript with vocalizaton and
accents written by Aharon ben Asher and pronounced it to be the model that
should be followed. It s likely that the book of differences between Ben Asher
and Ben Naphtali (Kitab a7~KhLllaf) was composed by Misha'el ben 'Uzzi'el
shortly after this pronouncement of Ma}inonides.
The Tiberian Masoretic manuscripts are codiees, that s, books consisting of col
lections of double-Ieaves that were stitched together. The Hebrew Bible began to be
written in eodex form durng the Masoretie periodo Previously, before about 700
CE, it was always written in a seroH. After the introducton of tbe codex, scrolls con
tinued to be used for writing the Hebrew Bible. Each type of manl1script, however,
had a different function. The scrolls were used for pl1blic liturgical reading in the
synagogues whereas the codices were used for study purposes and non-liturgical
reading. The scr01l was the ancient form of manuscript that was hallowed by litur
gical tradition and it was regarded as unacceptable by the Masoretes to change the
custom of writing the scroll by ad~ing the various written components of the
Masoretic tradition thatthey deveLoped, such as vocalizaton, accents and marginal
notes. Tbe codex had no such tradition behind it and so the Masoretes felt free to
introduce into these types of manuscrpt the newly developed written Masoretic
components. We may say that the liturgical scroll remained tbe core of tbe bblical
tradition whereas the Masoretic codex was cOl1ceived as auxiliary to tbis. This dis
tinction of funetion between liturgical scrolls and Masoretic codices has continued
in Jewish communities down to the present day. Occasionally in the Middle Ages
Masoretic additions were made to scrolls if they had, for some reason, become
unfit for liturgical use. The scrolls also differed from Masoretic codices in the addi
tion of ornamental strokes called taggim to the Hebrew letters.
The task of writing codices was generally divided between two specialist
scribes. The copying of the consol1antal text was entrusted to a scribe known as a
soJer, who also wrote scrolls. The vocalization, accents, and Masoretic notes, on
tbe other band, were generally added by a scribe known as a naqdan C'pointer', i.e.
vocalizer) or by a Masorete. In the early period, coinciding with or close to the
time when the Masoretes were active, we can distngl1ish between various types of
Hebrew Bible codices. The type of codex that has been referred to in the preceding
discussion is wbat can be termed a 'model' codex, whicb was carefully written and
accurately preserved the written components of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition.
Such manuscripts were generally in the possession of a community, as is shown by
their colophons, and were kept in a public place of study and worship for consul
taton and copying. References to various model codices and their readings are

62

found in the Masoretic notes, for example, Codex Mugah, Codex Hilleli, Codex
Zal11buqi, and Codex Yerushalmi. Sometimes accurately written manuscripts also
contain the text of an Aramaic Targum (interpretative translation).
In,addition to these model Masoretic codices, there existed numerous so
called popular Bible codices, which were genetally in the possession of private
individuals. These were not always written with such precision ami usually did
not include all the written components of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition.
Often tl1ey contain no accents or Masoretk notes but only vocalizaton, and this
may deviate from the standard Tiberian systern of vocalizaton in a number of
details. A conspicuous feature of some popular codices is that theyadapt the
written consonan tal text to make it correspond to the reading tradition more
closely. An extreme case of this is represented by a corpus of Hebrew Bible rnanu
scripts that contain an Arabic transcription of the reading tradition. These were
Llsed by sorne Karaite Jews. Sorne popular Bible rnanuscripts are no more than
aides-mr/'loire to the reading tradition, in that they were written in a shorthand
frm known as sentgin. In these texts the first word of a verse is written in full,
followed by a single letter from each of the other important words in the verse.
Sorne popular Bible rnanuscripts were accompanied by an Aramaic Targul11 or an
Arabic translation and COilll11entary. There were, therefore, three classes of
Hebrew Bible l11anuscript in the early Middle Ages: (1) scrolls used for public
reading in the liturgy; (2) rnodel Masoretic codices, the purpose of which was to
preserve the full bblical tradition, both the wrtten tradition and the reading tra
dition; (3) popular manuscripts that aded individuals in the reading of the texto
We describe here brietly two of the surviving rnodel Tiberian Masoretic codices
that have come to be regarded as among the most important and have been used
in modern critical editions. They aH retlect a basically uniform Masoretictradi
tion, though no two manuscripts are completely identical. The differences are
sometimes the result of scribal errors and other times due to a slightly different
system of marking vocalization or accents that is followed by the naqdmi.
The Aleppo Codex

In the colophon of this manuscript it is stated that the Masorete Aharon ben
Asher added the vocalization, accents, and Masoretic notes. It is thought to be the
manuscript that Maimonides examined when l~e pronounced that Ben Asher's
tradition was superior to that of other Masoretes. It should be regarded, therefore,
as the authorized edition in Jewsh tradition. When Malmonides saw the manu
, script, it was kept in Egypt, possibly in the Ben-Ezra synagogue in al- Fustat, which
later became famous for its 'Genizah'. From the !ater Middle Ages, however, it was
kept in Aleppo. In 1948 the synagogue in which it was kept in Aleppo was set on
tire and only about three-quarters of the original manuscript were preserved.
The sllrviving portions are now kept in Jerusalern in the libraq of the Ben-Zvi ,
Institute. This rnanuscript forms the basis of a nllmber of Israeli editions of the
Hebrew Bible, induding the Hebrew University Bible, the edition of M. Breller,
and the modero Rabbinic Bible (Ha-Keter) edited by M. Cohen.

Geoffrcy Khan

St Petersburg, National Library ofRussia, Firkovitch 1 B 19a

A page showing Exodus
J 4: 28 to 15: 14 from the
St Petersburg Manuscript
(Firkovitch 1, B 19a).
Written in 1009, it COl1
tains the complete text of
the Hebrew Bible and was
the basis fol' the third edi
ron of the Biblia Hebraica
(Stuttgart 1919-37).

The c010phon of this manuscript states that it was written in 1009 and subse
quently corrected 'according to the most exact texts of Ben Asher'. It differs
s1ightly from the Aleppo Codex in a few minor details. The manuscript has been
preserved in its entirety and it contains the-complete text of the Bib1e. Pau1 Kah1e
made this the basis ofthe third edition of Biblia Hebraica (Stuttgart 1929-37)
and it has been used for aH subsequent editions. Tt is also the basis of the edition
of the Hebrew Bible by A. Dotan.

~~'" -.,..,
.iJ=
""
~~"

t1"
1'" l
.,.,'"

:}

:i.

""'""
....".,.

.....J,,.,,.

tTt
....
..",.,

T'~!
.t ;
"'t:tn1'"1')'n1

Thl2' Hebrcw Bible

In the Middle Ages Hebrew Bible rnanuscripts were also written with systerns
of vocalization and accents that differed frorn those of the Tiberian Masoretic
tradition. Sorne of these systerns are adaptations of the Tiberian system, such as
the so-called 'expanded' Tiberian systern, which extends sorne of the principIes
found in the standard Tberian vocalization.
Other systerns use different sets of signs. These include the Palestinian and
Babylonan systerns of vocalzation, which are found in nurnerous rnanuscripts
frorn the MiddIe Ages. There is no uniforrnity within the two systerns and it is
possible to identify a range oE sub-systerns. By the late Middle Ages these systerns
had been almost completely supplanted in rnanuscripts by the standard Tiberian
Masoretic tradition. As far as can be established, the earliest forrns of the
Palestinian and Babylonian vocalization systel11s have many features that are
independent of the Tiberian system, but gradually the Tiberian tradition exerted
its intluence and, indeed, sorne manuscripts are lttle more than transcriptions oE
the Tib~rian tradition into Babylonian or Palestinian vowel signs.
.

A reconstruction of the
Entrance to the Genizah
(store room) in the
Karaite synagogue in
Q~d Cairo.

Geoffrev Khan
/

-----~~-----

The model Tiberian codices such as the Aleppo Codex and manuscript
Firkovtch 1 B 19a were kept in the libraries of synagogues until modern times.
Tbe majority of the popular manuscrpts from the Middle Ages and the manu
scripts with Palestinian and Babylonan vocalizaton have been preserved mainly
in fragmentary form in the Cairo Genizah. This was a repository for worn-out
sacred writings that was discovered by scholars in the Ben- Ezra synagogue of al
Fustat (Old Cairo) in the nineteenth century.
We shall now examine the background of each of the components of the
Tiberian Masoretic tradition.

THE CONSONANTAL TEXT

The term consonantal text refers to the Hebrew letters of the biblical te:>..'! without
the vocalizaton, accents, and Masoretic notes. Although this ter m s widely used
ih biblical scholarship, it is not completely appropriate as far as the Tiberian
Masoretic text is concerned since this consists not only of letters representing con
sonants but also many letters that represent vowe1s, whose use is not consistent. In
the ensuing discussion the Masoretic con50nanta1 text is referred to as Me!.
Among the ear1y model Masoretic codices there are only sporadic differences
in the consonantal texto They are a11 in virtually complete agreement with regard
to the distribution of the vowelletters. The differences that do occur can usually
be explaned as an error in copying. Simlarly the numerous bblical Masoretic
manuscripts written after 1100 only exhibit minute variants in the consonantal
texto The collaton of hundreds of late medieval manuscripts by Kennicott and
De Rossi in the late eighteenth century showed that the Tiberian text was accur
ately copied down to the period of the first printed editions. The sma11
deviatiol1s in tbe consol1antal text that are found in some of the later manu
scripts are likely to be mistakes or intentional changes of late scribes and do not
preserve an earlier text that differed fro111 what is found in the earlier model
Tiberian codices. It is, nevertheless, possible to distinguish hetween scribal prac
tices in Sephardi (Spanish, Portuguese, and eastern) manuscripts and those in
Ashkenazi (European) manuscripts. Tbe Sepbardi manuscripts have, in general,
preserved the Tiberian Masoretic text in its minute details of orthography more
accurately than the Ashkenazi ones. The accurate transmission of tbe standard
Tiberian consonantal text is found also in tbeunvocalized scrolls that have been
preserved from tbe MiddleAges.
By contrast to the late medieval manuscripts, many of the popular biblical
manuscripts of the early Middle Ages which bave been found in tbe Cairo
Genizah deviate from contempOl~ry model Tiberian codices. In general they use
vowelletters far more frequently. Where the qere differs from the ketiv, popular
manuscripts sometimes have the text of the que in the consonantal texto
Early medieval manuscripts with diffei"ent systems of vocalizaton generally
exhibit the orthography of the standard Tiberian texto Some manuscripts witb
Palestinian vocalization have a slightly fuller orthograpby, with more vowellet

