An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax

the text. By at least 100 C.E. the rabbis had settled on one recension, which, in the
case of the Pentateuch, is conservative and disciplined. 62 Its adoption as the
official text in effect destroyed all variant lines of tradition in established Judaism.
Possibly the need to stabilize Judaism by strong adherence to the Law after the fall
of Jerusalem spurred these efforts. This text was not, as Paul Kahle theorized early
in this century, the beginning of an attempt to standardize a canon that finally
became fixed only in the time of Maimonides (12th century C.E.), after a long and
bitter struggle among the rabbinical schools.
d The activity of the Masoretes (ca. 600 to 1000 C.E.). 63 Between 600 and 1000 C.E.
schools consisting of families of Jewish scholars arose in Babylon, in Palestine,
and notably at Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee to safeguard the consonantal text and
to record—through diacritical notations added to the consonantal text—the
vowels, 64 liturgical cantillations, and other features of the text. Until these efforts
such features had orally accompanied the text. These scholars are known as
Masoretes or Massoretes, possibly from the (post-biblical) root msr ‘to hand
down.’ 65 In their endeavor to conserve the text, they hedged it in by placing
observations regarding its external form in the margins. In the side margins they
used abbreviations (Masorah parvum), in the top and[Page 22] bottom margins
they gave more detailed and continuous explanations (Masorah magnum), and at
the end (Masorah finalis) provided alphabetical classification of the whole
Masoretic material. In addition to these annotations made directly in the text, they
62 F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (2d ed.;
Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1961) 188–94. B. Albrektson has rejected the
notion that the rabbis consciously produced a standard text, arguing that the MT
emerged as a standard in the context of religious growth; see “Reflections on the
Emergence of a Standard Text of the Hebrew Bible,” Congress Volume: Göttingen
1977 (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 29; Leiden: Brill, 1978) 79–85.
63 Again, following Waltke, “Textual Criticism,” 217–18.
64 See S. Morag, The Vocalization Systems of Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic (The
Hague: Mouton, 1962), for a comparative study of three related systems; E. J. Revell
has written a number of papers on the development of the system—”Aristotle and the
Accents,” Journal of Semitic Studies 19 (1974) 19–35; “The Hebrew Accents and the
Greek Ekphonetic Neumes,” Studies in Eastern Chant 4 (1974) 140–70; “The
Diacritical Dots and the Development of the Arabic Alphabet,” Journal of Semitic
Studies 20 (1975) 178–90.
65 The reasons why the Masoretes undertook their work are not clear: recognition of
the unavoidable decay in an oral tradition was partially responsible, but external
stimuli, including models (from Syriac or Arabic; see n. 64) and theological
controversies (notably the Qaraites; see 2. Id), were also involved. A critical point in
the evaluation of their work may be the one thousand or so Qere-Kethiv variants;
these have been associated with theories involving types of manuscript correction and
manuscript collation. J. Barr has argued that the variants involved antedate the
Masoretes; see “A New Look at Kethibh-Qere,” Oudtestamentische Studiën 21 (1981)
19–37, esp. 23–25.