masoretes

{{Short description|Medieval Jewish sect}}

{{About|groups of scholars who compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides of Jewish texts|a discussion of the work of the Mascorderoretes|Masoretic Text|the Israeli term for "Tradition Keeper" or "Traditionalist" non-Orthodox observance|Shomer Masoret}}

The Masoretes ({{langx|he|בַּעֲלֵי הַמָּסוֹרָה|Baʿălēy Hammāsōrā}}, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE,{{cite book |last=Wegner |first=Paul |title=The Journey From Texts to Translations |year=1999 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kkVFOTsBOAEC&q=%22Masoretes+inherited%22&pg=PA172 |publisher=Baker Academic |isbn=978-0801027994 |page=172 |via=Google Books}}{{cite book |last1=Swenson |first1=Kristin |title=A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-065173-2 |page=29 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5xQOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 |via=Google Books}} based primarily in the Jewish centers of the Levant (e.g., Tiberias and Jerusalem) and Mesopotamia (e.g., Sura and Nehardea).{{cite EJ |title=Masorah |volume=3 |page=321 |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_13385.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160727155941/http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org:80/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_13385.html |archive-date=27 July 2016}} Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes (niqqud) on the external form of the biblical text in an attempt to standardize the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions, and cantillation of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) for the worldwide Jewish community.

The ben Asher family of Masoretes was largely responsible for the preservation and production of the Masoretic Text, although there existed an alternative Masoretic text of the ben Naphtali Masoretes, which has around 875 differences from the ben Asher text.{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2884-ben-naphtali |title=Ben Naphtali |author=Louis Ginzberg, Caspar Levias |encyclopedia=Jewish Encyclopedia}} The halakhic authority Maimonides endorsed the ben Asher as superior, although the Egyptian Jewish scholar, the Saadya Gaon, had preferred the ben Naphtali system. It has been suggested that the ben Asher family and the majority of the Masoretes were Karaites.{{cite web |website=Jewish Virtual Library |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/benAsher.html |title=Aaron ben Moses ben Asher}} However, Geoffrey Khan believes that the ben Asher family was probably not Karaite,{{cite book |last=Khan |first=Geoffrey |date=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ad0XAQAAIAAJ&q=masoretes+karaites |title=Early Karaite grammatical texts |publisher=Society of Biblical Literature |page=52 |isbn=978-1589830004 |via=Google Books}}{{cite book |last=Khan |first=Geoffrey |date=1990 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2jE9AAAAIAAJ&q=masoretes+karaites&pg=PA20 |title=Karaite Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah |publisher=Cambridge University Press Archive |page=20 |isbn=978-0521392273 |via=Google Books}} and Aron Dotan avers that there are "decisive proofs that M. Ben-Asher was not a Karaite."{{cite EJ |title=Masorah |volume=3 |page=321 |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_13385.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160727155941/http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org:80/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0013_0_13385.html |archive-date=27 July 2016}}

The Masoretes devised the vowel notation system for Hebrew that is still widely used, as well as the trope symbols used for cantillation.{{Cite journal |last=Sommer |first=Benjamin D. |date=1999 |title=Revelation at Sinai in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish Theology |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/490456?journalCode=jr |journal=The Chicago Journal of Religion |volume=79 |issue=3 |pages=422–451 |doi=10.1086/490456 |issn=0022-4189 |via=University of Chicago Press}}

The nakdanim were successors to the Masoretes in the transmission of the traditional Hebrew text of the Old Testament.