'--------------------_. " - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
66

The Hebrew Bible

ters th<1n the standard text. This suggests that they were popular manuscripts
ntended for private use. Manuscrpts with Babylonian vocalization, most of
which can be assumed to have be en written in lraq, correspond to the Tiberian
consonantal text very closely and differ only n a few detai1s. These differences are
generally related lo orthography, the division of words, or the harmonization of
the ketiv with tbe qere. Small divergences such as these between the 'Easterners'
and the 'Westerners' are mentioned in tbe Tberan Masoretic notes and a1so in
15t5 appended to Tiberian manuscripts.
Wth regard to the ordering of the bblical books, those of the Pentateuch and
the Forl11er Prophets were arranged in all manuscripts in a fixed order, but there
was a certain amount of variaton in tbe order of books in the Latter Prophets

Solomon Schechter
examining Genizah
tnents in the Cambridge
University Library.

Geoffrey Khan

Remains of a scroll of
Leviticus from Cave 11 at
Qumran, written in paleo
Hebrew script.

and Writings. The order that is customary today is the one that is used in the first
printed editions. The differences fro111 the early printed editons in the Latter
Prophets are found mainly in late medieval Ashkenazi manuscripts. The order of
the Writings differs from the present custom in the early Masoretic manuscripts
such as the Aleppo Codex and the Firkovitch 1 B 19a. The division of the biblical
books into chapters and the nllmbering of verses that are found in modern
printed editions do not derive from Jewish tradition but were transferred from a
tradition followed in manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate version that was estab
lished in the thirteenth century by Archbishop Stephen Langton in England.
Between the end of the Second Temple period (70 CE) and the time of the
earliest surviving medieval Masoretic codices (ninth century) very few Bible
manuscrpts are extant. The codex was not used to writeBibles before the
Masoretc period, which began arollnd 700 CE. As remarked aboye, it was
adopted by the Masoretes as an alternative to the traditonal scro11 to gve them
freedom to add vocalizaton, accents, and marginal notes. AH extant Bible manu
scrpts that were written before the earliest attested Masoretic codces are,
therefore, scrolls that contain only the consonantal text.
Some bblical scrolls that have been preserved in synagogue libraries and the
Cairo Genizah have been dated to the eighth century or earlier. Fragments ofbib
lcal scrolls have been discovered in the Judaean desert (Nahal Hever and Wadi
Murabba'at) which were written around the beginning of the second century CE.
There are no bblical manllscripts tbat can be dated to the intervenng centuries
in the middle of the first millennium CE.
Despite the passage of hundreds of years the manuscripts from Nahal Hever
and Wadi Murabba'at contain a consonantal text that is virtually identical with
that of the medeval Masoretic manuscripts, induding in details of orthography.
It is clear tbat the consonantal text was copied by scribes with great accuracy
fr0111 one generation to the next. Tbis concern for precise transmission is
reflected in the many rules for writing bblical scrolls that are prescribed in the
Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds. These were collected together shortly after
the Talmudic period in tbe treatise Massekhet Sefer Tora" and, slightly later, in the
more detailed work Massekhet Sofenm. Talmudic literature mentions a number

Tlle Hebrew Bible

of rabbis who took a close nterest n the bblical text, such as R. Meir, R.
Hananel, and R. Shmuel ben Shilat. There was an awareness among the
Babylonian rabbis that the most accurate transmission of the text was to be
found in Palestine. The careful transmsson of the text at the beginning of the
millennil1m is also reflected by the ntroduction of rules of bblical hermeneutics
by Hillel the Elder in the first century CE and their use by the Tannaim, since
these presuppose the existence of an inviolable, authoritative texto The exegetical
importance attached by Rabbi Aqiva (d. 135 CE) to grammatical particles such as
'et and gam also ret1ected the stability of the texto
The many biblical scrolls that were discovered at Qumran provide abundant
evdence for transmisson of the consonantal text in the Second Temple periodo
These are the earliest surviving bblical manl1scripts. The scrolls are datable to a
period ranging from the third century BCE to the first half of the first century CE.
Prom the first or second century BCE we al so have the so-called Nash papyrus, a
single sheet of papyrus discovered in Egypt in 1902 and now in the possession of
the Cambridge University Library, which contains the text of the Decalogl1e.
This, however, appears to be a liturgical rather than bblical texto
Sorne of the Qumran manuscripts, though not necessarly the oldest, are wrt
ten in an early type of Hebrew scrpt, close to the Phoenician form of script that
is found in earlier Hebrew epigraphc texts. Most are written in the 'Assyrian'
square script that resembles the medieval scripts in the basic forms of lettets. The
Qumran scrolls show us that durng this period a multiplicity of consonantal
texts were transmitted in manuscripts.
The majorty of the scrolls, however, exhibit a text that is very close to the
Masoretic consonantal text, and hav been termed 'proto-Masoretic' manu
scripts. These ditIer from the medieval manuscripts only in a few orthographic
details and in isolated words. The tradition of the Masoretic consonantal text,
therefore, can be traced back to the earliest surviving Bible manuscripts in the
Second Temple period.
A number of passages in rabbinic literatme refe[ to the concern of the Jewish
authorities in the Second Temple period for the precise copying of bblical man
uscripts. The temple employed professional 'correctors' or'reviss' (magihim) to
ensure that the text was copied correctly. In the temple court there
were model manuscripts, which

l~eoffrey

Khan
appear to have contained the standard text that was sanctioned by the Jewish
authorities. lt is said that once ayear all the scro115 of the Pentateuch had to be
taken to the temple for revision.
In Talmudic literature there are reports of three scrolls of the Pentateuch that
were found in the Temple court. These differed from one another in small details.
They were carefuUy collated and differences were corrected towards the majority
reading. The purpose of this activity is not completely clear. It may have been a
means of sanctioning the authorized text against other rival texts. Alternatively,
the reports may reflect efforts that were made in the Second Temple period to
level variai1ts in texts belonging to the proto-Masoretic ti-adition. Judging by tbe
extant proto-Masoretic manuscripts from Qumran, there was indeed a slightly
higher degree of variation in the Second Temple period than is found in manu
scripts from later periods. Whatever the precise interpretation may be of the
Talmudic account of the three scrolls, it is cIear that the Jewish authorities recog
. nized an authorized text in the Second Temple periodo 1t is generally thought that
this authorized text is to be identified with the wpe of text found in the p1'oto
Masoretic manuscripts from Qumran, which was subsequently transmitted with
great precision after the destruction of the temple. Some signs of textual collation
indude dots written aboye, and in one case (Ps. 27:13) also below, certain letters,
and inverted nWls (the Hebrew letter 'n'), which are written before and after
Numbers 10: 35-6 and Psalm 107: 23-8. lt has been argued that the insistence on
scribal exactitude in handing down written records in general at this period was
partly inspired by the Greek traditioll of textual criticismo
Before the discovery of the Qumran scrolls, scholars were aware of the exist
ence of texts of the Hebrew Bible that differed in places substantially from the
Tibe1'ian consonantal text. These divergent texts were identified in the Samaritan
Pentateuch and the reconstructed Hebrew Vorlage of the. Septuagint Greek ver
sion. It used to be thought that these texts and the Tiberian Masoretic text
eonstituted three separate recensions.
The Samaritan Pentateuch was first made available to scholars when Morinus
printed it in 1632 in the Paris Polyglot. The earlest manuscripts are datable to the
Middle Ages. They are written in an early type of Hebrew script that resembles the
form of script that was in use in the Hasmonean period (second-first eentury BCE).
There is no consensus among scholars as to when the Samaritans seeeded from
Judasm, tbough a date some time in tbe Second Temple period is gene rally
favoured rather than a pre-exilic date which is claimed by the Samaritans them
selves. 1t may have been as late as the second century BCE, which would eonfo1'm
with tbe aforementioned palaeographical evidence.
The Samaritan Pentateuch differs from tbe Tiberian Masoretic consonantal
text in a number of respects. In the majority of cases these differences are due to
deliberate cbanges introduced by scribes, reflecting the faet tbat a freer attitude
was taken to the transmission of tbe text than was the case with the proto
Masoretic and Masoretic text. These scribal interventions inelude various types
of barmonizing alterations that remove internal inconsistencies in content,

70

The Hebrew Bible

orthography, and grammar. The orthography gene rally exhibits a more liberal
use of vowellette'rs than is found in the Tiberian consonanta1 text and the gut
tural letters are often interchanged, owing to their weakening in the reading
tradition. Finally variolls ideological changes have been made, the most conspic
Uus of which is the substitution of'Monnt Gerizim', which was the centre of the
Samaritan cnlt, for 'Jerusalem' in verses referring to Jerusalem as the central place
ofworship.
Among the Qumran scrolls scholars have now identfied bblical texts that
resemble that of the Samaritan Pentateuch. These have been termed 'pre
Samaritan' texts. Broadly, they exhibit the same type of harmonizatons in
Samartan high priest in
Nablus. E'alestine, with a
Scrotl ol' the Pentateuch.
The Samarit;:ns betieve
that the scrolt was written
by Abisha, a great grand
son of Aaron, but it is
a medieval text whose
earliest parts date from
1149 CE.

