Massorah
The textual tradition of Hebrew Bible, an official registration of
its words, consonants, vowels and accents. It is doubtful whether
the word should be pointed from the New Hebrew verb "to hand
down," or from the verb meaning "to bind." The former pointing is
seen in Ezech. xx, 37; the latter is due to the fact that in the
Mishna, the word's primary meaning is "tradition". Our chief
witness to Massorah is the actual text of manuscripts of the
Hebrew Bible. Other witnesses are several collections of Massorah
and the numerous marginal notes scattered over Hebrew manuscripts.
The upper and lower margins and the end of the manuscript contain
the Greater Massorah, such as lists of words; the side margins
contain the lesser Massorah such as variants. The best collection
of Massorah is that of Ginsburg, "The Massorah compiled from
manuscripts alphabetically and lexically arranged" (3 vols.
London, 1880-85).
This article will treat: (I) the history and (II) the critical
value of Massorah. For the number and worth of Massoretic
manuscripts, see MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE.
I. HISTORY OF MASSORAH
Their sacred books were to the Jews an inspired code and record, a
God-intended means to conserve the political and religious unity;
and fidelity of the nation. It was imperative upon them to keep
those books intact. So far back as the first century B.C.,
copyists and revisers were trained and employed to fix the Hebrew
text. All had one purpose, -- to copy, i.e. according to the face-
value of the Massorah. To reproduce their exemplar perfectly, to
hand down the Massorah -- only this and nothing more was purposed
by the official copyist of the Hebrew Bible. Everything new was
shunned. There is evidence that false pronunciations were fixed by
Massorah centuries before the invention of points such as are seen
in our present Massoretic text. At times such early translations
as those of Aquila, Theodotion, the Septuagint and the Peshitto
give evidence of precisely the same erroneous pronunciation as is
found at the pointed Hebrew text of to-day.
(1) The Consonantal Text
Hebrew had no vowels in its alphabet. Vowel sounds were for the
most part handed down by tradition. Certain consonants were used
to express some long vowels, these consonants were called Matres
lectionis, because they determined the pronunciation. The efforts
of copyists would seem to have become more and more minute and
detailed in the perpetuation of the consonantal text. These
copyists (grammateis) were at first called Sopherim (from the
Hebrew word meaning "to count"), because, as the Talmud says,
"they counted all the letters in the Torah" (Kiddushin, 30a). It
was not till later on that the name Massoretes, was given to the
preservers of Massorah. In the Talmudic period (c. A.D.300-500),
the rules for perpetuating Massorah were extremely detailed. Only
skins of clean animals must be used for parchment rolls and
fastenings thereof. Each column must be of equal length, not more
than sixty nor less than forty-eight lines. Each line must contain
thirty letters, written with black ink of a prescribed make-up and
in the square letters which were the ancestors of our present
Hebrew text letters. The copyist must have before him an authentic
copy of the text; and must not write from memory a single letter,
not even a yod -- every letter must be copied from the exemplar,
letter for letter. The interval between consonants should be the
breadth of a hair, between words, the breadth of narrow consonant;
between sections, the breadth of nine consonants; between books,
the breadth of three lines.
Such numerous and minute rules, though scrupulously observed, were
not enough to satisfy the zeal to perpetuate the consonantal text
fixed and unchanged. Letters were omitted which had
surreptitiously crept in, variants and conjectural readings were
indicated inside-margins -- words, "read but not written" (Qere),
"written but not read" (Kethibh), "read one way but written
another". These marginal critical notes went on increasing with
time. Still more was done to fix the consonantal text. The words
and letters of each book and of every section of the twenty-four
books of the Hebrew Bible were counted. The middle words and
midddle letters of books and sections were noted. In the Talmud,
we see how one rabbi was wont to pester the other with such
trivial textual questions as the juxtaposition of certain letters
in this or that section, the half-section in which this consonant
or that was, etc. The rabbis counted the number of times certain
words and phrases occurred in the several books and in the whole
Bible; and searched for mystic meanings in that number of times.
On the top and bottom margins of manuscripts, they grouped various
peculiarities of the text and drew up alphabetical lists of words
which occurred equally often -- for instance, of those which
appeared once with and once without waw. In Cod. Babylon.
Petropolitanus (A.D. 916), we have many critical marginal notes of
such and of other peculiarities, v.g. a list of fourteen words
written with final He which are to be read with Waw, and of eight
words written with final Waw, which are to be read with He. Such
were some of the painstaking means employed to preserve the
consonantal text of the Massorah.
