Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the masora. Referring to the Masoretic Text, masora specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Jewish scriptures and the concise marginal notes in manuscripts of the Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. It was primarily copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era. The oldest known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex, dates to 1009 CE and is recognized as the most complete source of biblical books in the Ben Asher tradition. It has served as the base text for critical editions such as Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Adi.
The differences attested to in the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that multiple versions of the Hebrew scriptures already existed by the end of the Second Temple period. Which is closest to a theoretical Urtext is disputed, as is whether such a singular text ever existed. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century BCE, contain versions of the text which have some differences with today's Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint and the Peshitta occasionally present notable differences from the Masoretic Text, as does the Samaritan Pentateuch, the text of the Torah preserved by the Samaritans in Samaritan Hebrew. Fragments of an ancient 2nd–3rd-century manuscript of the Book of Leviticus found near an ancient synagogue's Torah ark in Ein Gedi have identical wording to the Masoretic Text.
The Masoretic Text is the basis for most Protestant translations of the Old Testament such as the King James Version, English Standard Version, New American Standard Bible, and New International Version. After 1943, it has also been used for some Catholic Bibles, such as the New American Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible. Some Christian denominations instead prefer translations of the Septuagint as it matches quotations in the New Testament.
Origin and transmission
The oldest manuscript fragments of the final Masoretic Text, including vocalications and the masorah, date from around the 9th century. The oldest-known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex, dates from the early 11th century. The Aleppo Codex, once the oldest-known complete copy but missing large sections since the 1947 Civil war in Palestine, dates from the 10th century. However, codification of the base consonants appears to have begun earlier, perhaps even in the Second Temple period.Second Temple period
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, dating from, shows that in this period there was no uniform text. According to Menachem Cohen, the Dead Sea scrolls showed that "there was indeed a Hebrew text-type on which the Septuagint-translation was based and which differed substantially from the received MT." The scrolls show numerous small variations in orthography, both as against the later Masoretic Text, and between each other. It is also evident from the notings of corrections and of variant alternatives that scribes felt free to choose according to their personal taste and discretion between different readings.The text of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Peshitta read somewhat in-between the Masoretic Text and the old Greek. However, despite these variations, most of the Qumran fragments can be classified as being closer to the Masoretic Text than to any other text group that has survived. According to Lawrence Schiffman, 60% can be classed as being of proto-Masoretic type, and a further 20% Qumran style with a basis in proto-Masoretic texts, compared to 5% proto-Samaritan type, 5% Septuagintal type, and 10% non-aligned. Joseph Fitzmyer noted the following regarding the findings at Qumran Cave 4 in particular: "Such ancient recensional forms of Old Testament books bear witness to an unsuspected textual diversity that once existed; these texts merit far greater study and attention than they have been accorded till now. Thus, the differences in the Septuagint are no longer considered the result of a poor or tendentious attempt to translate the Hebrew into the Greek; rather they testify to a different pre-Christian form of the Hebrew text". On the other hand, some of the fragments conforming most accurately to the Masoretic Text were found in Cave 4.
Tannaitic sources relate that a standard copy of the Hebrew Bible was kept in the court of the Second Temple for the benefit of copyists and that there were paid correctors of biblical books among the officers of the Temple. The Letter of Aristeas claims that a model codex was sent to Ptolemy by the High Priest Eleazar, who asked that it be returned after the Septuagint was completed. Josephus describes the Romans taking a copy of the Law as spoil, and both he and Philo claim no word of the text was ever changed from the time of Moses.
In contrast, an Amoraic narrative relates that three Torah scrolls were found in the Temple court, at variance with each other. The differences between the three were resolved by majority decision. This may describe a previous period, although Solomon Zeitlin argues it is not historical.
Rabbinic period
An emphasis on minute details of words and spellings, already used among the Pharisees as basis for argumentation, reached its height with the example of Rabbi Akiva. The idea of a perfect text sanctified in its consonantal base quickly spread throughout the Jewish communities via supportive statements in Halakha, Aggadah, and Jewish thought; and with it increasingly forceful strictures that a deviation in even a single letter would make a Torah scroll invalid. Very few manuscripts are said to have survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. This drastically reduced the number of variants in circulation and also gave a new urgency that the text must be preserved. Few manuscripts survive from this era, but a short Leviticus fragment recovered from the ancient En-Gedi Scroll, carbon-dated to the 3rd or 4th century CE, is completely identical to the consonantal Masoretic Text preserved today.New Greek translations were also made. Unlike the Septuagint, large-scale deviations in sense between the Greek of Aquila of Sinope and Theodotion and what we now know as the Masoretic Text are minimal. Relatively small variations between different Hebrew texts in use still clearly existed though, as witnessed by differences between the present-day Masoretic Text and versions mentioned in the Gemara, and often even halachic midrashim based on spelling versions which do not exist in the current Masoretic Text.
The Age of the Masoretes
The current received text finally achieved predominance through the reputation of the Masoretes, schools of scribes and Torah scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries in the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid Caliphates, based primarily in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem in Palestine and in Lower Mesopotamia. According to Menachem Cohen, these schools developed such prestige for the accuracy and error control of their copying techniques that their texts established an authority beyond that of all others. Differences remained, sometimes bolstered by systematic local differences in pronunciation and cantillation. Every locality, following the tradition of its school, had a standard codex embodying its readings. In the talmudic academies in Babylonia, the school of Sura differed from that of Nehardea. Similar differences existed in those of Syria Palaestina, such as the one at Tiberias, which in later times increasingly became the chief seat of learning. During this period, the living tradition ceased, and the Masoretes, in preparing their codices, usually followed one school or the other, while examining the standard codices of other schools and noting their differences.Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali
The Masorah for the most part ended in the 10th century with Aaron ben Moses ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, who were the leading Masoretes of the time. Ben Asher wrote a standard codex embodying his opinions. Ben Naphtali likely did as well, though it has not survived. However, the differences between the two are found in more or less complete Masoretic lists and in quotations in David Ḳimḥi, Norzi, and other medieval writers.The differences between Ben Naphtali and Ben Asher number approximately 875, nine-tenths of which pertain to the placement of accents, while the rest concern vowels and consonantal spelling. The differences between the two Masoretes do not represent solely personal opinions; the two rivals represent different schools. Like the Ben Ashers there seem to have been several Ben Naftalis. The Masoretic lists often do not agree on the precise nature of the differences between the two rival authorities; it is, therefore, impossible to define with exactness their differences in every case; and it is probably due to this fact that the received text does not follow uniformly the system of either Ben Asher or Ben Naphtali.
Ben Asher was the last of a distinguished family of Masoretes extending back to the latter half of the 8th century. Despite the rivalry of ben Naphtali and the opposition of Saadia Gaon, the most eminent representative of the Babylonian school of criticism, ben Asher's codex became recognized as the standard text of the Hebrew Bible. Notwithstanding all this, for reasons unknown neither the printed text nor any manuscript which has been preserved is based entirely on Ben Asher: they are all eclectic. Aside from Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, the names of several other Masorites have come down; but, perhaps except for one—Pinehas, the head of the academy, who is supposed by modern scholars to have lived about 750—neither their time, their place, nor their connection with the various schools is known.
Most scholars conclude Aaron ben Asher was a Karaite rather than a Rabbanite. There is evidence to support the contrary view.