'7

Geoffrey Khall
content, spelling, and gral11l11ar but not the changes l110tivated by Samarita n ide
ology. In the Second Temple period, therefore, the pre-Samaritan texts were not
specifically assocated with the Samaritan religious group. The Samaritans
adopted this text for no particular reason, other than, perhaps, 011 account of it
differing from the proto- Masoretic text, which was associated with the central
Jewish authorities.
The Septuagint Greek translation of the Bible s an indirect witness to the
Hebrew bblical text, yet since its Vorlage (Le. the Hebrew text which it used) dif
fers significantly from the Tiberian Masoretic text in some places, it is of great
significance. The name of tbis translation derives from tbe tradition (recorded in
the apocryphal com position known as the Epistle of Aristeas) tha t the tran5
lation of the Hebrew Pentateuch into Greek was assigned by King Ptolemy II
Philadelphus (285-246 BCE) to 72 elders in Egypt. The reliability of this tradition
is a matter of debate. Some scholars have held tbat the Septuagint was not the
first attempt at translation but a standardization,of previous Greek versions. it is
now generally agreed, however, that the Septuagint version of tbe Pentateucb was
a single original translation that was made in the third century BCE, as is stated in
the Epistle of Aristeas. The translation of the rest of the Hebrew Bible was made
in the following two centuries. A few papyrus fragl11ents of the Septuagint have
been discovered, though the main sources of tbe text are a number of manu
scripts wrtten in Greek uncials (capitalletters) dating from the fourth to the
tenth century CE.
There are major difficulties in reconstructing the Hebrew Vorlage of the
Septuagint. The majority of apparent divergences between the translation and
MCT are likely not to be the result of a different Hebrew Vorlage but rather due
to the exegesis of the translato1', a concept of etymology diffe1'ent from our OWl1,
or corruptions in the transmission of the Greek texto The style of the translation
varies in degrees of literalness. This reflects the approaches of different t1'ans
lators. Some sections are very free and even paraphrases, which makes any
certaln recol1struction of the Hebrew Vorlage impossible. Retroversions of the
Greek into Hebrew are far safer in tbe literal secttons of the Septuagint. Some of
the more certain cases of a reconstructed Vorlage that differs from the Masoretic
text indude translations that diverge radically from the Masoretic text but can be
explained by assuming an interchange of a consonant in the word con cerned.
The degree of certainty is greater in the transcription of proper names that point
to a form in the Hebrew Vorlage that differs from the MCT in one of its letters,
for example, Genesis 10: 4, MCT ddnym; Greek rhodio; reconstruction rdtlJ'm.
Another case where the Vorlage can safely be assumed to differ from MCT is
where the translation contains a lengthy addition 01' omission in comparison
with MCT or a different arrangement of material, none of which can reasonably
be explained to have a-isen by exegesis. This applies, for example, to the book of
JereQ1iah, the Septuagint version of which i's shorter than MCT by one-sixth, and
also to the books of Joshua and Ezekiel, which contain both omissions and addi
tions relative to MCT.

72

The Hebrew Bble

~------_._---------._--------------,

At Qumran a number of bblical scrolls have been found that contan a

Hebrew text that is dosel' to the Septuagnt than the MCT. The value of these
Qumran manuscl'ipts s that they often support reconstructions of the Vorlage of
the Septuagint with a text that divel'ges fro111 MCT.
The Qumran scrolls that have been discussed so far include the proto
Masoretc texts, the pre-Samaritan texts, and the texts that are close to the
Septuagnt. In addition to these there is a group of biblical scrolls that are not
closely related to any of these three types of text, but exhibit inconsistent patterns
of agl'eement with all of them as well as significant divergences. These demon
strate that the textual transmisson in the Second Temple period took place in a
multiplicity of forms and had not been completely reduced to three dearly separ
ate recenslons, as llsed to be thought. The proto'-Masoretic type of text,
nevertheless, was recognized as authoritative in mainstream Judaism and appears
to have been the most common one that was in use.
A final category of biblical scro11 that is found at Qumran is represented by
manuscripts that are written according to what E. Tov terms 'Qumran scribal
practice'. These are thought to have been prodllced by a scho01 of scribes that was
active at Qumran. Many of the biblical scrolls belonging to the other categorles
may have been brought to Qumran from elsewhere.

The Isaiall Scmll [mm

Cave l at Qumran (IQIsa')
is a thousand years olcler

than the medieval manu

scripts which preserve the

massoretic text of th~

Hebrew Bible.

Gedfrey Khan
The bblical sc1'o11s written according Qumran practce do not reflect a tradi
!ion of precise and conservative copying but rather exhibit numerous
interventions of the scribe. They can be categorized as popular texts that were
not bound to the preservation of a textual tradition but adapted to facilitate the
1'eading of the texto The orthography is expanded with the abundant use of vowel
letters, which often reflect a different form of morphology from what one finds
in the Tiberian Masoretic tradition. The orthography reflects a weakening in the
pronunciation of the guttural consonants, which no doubt was caused by the
influence of the vernacular language. The scribes also adapted the text when
there was a grammatical irregularity (as is found in pre-Samaritan texts).
The Qumran scrolls, therefore, attest to a multplicity of texts that coexisted
with an authoritative text that had been espoused by the central Jewish author
ities. This variety of texts that is found in Qumran may well ret1ect the situation
that was found throughout the Jewish communities of Palestine, though at pres
ent we have no way of verifying this. The sectarian community in Qumran did
not pay allegiance to the mainstream Jewish authorities and so may have felt less
bOllnd by the authorltative texto It may be significant in this regard that the frag~
ments of bblical scro11s that have been found at Masada and in the Judaean
desert, which were in use by Jews who were loyal to mainstream Judaism, a11 con
tain the authoritative, proto-Masoretic text.
After the destruction of the temple in 70 CE the proto-Masoretic text was the
only text tradtion that continued to be transmitted in Jewish communities. This
was not necessarily due to a concerted effort to eliminate a11 other traditons, or,
as Kahle claimed, to unify the varant traditions by a process of officiallevelling.
The description of the collation of the three manuscripts in the temple, neverthe
less, suggests that some process of textual unification may have been carried out
within the proto-Masor~tic tradition itself during the Second Temple periodo
The role of a Jewish council meeting at Jamnia shortly after the destruction of the
temple does not seem to have been as decisive in this matter, as Kahle had held.
The exclusive transmission of the proto-Masoretic tradition in Judaism is more
likely to be the consequence of historical events. Tbe text of the Septuagint Greek
t1'anslation was adopted by Christianity, the pre-Samaritan text by the
Samaritans. The Qumran sectarian community was destroyed. The Pharisaic
authorities who had espollsed the proto-Masoretic text as authoritative c011sti
tuted the only organized Jewish group that survived.
The custom of writing popular texts, however, such as the scro11s written
according to Qumran practice, in which the scribes felt a degree of freedom from
a precise textual traditio11, no doubt continued througbout the fmt mille11nium
CE. In rabbinic literature there are references to readings deviating from MCT
that were found in what is known as the Severus scrol1. This appea1's to have been
a popular text. It was written in the Second Temple period, but continued to be
used in the rabbinic period, having been donated to the Jews by the Roman
emperor Alexander Severus (222-35). The readings cited from this manuscrpt
reflect an imprecise copying with adaptation of orthography to pronunciaton.

74

Tlle Hebrew Bible

Several biblical citations in rabbnic literature reflect slight deviatons from the
MeT, which may also have originated in similar popular manuscripts or have
been quoted imprecisely from memory. In a few cases, the varant readings of
these citations coincide with other known texts from the Second Temple periodo
These variant readings, however, were not o1'ficially tolerated.
As we have seen, popular bblical manuscripts are found among the early
medieval manuscripts. Many of the Masoretc notes that were incorporated into
the Tiberian Masore1c tradition aiso have the purpose of guarding against the
tendencies that are reflected in popular manuscripts, implying that these tenden
ces must have existed among some scribes. Apart from a punctilious attention to
orthography, the notes also warn against the harmonization 01' constructons'
that are irregular grammatically. The latter type of notes are introduced by the
phrase tone may suppose' (sevirin) or tone may suppose mistakenly'.
In the first millennium CE revisions were made of the Septuagint Greek t1'ans1a
tion to adapt it to the Hebrew textual tradition that had become exclusive in
Judaism. Three 01' these Greek revisions were collated by Origen in the middle 01'
the third century CE inhis Hexapla. This contained SLX co1umns containing the fol
lowing texts: the consonantal text 01' the Hebrew Bible, the transliteration of the
Hebrew into Greek, the revisions of Aquila, Symmachus, and the Septuagint, and in
the final column a revision attributed to Theodotion. The Septuagint text in the
fifth column was annotated, indicatng where it differs from the Hebrew. A later .

A palimpsest (a manu
script whose orig11'11
writing has been erased
and reptaced by;: bter
writng) of part of Origen's
Hexnpla, the [alter being
the underscript.