(2) The Points
Rolls that were destined for use in the synagogue were always
unpointed. Rolls that were for other use came in time to receive
vowel-points and accents; these latter indicated the interrelation
of words and modulation of the voice in public cantillation. One
scribe wrote the consonantal text; another put in vowel-points and
accents of Massorah. The history of vocalization of the text is
utterly unknown to us. It has been suggested that dogmatic
interpretation clearly led to certain punctuations; but it is
likelier that the pronunciation was part of Massorah long before
the invention of punctuation. The very origin of this invention is
doubtful. Bleek assigns it to the eighth century (cf. "Introd. to
O.T." I, 109, London, 1894). Points were certainly unused in St.
Jerome's time; he had no knowledge whatsoever of them. The
punctuation of the traditional text was just as certainly complete
in the nineth century; for R. Saadia Gaon (d. 942), of Fayum in
Egypt, wrote treatises thereon. The work of punctuating must have
gone on for years and been done by a large number of scholars who
laboured conjointly and authoritatively. Strack (see "Text of
O.T.", in Hastings, "Dict. of Bib.") says it is practically
certain that the points came into Massorah by Syriac influence.
Syrians strove, by such signs, to perpetuate the correct
vocalization and intonation of their Sacred text. Their efforts
gave an impulse to Jewish zeal for the traditional vocalization of
the Hebrew Bible. Bleek ("Introd. to 0.T.", I, 110, London, 1894)
and others are equally certain that Hebrew scholars received their
impulse to punctuation from the Moslem method of preserving the
Arabic vocalization of the Koran. That Hebrew scholars were
influenced by either Syriac or Arabic punctuation is undoubted.
Both forms and names of the Massoretic points indicate either
Syriac or Arabic origin. What surprises us is the absence of any
vestige of opposition to this introduction into Massorah of points
that were most decidedly not Jewish. The Karaite Jews surprise us
still more, since, during a very brief period, they transliterated
the Hebrew text in Arabic characters.
At least two systems of punctuation are Massoretic: the Western
and the Eastern. The Western is called Tiberian, after the far
famed school of Massorah at Tiberias. It prevailed over the
Eastern system and is followed in most manuscripts as well as in
all printed editions of the Massoretic text. By rather complicated
and ingenious combinations of dots and dashes, placed either above
or below the consonants, the Massoretes accurately represented ten
vowel sounds (long and short a, e, i, o, u) together with four
half-vowels or Shewas. These latter corresponded to the very much
obscured English sounds of e, a, and o. The Tiberian Massoretes
also introduced a great many accents to indicate the tone-syllable
of a word, the logical correlation of words and the voice
modulation in public reading. The Eastern or Babylonian system of
punctuation shows dependence on the Western and is found in a few
manuscripts -- chiefest of which is Cod. Babylon. Petropolitanus
(A.D. 916). It was the punctuation of Yemen till the eighteenth
century. The vowel signs are all above the consonants and are
formed from the Matres lectionis. Disjunctive accents of this
supralinear punctuation have signs like the first letter of their
name; zaqeph; tarha. A third system of punctuation has been found
in two fragments of the Bible lately brought to light in Egypt and
now in the Bodleian Library (cf. Kahle in "Zeitschrift fur die
Alttestam. Wissensehaft", 1901; Friedlander, "A third system of
symbols for the Hebrew vowels and accents" in "Jewish Quarterly
Review", 1895). The invention of points greatly increased the work
of scribes; they now set themselves to list words with a view to
perpetuating not only the consonants but the vowels Cod Babyl.
Petropolitanus (A.D. 916), for instance, lists eighteen words
beginning with Lamed and either Shewa or Hireq followed by Shewa;
eighteen words beginning with Lamed and Pathah; together with an
alphabetical list of words, which occur only once.
II. CRITICAL VALUE OF MASSORAH
During the seventeenth century, many Protestant theologians, such
as the Buxtorfs, defended the Massoretic text as infallible; and
considered that Esdras together with the men of the Great
Synagogue had, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not only
determined the Hebrew canon but fixed forever the text of the
Hebrew Bible, its vowel points and accents, its division into
verses and paragraphs and books. Modern text critics value
Massorah, just as the Itala and Peshitto, only as one witness to a
text of the second century. The pointed Massoretic text is witness
to a text which is not certainly earlier than the eighth century.
The consonantal text is a far better witness; unfortunately the
tradition of this text was almost absolutely uniform. There were
different schools of Massoretes, but their differences have left
us very few variants of the consonantal text (see MANUSCRIPTS OF
THE BIBLE). The Massoretes were slaves to Massorah and handed down
one and one only text. Even textual peculiarities clearly due to
error or accident, were perpetuated by rabbis who puzzled their
brains to ferret out mystical interpretations of these
peculiarities. Broken and inverted letters, consonants that were
too small or too large, dots that were out of place -- all such
vagaries were slavishly handed down as if God-intended and full of
Divine meaning.
WALTER DRUM
Transcribed by Joseph P. Thomas
Dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Mary King
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.
Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).
This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.
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