---------~_._._-

Geoffrey Khan

revision of the Septuagint was made by Lucan, who died in 312

CE. Since the Greek translation of the Bible served as the official
text for Christianity at the beginning of the first millennium
CE, many Christian translations of the Bble were made directly
from the Greek rather than the Hebrew. The most important of
these 1S the Old Latin translation (the Vetus Latina), which pre
serves many readings of the original Greek translation that
have been lost in the subsequent revisions. AH translations that
were made directly from the Hebrew in the first millennium are
based on the Masoretic text traditiol1. These include the Jewish
Aramaic Targumim (first half of the millennium), the Latn
Vulgate of Jerome (346-420 CE), the Jewish Arabic translations
(tenth-eleventh centuries), and also most ofthe Syriac Peshitta ver
sion (first half of the millennium). As was remarked with regard to
the Septuagint, however, the Hebrew Vodage of these tr~nslations is
often disguised by exegetical renderings.
The consonantal text that was ncorporated into the Tiberian
Masoretic tradition is a textual tradition that was transmitted with
precsion since at least the thrd century BCE, the time of the earliest
surviving manuscripts from the Second Temple periodo The history
of the consonantal text before the earliest manuscripts is theoretical.
The recent discovery of two minute silver amulets from Ketef
Hinnom datable to the seventh or sixth century BCE that contain
fragments of the priestly blessing in Numbers 6: 24-6 do not cast
any significantly new lght on this ssue. Several general points con
cerning the earlier history of the text, however, can be made here.
The extant proto-Masoretic manuscripts show that the text
had been fixed not onl)' in content but also in orthography by the
third century CE. This orthography is broadly uniform across aH
bblical books, though there is a slightly greater tendency for
using vowelletters in the later books. It cannot, however, have
been the original orthography of all the books that was used
when they were first committed to writing. The composition of
the majority of the books is dated several centuries earlier in the
pre~exilie period when, judging by extant inscriptions, the
orthography was much more defective, with vowelletters used
only rarely. It is gene rally believed that these were written in some
form at this earlier period, though the first stages of their composi
rion may have been oral.
Hebrew orthography gradually employed more vowel letters as
time progressed. At so me stage an attempt was made to impose a stan
dard orthography on the entire text. The slight discrepancies between
the early and late books reflect the faet that this editorial work did not
completely eliminate theorginal chronological differences in ortho

76

The Hebrew Bible

graphy. By comparison with independently attested epigraphic material, scholars

have dated the broad profile of the orthographic practices fixed in the proto
Masoretic text to approximately the period 500-300 BCE. Sorne of the later
bblical books were actually composed in this period, so it is possible that the
MCT orthography in these texts is close to the original.
This was a key period in the formation of the Hebrew Bible as we know it
today. It coincided broadly with the canonization of the Pentateuch and the
Prophets. The emergence of this coneept of a clearly circumscribed canon of
sacred literature no doubt was the main factor that motivated concern for the
exact preservation of its text. Some time during this period a change was made
in biblical manuseripts from the early Hebrew scrpt to the square script, which
was first developed for the writing of Aramac in the Persian empreo Accordng
to rabbin ie tradition it was Ezra who instigated this ehange of script after the
return from the Babylonian exile. Sorne scholars attribute the fixing of the
orthography of the proto-Masoretic text also to the activities of Ezra, who lived
some time between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Some of the later biblical
books may have been originally written in square seript. As remarked aboye,
however, the Qumran discoveries show that biblical manuseripts were still being
eopied in the old Hebrew script several centuries after this reformo Even in some
manuscripts that are written in the square script the tetragrammaton (the divine
name ylnvh) continued to be copied in the early script, apparently reflecting ~
greater scribal conservatism on account of its sanctity. There are reasons to
assume that the biblical text that was fixed for the proto-Masoretic tradition in
the second half of the first millenniurn BCE did not contain the original form of
the text.
The MCT contains many difficulties that appear to have arisen from scribal
errors in the transmission of the text predating the time in which it was fixed.
These errors, which are usually visual, nelude the incorrect copying of individual
letters andwords, the false division of words, the contlation of variants, and the
omission or addition of material. The scribal corruptions must"have been present
in the manuscripts that were used for estblishing the authoritative text. Superior
readings are sometimes found in Qumran manuscripts that He outside this
authoritative tradtion or in the reconstructed Vorlage of the Septuagint. In sorne
cases, moreover, where two parallel texts from the same source are found in the
MCT, one of the texts preserves a superior reading to the other (e.g. 2 Sam.
22=Ps. 18; 2 Kings 18: 13-20: 19=Isa. 36: 1-38: 22=2 Chron. 32: 1-20).
The MCT also exhibits various intentional scribal changes to bring the text
jnto line with contemporary linguistic usage, theology, and exegesis. It is often
ditlicult, howe\fer, to distinguish between changes int.roduced during the literary
recension of the text and those that were made during its transmissiol1 afier the
literary growth was complete. The extensive lingustic adaptation of the bblical
sources in Chronides is no doubt attributable to the stage of literary composi
tion, yet the Chronicler may be regarded as both a scribe and an author since he
copied earlier texts as well as rewriting sections and composing new ones.

77

Fragment of Ezm 3 with

Palestinian vocalization
from the Cairo Genzah.

Geoffrey Khan

-----------~--~----_.~----~_._-----

A possible case of linguistic adaptaton introduced by scribes in the transmis

sion is the interpretation of the archaic enclitic n/em as a plural ending. An
example of a scribal change for theological reasons s the replacement of the name
ba'al in theophoric names to boshet, 'shame'. The original text with ba'al was
cleady felt at a later period to be theologically undesirable. In parallel passages
between Samuel and Chronicles the original form of name with the element ba'a!
is often retained in the Chronicles passage whereas it has been changed to boshct
in the Samuel parallel (e.g. Saul's fourth son is 'cslzba'al in 1 Chron. 8: 33 and 9: 39
but 'ish boshet in 2 Sam. 2: 8ff., 3: 8ff., 4: Sff.). This indicates tbat, possibly purely
by chance, the manuscripts of Chronides used to establish the proto-Masoretic
text preserved an older scribal tradition than the manuscripts of Samuel. The
manuscripts used for the text of Samuel, moreover, also contained a relatively
large number of unintentional scribal corruptions compared to those used for
other books. A scribal chang for the sake of euphemism in connection with God
may be identified in 2 Samuel 12: 9: 'Why did you despise the word of tbe Lord?',
whereas the Lucianic Greek version appears to preserve the original text: 'Why did
you despise the Lord?'
There are some possible signs of intentional scribal changes that were intro
duced late in the Second Temple periodo The text 'city of destruction' in Isaiah 19:
18, for example, appears to have been changed from an original 'city of the sun',
which referred to Heliopolis. This reading is found in a Qumran manuscript
(1 QIsa) and is reflected by some of the ancient versions. Heliopolis was the site of
the rival temple built by On3s in the first half of the second century BCE and the
change of the text to the ominous name 'city of destruction' was apparently instig
ated by the disapproving Jewish authorities of Jerusalem. By the Talmudic
period a scribal change had been introduced into the text of Judges. 18: 30 by
correcting the earlier text 'Moses' to 'Manasseh'. The purpose of this was to avoid
the ascription of the erection of an idol to one of the descendants of Moses. This
was achieved by inserting a superscribed mm after the memo Although the read
ing 'Manasseh' is referred to in Talmudic literature, some of the early versions
such as the Vulgate and the Vetus Latina, read 'Moses'. 1t is no doubt on account
of the lateness of the change that the original text was grapbically modified
rather than replaced.
We should menton here the rabbinic tradition of the 'corrections of the

scribes' (tiqqune soferil11). These are places in the Bible in which, according to

rabbinic tradition, the original text was changed by scribes to avoid undesirable

expressions in relation to God. One such case is Genesis 18: 22: 'And Abraham

was still standing before God.' Here, according to traditon, the text originally

read 'And God was stiU standing.' The number of tiqqul1e soferim differs accord

ing to the various sources. Sorne schola1's believe that they originate in rabbinic

exegesis of the passages concerned as euphemisms rather than in traditions of

actual changes to the text. The earlier traditions refer to scripture using a substi

tute rather than scribes changing the text. Another rabbinic tradtion is that

of the 'ittur soferim according to which the scribes re1l1oved a letter, usually a

78

lbe Hebrew Bible

conjunctive waw. Thus Genesis 18: 5, 'afterwards you may pass on', is said to have
originaUy been 'and afterwards you may pass on'. The background of this tradition
is unclear.
After the fixing of an allthoritative text in Judaism, however, the need for theo
logical adaptations and the sollltion of philological difficulties was ncreasingly
supplied by exegesis of various forms. Before the time of the fixing of the MCT
the various bblical books llnderwent a long period of lterary growth, during
which several recensions were often made. The fact that some of the other textual
traditons contain texts of bblical books that have a considerably different form
from what is found in the MCT has been explained by the theory that these rep
resent texts that stem from different periods of literary growth of the books. The
various parallel passages in the MCT, which appear to have originated in the
same source, in many cases exhibit differences from one to another. In sorne
cases, as we have seen, this is due to scribal changes, intentional or unintentional,
in the trans111iss[on of the texto In other cases it retlects the free approach to tex
tual sources that existed during the process of composition and literary growth.

MARKING OF PARAGRAPHS

The second component of the Tiberan Masoretic traditon is the division of the
text into paragraphs according to contento The paragraphs (known as pisqa'ot or
parashiyyot) are of two types: the parasha petLlha Copen paragraph'), which
marked major divisions in content, and the paraslta setuma ('c1osed paragraph'),
whch was a sllb-division of the petuha. These differ in the way in they are
marked. At the beginning of a petuha paragraph, the first word was written at the
beginning of a new lineo If the preceding line ended near the left margin, a whole
line was left blank. A setwna was marked by leaving a space of nine letters after
the preceding text on the same lineo If there was not enough room left on the
5ame line the following line was indented. In late medieval manuscripts and in
many printed editons the letter pe i5 added in the space to mark a petuha, ol' the
letter samekh to mark a setul1Ul.
places where each of these two types of paragraph were marked was a
fxed component of the Tiberan Masoretic tradition. Some medieval Bible manu
scripts contain lists of the petu'w and setwna paragraphs. Similar lists were
sometimes written in separate manuscripts. Sorne variaton in paragraph divi
sion is found among the medieval manuscripts, though there is general
uniformity. Maimonides includes in his Mishneh Torah a list of the paragraph
divisions in the Pentateuch according to el manuscript of Aharon ben Asher, and
by this means sanctioned the Ben -Asher stream of Masoretic tradition not only in
the marking of paragraphs but in its entirety. As remarked earlier, this led to the
adoption of the Ben Asher tradition in Judaism.
The Tiberian Masoretes incorporated the practice of paragraph division from
an earlier tradition. It is men!oned in rabbinic texts from about the third cen
tury CE. The same system of marking divisions starting new lines and leaving

Geoffrey Khan

from Hidyat
al-Qtir (The guide for
the reader), a work in
Arabic on the Tiberian
pronunciation traditoll
and accent system.

spaces is found in the manuscripts from Qumran, both biblical and non-biblical.
There is a large degree of agreement between the paragraphing of the Qumran
bblical scrolls and that of the medieval manuscripts, which indicates that the
tradition can be traced back to the Second Temple periodo This division into
units and sub-units of content is an expression of the exegesis of the text that was
applied to it at a certain stage in its transmission.

ACCENTS

The accent sgns are marked aboye and below the words in the Tiberian
Masoretic texto They represent the musicalmotifs to which the biblical text was
chanted in publc reading. This chant gave solemnity to the readng and
expressed the sanctity of the text. It also had an exegetical functon in two
respects. The chant marked the semantic 3nd syntactic connections between
words and phrases. It also marked tbe position of tbe stress in a word, whicb can
be crucial for understanding tbe con:ect meaning, for example, shav, 'tbey cap
tured', but shvu, 'they returned'.
One uniform system of accent signs is used throughout the Bible except fol' the
poetic books Job, Proverbs, and Psalms, which have el diffeent system. Accent
signs are found also in manuscripts witb Babylonian and Palestinan vocalizaton.
The precise musical contour denoted by tbe various Tiberian accent signs is
unknown, yet from a nui11ber of sources we can reconstruct tbeir basic pitch and
syntactic function. The most important early treatises in this respect are tbe
Diqduqe ha-te'anm CThe fine rules of the accents') written in Hebrew by
. Aharon ben Asber (tenth century CE) and the Hidliyatal-Ql'i CTbe guide for the
reader') written in Arabic by 'Abu al-Faraj Harun (eleventh century CE). It is not
clear what relation the surviving cantillation traditions of the various Jewsh
cOl11l11unities have'with the Tiberian systel11.
The accents are divided into 'disjunctives' and 'conjunctives'. The dsjunctve
accents mark some kind of break in the sense and require the reader to pause
slightly. The conjunctive accents are marked on words between the disjunctives,
showing that tbey form part of a phrase ending at the following disjunctive. In
the standard Tiberian Masoretic tradition a11 words that bear a stress are marked
with an accent signo In some manuscripts with Babylonian and Palestinian vocal
ization, on the other hand, only disjunctive accents are marked.
Al! the conjunctive accents express the same degree of syntactic connection
whereas the disjunctives express different degrees of pause. For this reason, in the
less developed accent systems found in Babylonan and Palestinian manuscripts
it was considered more important to mark disjunctive.s than conjunctives. The
two major pausal accents, silluq and atnah, mark the end ami dichotomy of tbe
verse respectively. The division of the biblical text into verses is, in fact, defined
by the accent system. The two halves of a-verse can be split into a hierarchy of
smaller unts with other disjunctive accents, the pausal value of which can be cat
egorized according to the level of the hierarchy of division that they mark.

80

--------------- ----

The Hebrew Bible

(J.

Gcoffrey Khan

The Tiberian Masoretes developed the written ,lccent signs to represent the
chant but they did not create the chant itself. The tradition of reading the Bible
with musical cantillation can be traced back several centuries before the
Masoretic periodo There are references to the teaching of biblical cantillation in
Talmudic iteratme. One passage mentions the use of the right hand by the
teacher or leader of the congregation to indicate the accents of the reading. The
term 'stops of the accents', wbicb is found in Talmudic !iteratme, reflects the
function of the accents to mark syntactic divsion. The association of tbe cbant
with tIle nterpretation of the meanng of the text was recognized, as s shown by
the Talmudic interpretaton of Nehemiah 8: 8:'And they read from the book,
from the law of God, clearly: they gave the sel1se and [the peopleJ understood the
reading', which is said to refer to the reading with accents. Evidence fol' the divi
sion of the biblical text by accents in the Second Temple period is found in a
Septuagint manuscript from the second century BCE tbat has spaces correspond
ing to the major pausal accents of the Tiberian tradition. There is no evidence of
the use of written accent signs before the time of the Masoretes. It was the
achievement of the Masoretes to create a written notation to record a tradition of
cantillaton that they received from an earlier periodo
As remarked aboye, the disjunctive accents mark syntactic divisions. Since the.
syntax could in many cases be interpreted in more than one way, the accents
reflect one particular exegesis of the te:>..1:. In Deuteronomy 26: 5, for instance, the
disjunctive accent on the first word of the clause 'arami (Aramean) indicates that
it is syntactically separated from the following word and so the two should be
interpreted as subject and predicate rather than nonn and attributive adjective.
The sense is, therefore, 'An Aramaean [i.e. Laban] was seeking to destroy my
father' and not 'my father was a11 Aramaean about to perish'. In Isaiah 40: 3 the
accents mark a major syntactic break after the word qore (cries). Ths indicates
that 'in the wilderness' belongs to what follows and the phrase was nterpreted as
. having the sense 'The voice of the one that cres "Prepare in the wilderness the
way of the Lord'''. The interpretation renected by the accents generally corres
ponds to what is found in rabbinic literatme and the Aramaic Targumim, which
contain elements of early rabbnic exegesis. Tbe aforementioned interpretation
of Deuteronomy 26: S, for instance, is found in Targum Onqelos and also
Midrashic literature, from where it was incorporated into the Passover liturgy
(Haggadah). The traditional Jewisb interpretation of the verse is also found in
the Latin Vulgate.
There is evidence that in the Second Temple period the exegesis of the syntax
of the bblical text did not always correspond to tbat of the Tiberian accents. This
is seen in the Septuagint translation, wh~ch often renects a different syntactic
division of the verse. From the Pesher comrnentaries foundin Qumran, more':
over, it appears that the delimitaton of biblical verses did not always correspond
to the placement of the final pausal accent (slluq) in the Tiberian tradition. It
should be taken into account, however, that, just as there were a large range of
consonantal textual traditions at this period, it is likely that there were a variety

lhe Hbrew Bible

of exegetcal traditions regarding the syntax of the text. This is seen in the case of
Isaiah 40: 3. In the New Testament 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness' of
Matthew 3: 3 reflects an interpretation that is ditIerent from the one reflected by
the Tiberian accents. In the Manual ofDiscipline from Qumran (IQS 8: 13-14),
however, the introit 'a voce calls' is omitted and the teacller uses the verse to
exhort tlle sectarians 'to prepare a way in the wilderness', tllat is, to establish a
community there. This shows that the Masoretic interpretation of the syntax was
also current at that periodo The version found in Matthew 3: 3 is apparently an
exegetical reworking to support the caH of John the Baptist from the wilderness.
Another case is Deuteronomy 26: 5. The interpretation in conformity with the
accents, 'An Aramaean was seeking to destroy my father', can be traced tothe
Second Temple periodo Midrashic literature, however, indica tes that there was
also an ancent tradition of interpreting it: 'My father is an Aramaean about to
perish'. It is likely that the exegetical tradition of the YIasoreti accents has its
origin in the teachings of Hlainstream Pharisaic Judaism.
As was remarked aboye, the divsion of the text into paragraphs (paraslyyot)
in the Tiberian YIasoretic text, which has roots in an ancient tradition, also
reflects a division of the text according to the interpretation of its contents. In a
number of places, however, the paragraph divisions do not coincide with the end
of a verse according to the accents. This is known as pisqa be-emtsa 'pClSUq 'a para
graph division within a verse' (e.g. Gen. 35: 22,1 Sam. 16: 2). The reason for this
appears to be that the paragraph division of the written text and the division
expressed by the cantillaton are two different layers of exegetical tradition which
occasionally do not correspond witb one another.
Within the accent system itself one can sometimes identify different layers of
tradtion. One possible example of tbis is the decalogue in Exodus 20: 13-16. The
accentuation of this passage is unusual in that most words have two different
accents. The explanaton of this double accentllation is apparently that it reflects
two layers of tradition. According to one layer of traditon the tour command
ments are presented in fOllr separate verses, whereas in anothel' they fornl
together one accentual unit.

THE VOCALIZATION AND THE READING TRADITION

The next component of the Tiberian Masoretic tradition that we shall consider is
the vocalizaton. This consists of a set of signs that were written below, aboye and
sometimes within the letters of the consonantal texto Tbe vocalization system
includes signs to represent vowels and also signs to represent syllable division
(shewa), consonant gemination (dagesh), the dis~inction oetween the two types
of pronunciation of the so-called bgadkfat consonants (dagesh) and the conson
antal pronunciation of a letter (mappl). The vocalization n,otation, in fact,
marks more than phonology. It ret1ects syntactic divisions in the same way as the
accents,.in that it marks differences between the pronunciation of words that
occur at syntactic pauses andthose that occur within syntactic units. The dagesh

Geoffrev Khan
I

sign is sometimes used, moreover, in an exegetical function to distinguish mean

ing, A few isolated cases of this are found in the Tiberian tradition, such as the
dagesh in the mem of'Abimelech' in Genesis 26: 1 to indicate that this is a different
Abimelech from the one mentioned in chapters 20-1, and in the lamed of the
word lo (meaning 'nol') when coHocated with the homophonous word lo (mean
ing 'to hm'), for example Proverbs 26: 17. Ths usage of dagesh is more wdespread
in the Babylonian vocalizatian.
As is tile case with the accent signs, tile vocalizaton signs are a written nataton
that was developed by the Masoretes to record a readng tradition. It is not poss
ible to establish exactly when the vocalizatian and accent signs were created.
Neither the vocalization signs nor, a's we have seen, the accent signs are mentioned
in Talmudc literature or in other sources from the first half of the first millen
nium CE. Jerome (346-420 CE) expressly states that tbe Jews do not use' signs to
denote the vowels. In tbe earliest Masoretic codices datable to the ninth century,
however, the notaton of the vocalization and accents is fully developed, so tbe first
stages of ts development are likely to have taken place at least a century earlier.
In the time of the Tiberian Masoretes and also for a certain period after their
activities ceased both the Tiberian sign system and the Tiberian reading tradition
were regarded as authoritative. The form of sign system that became standard
zed l:epresents a fixed stage in the development of the notation. Some extant
manuscripts with non- sta;dard Tiberan vocalization preserve more primitive
stages of its development and others exhibit more developed stages. In the stand
ard Tiberian system a vestige of a more primitive stage of.development can be
.identified in the vocalzation of the qere (what is read) of the tetragrammaton
(yhwh) with ihewa on the aleph of' adona. One can compare tbis to the cantinu
ing use of the early Hebrew script to write the tetragrammaton in Qumran
manusc;jpts that are otherwise written in square script (see aboye).
The other vocalization systems (Babylonian and Palestinian) exhibt various
degrees of assimilation to the Tiberian system in the extant manuscripts. The
Hebrew grammarians in the tenth and eleventb centuries, and also otber Jeamed
scholars, all followed tbe Tiberian vocalizaton and tbe Tiberian reading tradi
tion, which t reflected, whether they were resident in Palestine, Iraq, North
Africa, or Spain. The Tiberian vocalization system S0011 became the standard one
and replaced aH otber systems in the translTlssion of tbe Bible. The transmission
of the Tiberian reading tradition, on the other hand, soon came to an end. It is
not completely clear why this happened. For one or two generations after the last
Masoretes teachers of the Tiberian reading tradition couId still be found in
Palestine, but not, it seems, in a11 Jewish communities. The Spanish grammarian
Ibn Janal). (eleventh century) e~pressed regret that in Spain there were no tradi
tional readers and teachers (rllwat wa-'ashab al-talqn) with
first hand
knowledge of the Tiberian reading. The reading tradition may have become
extinct tbrough lack of trained teachers. Whereas the signs of tbe vocalization
system could be capied by any scribe in any community, the oral transmission of
tbe reading which depended on a small cirde of teachers could 110t keep abreast

The Hebrew Bible

of the large expansion 01' the transmssion of the written Tiberian tradition n
manuscripts throughout the Jewish world. As a result, the Tiberian vocalization
signs carne to be read according to the various local traditions of Hebrew pro
nunciation, most of them heavily intluenced by the vernacular languages of the
communities concerned. It is only recently, by studying prevously neglected
medieval sources, that we have been able to reconstruct the original Tiberian
l'eading tradition. This do es not correspond to the descriptions that are found in
modern textbooks 01' bblical Hebrew, a11 01' which present a 1'orm of pronunci
ation that was not that of the Tiberian Masoretes.
In a large number of places the reading tradition that is reflected by the vocal
ization do es not correspond to the consonantal texto In the majority of cases the
divergence relates to the prol1unciation of single vowels in a single word.
Sometimes there is a difference in the whole word, as in 2 Kings 20: 4 where 'the
city' is written and 'court' is read, or the division of words. In a few isolated cases
tile discrepancy amounts to omissions or additions of words or phrases, as in
Jeremiah 31: 38 where 'behold days' is written and 'behold days are coming' is
read. The Masoretes indicated in their marginal notes the plaees where these dis
crepancies occurred. There are approximately 1,500 of these notes. Some
elements of the consonan tal text are regularly read in a way that does not corres
pond to what is written. These are not marked in the Masoretic notes. The most
common word where this oecurs is the tetragrammaton (yhwh), which is read
either as 'adona (my Lord) 01' as 'elohim (God). It a1so applies to the reading of
sorne elements of morphology. The regular discrepancy between the written
form of 'Jerusalem' (yrwshlm) and the reading tradition with final -ayim is like
wise a morphological difference.
There is no uniform trend in the deviations of the reading tradition froro the
consonan tal text. In a few isolated cases the reading tradition replaces possibly
offensive words with a euphemism; for example, 1 Samuel 5: 9 ketiv: 'haemor
rhoids' (the meaning is not complete1y certain), qere: 'tumours'. The avoidance of
pronouncing the tetragrammaton, moreover, is presumably theologically motiv
ated. In the vast majority of cases, however, the qeredoes not appear to be an
intentional change of the written texto
The most satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon is that the reading was
a separate layer of tradition that was closely related to, but nevertheless inde
pendent from, the tradition of the consonantal text. Contrary to a view that is
still wdely held today, the reading tradition was not a medieval creation of the
Masoretes but was an ancient tradition that the Masoretes recorded by their
notation system. This traditlon had been faith~ully passed on orally from teacher
to pupil over many generatons. There is no evidence that the Masoretes
reformed the readng tradition and felt free to introduce exegetical or linguistic
innovations of their own.
In the dscussion of the history of the reading tradition we should distinguish
its textual form from ts linguistic formo There is evidence that both of these
aspects have aneient roots. The textual differences between the reading and.the
-----~

Geoffrey Khan
written text are referred to in Talmudic literature. Some of the Qumran scrolls
f1'om the Second Temple period have in a numbe1' of places the text of the
Tiberian qere. One may trace back the text of qcre fonns even further, nto the
period of literary growth of the bblical books. Tbis is shown by the fact that tbe
ketiv of tbe text of Chronicles ofien corresponds to the qere of its earlier bblical
source. An example of this is the word migrasheha, 'its surrounding pasture
lands', wbich is used in a5sociation witb the lists of Levitical eities in Joshua 21
and 1 Cbronicles 6. The Cbroniclel' is clearly using the text of Joshua 21 as his lit
erary source. In the original text in Joshua the word is always written as a singular
form but it is read in the reading tradition as a plural. This reflects a later inter
pretation of an originally singular form as a plural. This 'later' interpretaton,
bowever, is no latel' than the consonantal text of Cbronic1es, where it i5 wl'itten as
a plural. Even f we do not attl'ibute tbis interpretaton to the autbor of tbe
Chronicles passage, there are good grounds for arguing tl1:1t tbe text of the read
ing tradition of Josbua 21 is as old as tbe consonantal text of 1 Cbronicles 6.
Lngustic features of tbe Tiberan reading tradition tbat differ from what i5 rep
resented in the e011sonanta1 text are reflected by some Qumran manllscripts. Tbis
is seen, fer example, in the form of sorne of the pronominal suffixes.
As we have seen, in the Mddle Ages various ways of pronollncing biblical
Hebrew are reflected in different systems of vocalization. The Tiberan,
Babylonian, and Palestinian systems of vocalization not only use different sets of
signs but also 1'eflect clearly distinct forms of pronunciaton. Indeed in manLl
scripts witbn the Babylonian and Palestinian systems one can identfy several
va1'ieties of pronunciaton. In addition to tbese tbree tl'aditions of pronunciaton,
there is the Sama1'itan tradition, which was not 1'eco1'ded in written notaton but
bas been passed down orally. Although the Tiberian, Babylqnian, and Palestinan
systems differ f1'om one another, it is elear tbat tbey are closely related in compar
ison wth the Samaritan pronunciation of Hebrew, which is significantly different
from all three. We can identify two broad streams of pronunciaton tradition, the
Samaritan and the non-Samaritano The close relationshil? of tbe Babylonian read
ing tradition wth the Tiberian and Palestinian could be explained as a result oE its
being transferred from Palestine to Babylonia by Jewish scholars after the Bar
Kochba revolt. These Palestnian scholars also established the first rabbinc
academies n Babylonia at this time. Similarly the official Targumim of Onqelos
and Jonatban appear to bave been transferred from Palestine to Babylonia in tbe
same periodo
A nl1mber of the differences witbin tbe non-Samaritan group appear to have
arisen tbrough the influence of tbe vernacular languages. Tbis applies especially
to the Palestinian pronunciaton, wbkb exhibits many features tbat are charac
teristic of Aramaic, the vernacular of tbe Jews for most of tbe first millenniu111 CE.
A number of Aramac features can also be identified in the Babylonian pronunci
ation oE Hebrew, though it appears t-hat it differed from contempora1'Y
vernacular Aramaic in a l1umber of ways and was a conservative tradition. The
Tiberian system appears to have been very conservatlve and was relatively unaf

86

The Hebrew Bible

_.--_ _--- _ . _ - - -
..

---~-------

---------~._-------------,

Fragmen t o f
Numbers 11 with
Babylonian yocalization,
from the Cairo Genizah
(LO'h-ll tI> centuries CE).

fected by vernacular intluence. The greater concern for conservatism in the

Tiberian and Babylonan traditions is retlected by the faet that a corpus of
detailed Masoretic annotations wa~ developed by the Masoretes of Tiberias and
Babylona, but manuscripts wth Palestinian vocalizaron exhibir only sporadic
marginal notes, mainly concernng i.1ere and ketiv. We may compare this to the
varying degrees of conservativeness in the transmission of the Aramaic
Targumim. Targum Onqelos of the Pentatellch preserves a form of literary
Aramaic that was llsed in Palestine at the beginnng of the first millennillm CE.
The text of this Targum was stable in the Middle Ages and Masoretie notes were

Geoffrey Khan

developed to ensure ts accurate transmsson. The so-called Palestinian

Targumim, on the otber hand, reworked earlier Targumic traditions in the ver
nacular Aramac of Palestine. Ther text was by no means fixed and so no
Masoretic notes were developed in assocation with their transmission. Another
feature that reflects the concern for accurate transmission is tbe fact that the
Tiberian Masoretic tradition developed a fu11 system of vocalization, in which
every word and virtually every letter had its vocalizaton sign, even if ths denoted
zero (shewa). Manuscripts with Babylonian and Palestinian vowel signs do not
exhibit such a consstently full system. This especially applies to Palestinan
vocalizaton, which is generallymarked only sporadically on isolated words.
It was no doubt for this reason that in the Middle Ages the Tiberian reading
tradition was the preserve of a sma11 number of scholars who had received special
training. The Palestinian pronunciation, whch was close to theAramac vernac
ular, was far more wdespread. The Sephardi pronunciaton traditions of
Hebrew, which are still followed today in many of the eastern ]ewish communi
ties, are derived historically from Palestinian pronunciation. The Babylonian
pronunciation, which was also more wdespread in the medieval Jewsh commu
nities than Tberian pronunciaton, has survived down to the present day in the
reading traditions of the Yemente Jews.
We have already discussed the evidence for the existen ce n the Second Temple
period of certain textual and linguistic elements of the Tberian reading tradition
that differ from the consonantal texto The linguistic features in the Qumran man
uscripts that correspond to the Tiberian reading tradton indicate that these
. features were not introduced into the reading tradition in the Middle Ages. There
is also evidence that the Tberan reading traditon resisted the influence of the
, Aramaic vernacular during its transmissiol1 in the first mllennium CE. This is
seen clearly in the reading tradtion of the Aramaic portions of the Bible . .In
numerous pIaces the reading tradition of bblical Aramaic reflects a different
morphology from that of the consonantal texto This reflects the independence of
the two traditions. The Aramaic morphology of the reading tradition, however, s
not the same as the morphology of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, the dialect that
was spoken by Jews in Palestine throughout the Byzantine and early Arab period,
but has earlier roots. Jewish Palestinian Aramaic was spoken by the Masoretes
durng most of the Masoretic period so this is evidence that the Tiberian reading
tradition was not influenced by the vernacular speech of its transmitters. Indeed
there are features of non-Semitic pronunciation in loanwords from non-Semitic
Ianguages that were preserved from the original period of composition right
down to the period of the Masoretes, centuries after contact of the transmitters
of the.tradition with the,source language had ceased. This demonstrates the
incredble conservatism of the Tiberian reading tradition.
We have seen that sorne lingustic features of the Tiberan reading traditon are
attested in the Qumran manuscrpts. Howver, Qumran sources also reflect vari
ous features of phonology and morphology that are alen to the Tiberian
tradition. This applies also to the reading tradition of Hebrew reflected in tran

88

The Hebrew Bible

scriptions of Hebrew words (rnainly proper nouns) that are found in the
Septuagint. Sorne of the distinctive linguistic features of the Samaritan tradition
can be traced back to the Second Temple periodo
During the Second Temple period, therefore, there were a variety of reading
traditions of the Hebrew Bible which differed from one another both linguis
tically and also textually. The lack of correspondence of sorne forms of
pronunciaton with the Tiberian reading tradition should not lead us to con
elude that the Tiberian tradition is a later development. There is evidence of the
extreme conservatism of the Tiberian tradition and it is likely that a form of pro
nunciaton that is very close to the Tiberian tradition existed in Second Temple
times side by side with other traditions of pronunciation. The fact that transcrip
tions in the Septuagint, for example, often have an a vowel in an unstressed
'closed syllable (e.g. Mariam) where in Tiberian Hebrew it has developed into an i
(Miryam) should not be interpreted as demonstrating the chronological
antecedence of the Septuagint reading tradition, although it may reflect typologi
mllyan earlier stage of development. It is relevant to take into account that in the
development of the dialects of a language some dialects may be more conserva
tive of earlier lingllistic features than other dialects spoken at the same periodo
Sorne features in the transcriptions of the Septuagint and other early sources that
differ from Tiberian phonology can, in fact, be explained as the result of
influence from the Aramaic vernaclllar, which was resisted by the standard
Tiberian tradition. Like.wise, where the Qumran biblical scrolls ret1ect a ditlerent
pronllnciation from the Tiberian one, it should not be assumed that the Tiberian
is a later development. Some Qumran scrolls that are written according to the
Qumran scribal practice,. for instance, exhibit a weakening of the guttural conso
nants, whereas these are stable in the Tiberian tradition. It is clear that the
Qumran scribes were influenced by vernacular pronunciation whereas the
Tiberian tradition is conservative and has preserved the original distinction
between the gutturalletters.
Similarly, where the reading tradition of the consonantal text reflected by the
Septuagint dffers textllally from the Tiberian, it does not necessarily follow that
the Septuagint tradition is the original one and the Tiberian is a later develop
mento There is, in faet, considerable textual agreement between the vocalzation
retlected by the Septuagint and the Tiberian one. This shows that there must have
been a large degree of continuity in the reading tradition. The places where the
vocalizaton adopted by the Septllagint translator differs from the Tiberian tradi
tion can in some cases be shown to be the result of uncertainty and eonjecture
and so the Tiberian vQcalization, although later, would preserve the older, more
accurate tradition.
The precise relationship of the Tiberian tradition with the Babylonian and
Palestinian traditions is not completely clear. There was a complic.ated web of rela
tions between the traditions of reading the Hebrew Bible in the Second Temple
period, just as there was between the various forms oE the consonan tal text of the
Bible. As remarked aboye, the Babylonian and Palestinian reading traditions, are

Geoffrey Khan

more closely related linguistically to the Tiberian than to the Samaritano yet sorne
linguistic features of the reading tradition reflected by the Septuagint transcrip
tions are found in the Babylonian traditions but not in the Tiberian.
As remarked aboye, the Tiberian vocalization marks syntactic divisions by dis
tinctive pausal forms of words. In the majority of cases the occurrence of these
pausal forms correspond to the divisions expressed by the accents. In a few cases,
however, they conflict with the accents, for example, in Deuteronomy 6: 7 ('when
you sit in your house and when you go on the road'). Bere a pausal form occurs
on 'in your house' but according to the accents the majar pause should occur on
An Arabic transcription
of Exod lIS 1: 22 to 2: 5
[rom the Hebrew Bible,
written in the 11 th century
by a Karaite $Cribe. The
Karaites were a group
within JudaiSl11.

The Hebrew Bible

'o.n the road' no.t o.n 'in Yo.ur ho.use'. No.te also. Deutero.no.my 5: 14 'yo.u, Yo.ur so.n,
Yo.ur daughter, and Yo.ur maidservant', where a pausal fo.rm o.ccurs even with a
co.njunctive accent ('and Yo.ur daughter'). Cases such as these suggest that the tra
ditio.n Df vDcalizatio.n and the traditio.n o.f accents were independent from eaeh
o.ther tD so.me extent. We see, therefo.re, that the vo.calizatiDn traditio.n is a layer o.f
traditio.n that is no.t o.nly separate fro.m the co.nso.nantal text but also. fro.m the
accents. So. the readng traditio.n, whieh ineludes bo.th vo.calizato.n and accents,
comprises two. separate layers.
The separateness o.f the reading tradition from the traditio.n o.f the co.nso.nan
tal text is reflected in the faet that in the Talmudie pero.d dfferent exegesis waS
appled to each !ayer. So.me o.f the rabbis fo.llo.wed the principIe that bo.th the eo.n
so.nantal text 'and the reading traditio.n were autho.ritatve so.urces. Rabbnic
literature co.ntains numerous examples o.f a different interpretatio.n being made
o.f the two. levels o.f the texto This is also. refleeted in the rabbinie fo.rm o.f exegesis
tl1at s expressed by the fo.rmula ' al tiqre .,. 'ella 'do. no.t read ... but .. .'. The purpo.se
is probably to. express an interpretato.n o.f the co.nso.nantal text that differs from
the reading traditio.n ratiler than to. reco.rd a varant reading traditio.ll. It is not
elear ho.w far baek this exegetical praetice can be traced.
Ano.ther sign o.f the independence of the reading tradition from the written
transmissio.n is the existence o.f transeriptio.ns o.f the reading traditio.n into. o.ther
alphabets. We have seen that in the Middle Ages the Karaite Jews transcribed the
reading o.f the Hebrew Bible into. Arabie serpt. They ulso. o.ccasio.nally tran
,sedbed the Hebrew o.f the Mishnah and o.ther rabbinic literature, whieh
themselves had an o.rally transmitted reading traditio.n, but never medieval
Hebrew texts sueh as legal texts ar Bible eo.mmentaries that had no. reading tradi
!io.n and circulated o.nly in written fo.rm. At an earlier pero.d the reading
traditio.n o.f the Hebrew Bble was represented in Greek transeriptio.n. The dear
est evidence fo.r this is the second co.lumn o.f Origen's Hexapla, which co.ntained a
full Greek transcriptio.n o.f the reading o.f the Hebrew text. From internal evid
ence it appears that this transeriptio.n was taken frQm an earlier so.urce datable to.
no. later than the first century CE. Similar transeriptio.ns o.f the reading traditio.n
may have been used by Greek-speaking Jews in the Seco.nd Temple perio.d,
although there is no. direct evidence to. substantiate this hypo.thesis.
The recitation of the Hebrew Bible in Jewish wo.rship is presented as an estab
lished eusto.m in the New Testament (Luke 4: 16ff., Acts 15: 21). lt is mentio.ned
by Phito. (c.20 BCE-SO CE) and Jo.sephllS (first century CE) and is likely to. go. back

several centuries earlier. Pllblic reading o.f the Pen tateuch (o.r parts o.f it) is
referred t9 in the Bible (Deut. 31: 9-11, Neh. 8: 1-8). It can be argued that the
very existence o.f BibLe manuscripts implies the co.ntempo.rary pratice o.f publie
reeitation, since in the Seco.nd Temple perio.d a large pro.portio.n o.f the Jewish
populatio.n must have been illiterate. We have seen that the co.nso.nantal text o.f
the Tiberian Maso.retic traditio.n can be traced back to. the earliest attested manu
scripts from the Seco.nd Temple perio.d (third century BCE) and, o.n the basis o.f
o.rtho.graphy, can be earried back further, po.ssibly to the time of Ezra. Rabbinic

Geoffrey Khan

A page from the Aleppo

Codex showing Provbs 5:
18 to 6: 31. The Masoretic
notes can be c:early seen in
the margns.

traditions concerning the recitaton with accents are li11ked to Ezra. 111 the intro
duction to the medieval treatise Hiddyat al-Qdri ('The gude for the reader'), the
tra11smission of the Tiberian reading traditio11 is traced back to Ezra. These state
me11ts should, of course, be approached with caution and they can110t be
verified. It is clear, however, that the Tiberian readi11g tradition has ancient roots.
When the proto-Masoretic consonantal text was fixed it was already corrupted by
scribal errors. lt reflected, moreover, literary recensions of some of the bblical
books that were different from what is found in other transmissio11S. In most
cases the Tiberian reading tradton has bee11 adapted to the words in the co11$on
antal text that have been corrupted by earlier scribes. The reading traditon,
furthermore, although deviating from the consona11tal text in some places, do es
not reflect a radically dfferent literary recension. On these grounds the reading
tradition is unlikely to be older than the period in which the proto-Masoretic
c011so11a11ta1 text was fixed. A number of li11guistic features suggest that the vocal
iDation should not be dated to an earlier periodo S0l11e archaic fo1'ms of Hebrew
morphology that are preserved in the consonantal text, for instance, are har111011
ized in the vocalization to the standard for111, which is reflected by the majorty of
the consonantal text. Furthermore, judging by north-west Semtc epigraphy
frol11 the beginning of the first l11illennium BCE, final case vowels were stll in use
in Canaanite languages in the period when the earliest biblical passages were
cOl11posed, but these do not appear in the vocalization. Tt should be taken into
account, however, that some of the later bblical books were probably composed
after the process of fixing the proto-Masoretic text had started. Lingustic dffer
ences between these compostions and the earlier books are clearly reflected by
the consonantal texto There s also some evidence that the hstoricallaya.'i11g is
reflected by differences in the vocalizaton, and that n the main the linguistic
roots of the vocalizatio11 of the Bible are in the Second Temple periodo
Exegetical alteratio11s can be fOU11d in the reading traditio11, just as they can in
the proto-Masoretic consonantal texto Examples of this practice are cases where
an original expression of<seeing the faee of G?d' is changed into the theologically
more acceptable 'appearing before God' by reading the verb as a nph'al (passive)
rather than as a qal (active), for example Deuteronomy 16: 'Three times a year aH
your males sha11 appear befare the Lord, your God.' This change is ciear where the
verb is an infinitive and it lacks the expected initial he of the niph'al fonn i11 the
c011so11antal text, for example, 'When you go up to appea1' before the Lord, your
God.' This change in the reading tradition is reflected already in the t1'anslation of
the Septuagi11t and the Targumim, which demonstrates that it has ancient 1'oots.
The proto-Masoretic manuscripts from Qumran exhibit a basically homogen
eous text, but are by no means ide11tical in a11 details. The text of the reading
tradition that became accepted as the standard can be regarded as an oral fo1'm of
a proto-Masoretie text which differed in some details from the written form that
beeame standardized. The linguistic form (phonology a11d morpholog~ of the
reading tradition is likely to represent 011e of varous types that existed in the
Seeond Temple periodo

92

The Hebrew Bble

;;:., '\"" ""'1"!'

~1I"l~. +.,.,,"'>l::>'t'-'''''i!o> i ,....~'"

l;~",' ~ "tm-4""'~""'"

""" .. ~", ~"._, ~l."r, """1,,,...,

1."r~~t'!U

li

;
!\
il

JI

.""

GecMrey Kh:111

MASORETIC NOTES AND TREATISES

The Tiberian Masoretic tradition included the writing of notes in the margins of
the Bible codices. The purpose of these was to ensure the accurate transmission
of the texto The notes belong to various categories. Some of these have been men
tioned already in the preceding discussion. The majority relate to thc
orthography of the consonanta1 text, with specia1 attention to the use of yowel
letters. The orthographical notes are statistical in formi thus Amos 9: 9 yippol
(shall fall); Masoretic note: '[ this word occursJ seven times spelled plme' (i.e.
flllly). One of tbe most common notes states simply that the for111, at least in the
orthograpby in which it occurs, is unique in tbe Bible ('there is no [othe1' fo1'm]').
Sometimes the note ineludes information on elosely related forms to ayoid con
fusion; thllS 1 Chronicles 8: 6 ' ehud; Masoretic note: 'Unque, elsewhere in the
. Bible 'ehud (with he not het) is llsed'.. The notes also giye statistical informaton
abollt the combinations of words, vocalizaton, accents, Jnd forms that are
un usual from the pont of view of syntax or spellng. These types of notes are all
written in the side margins of the text in abbreviated form (known as tbe
Masorah Parva). At the top and bottom of the page further notes are giyen
(known as the Masorah Magna) that elaborate on the abbrevated notes by giving
the references by key words to the verses that are included in the statstics.
In l1"ledieval Palestine the reading of the Pentateuch in the liturgy was com
pleted in a three-year cyele. For this purpose the Pentateuch was divided into 154
(according to some traditions 167) weekly portons known as sedarim. The
beginning of these sedarim are marked in the earIy Tiberian manuscripts from
Palest.ine. In Babylonia the reading of the Pentateuch was completed in a year by
dividing it into 54 portions. There is evdence that the Cust0111 of the one-year
cycle of reading also had Palestinian roots. Tbis would support the view
expressed aboye that the Babylonian reading tradition is closely related to the
Tiberan and Palestinan ones. In the later Middle Ages the Babylonian practice
of a one-year cyele of reading became the standard one in Judasm.
The Masoretic notes contain ger~eral statistical informaton concerning the
number of verses, words, and letters in the whole Bible and also the middle word
and the middle letter of books, the Pentateuch, and the Bible as a whole. These
were added at the end of the texts concerned, together with other lists, in what is
known as the Masorah Finalis. The purpose of this was to prevent the additions
01' omissions of words or even letters in the standard teA'!.
Other items that were incorporated into the Masoretic notes inelude indica
tiOl1S where the qere differs from the lcetiv, the so-called sevrin (cases where a
different text might be erroneollsly sllpposed-see above), differences between
'the Easterners' (Babylonians) and the 'Westerners' (Tiberians), and differences
between variolls streams in the Tiberian M'lsoretic traditiol1. Thel'e are also refel'
ences to 'corrections of the scribes' (tiqqune soferiln) and 'omissions of the
scl'ibes' (' ittur soferim) , which were incorporated into the Masorah from earlier
Talmudic traditions. The l'eferences to differences between qerc and ketiv and the

94

The Hebrew Bible

i
1:
1\

gathering of statistical information concerning the biblical text are also men
tioned in Talmudic literatme. According to the Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin
30a) the soferim, the forebears ol' the Masoretes, acquired their name from the
[act that they counted (Hebrew spr) aH the letters of the Pentateuch. Indeed, as is
shown by the translation 01' the word in Ezek. 20: 37 by the Greek Septuagint as
'number', the term nwsoret was probably originally understood in the sense of
'counting'. This connection with the Talmudic Jnterpretation of the term soferinl
may be more than coincidental, in that masoret may have been in tended origi
nally to refer to the activity of the soferim. Most of the elements of the Masoretic
notes, in t:lCt, can be traced back to traditions that predate the Masoretic period.
The language of the Masoretic notes is also indicative of their date. The majority
are in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, which was the vernacular of Jews in the
Byzantine and early Arab period. A few isolated terms in the notes are in Hebrew.
Some of these may be of Mshnaic origin; others appear to belong to a late layer
oC tradition dutable to the ninth or early tenth century. At this later period the
tvIasoretes used Hebrew aiso in independent treatises.
The Masoretic notes complemented the other components of the Tiberian
Masoretic tradition yet they had a certain independence of transmission, in that .
the notes in l manl1script did not always correspond to the text, vocalization, and

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Masoreti..: treatise Sefer

Okhlalr we-Okillah.

Geoffrey Khan

accents that were copied in the same manuscript. The notes were incorporated
into a printed edition in full fol' the first time in the sixteenth-century Second
Rabbinic Bible edited by Jacob ben Hayyim.
In the late Masoretic period (ninth-tenth centuries CE) independent
Masoretic treatises were written. These systematized the informaton dispersed
in the marginal notes and a1so expanded on them. One of these, Diqduqe lla
te'amim 'The fine rules of the accents', is attrbuted to Aharon ben Asher. Most,
however, are anonymous. Sometimes they are attached to the end of Bible manu
scripts and other times are written separately. One of the longest s Okhlah
we-Okhlall, which is a series of lists of various contents, including pairs of words
differing from each other in one detail. By the beginning of the eleventh century,
Masoretic treatises were written in Arabic, for example Kitab al-Khulaf, 'The
book of differences [between Ben Asher and Ben Napbtali]' by Misha'el ben
'Uzzi' el and a treatise on the shewa. Some of these later treatises were not written
by Masoretes themselves, for example Hidiiyat al-Qiir 'The guide for the reader',
which was a work by the eleventh-century Km'aite 'Abu al-Faraj Harun.
One of the ways in which the Masoretc activity was expanded in this period
was in the development of grammatical analysis, the rudiments of which are
found in some Masoretic texts that are appended to Bible manuscripts and in
works containing grammatical notes on the bblical text. After the end of the
Masoretic period Hebrew grammatical thought was developed further as a sepa
rate discipline.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

In the foregoing discussion, we have examined the components of the Tiberian

Masoretic tradition. These consist of the Tiberian reading tradition and six writ
ten components. The written components were transmitted by scribes but the
Tiberian reading tradi.tion was soon forgotten and the Tiberian Masoretic text
was read in Jewish communities with other reading traditions.
The written components, apart from the Masoretic treatises and the Masoretic
notes, represent ancient traditions that can be traced back hundreds of years
before the Masoretes into the Second Temple periodo Some elements of the
Masoretic notes can be traced to the Talmudic periodo The various components
constituted closely related but to some extent independent layers of tradition
which were not completely harmonized with each other.