Note this thread is in Interfaith Discussion.
In the last couple of weeks, I've noticed that there are more and more members here on RF that do not seem to understand what the "Masoretic Text" is. As such, they have reached very wrong conclusions about it. This thread's intent is to explain what the MT is and to correct wrongful interpretations and subsequent conclusions.
What does "Masoretic" mean?
Masoretic comes from the Hebrew word מסורת - masoret, which means "tradition". The term "Masoretic" refers to the object being of the Jewish tradition.
What is the Masoretic Text?
The Masoretic Text is the form of the Tanach - the Pentateuch, Prophets and Writings - as we, the Jewish Nation, have it today.
Now I'll elaborate on the history of the MT:
The Masoretic Text was organized by a group of Jewish scholars titled "The Masoretes", or בעלי המסורה - Ba'alei Ha'Mesorah in Hebrew. These men lived from circa the 5th century to the 10th century. Their intent was to establish a standardized version of the Tanach for usage by all of the Jewish people, who by that point had been spread out from India to Spain, if not farther. Large distances between communities, the strife brought upon by the diaspora and the known fact of the existence of scribal errors brought upon the need for an edition of Tanach to be used by all communities, in hope of minimizing as much as possible future errors.
How was the standardized text created?
This is what many people seem to get wrong. It is often assumed that because there are significant differences between the MT and other versions of Tanach - most notably, the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls - that must mean that the Masoretes took some random version of the scriptures and then changed everything based on their personal biased religious views. That was not the case at all. The MT was formed by comparing multiple variant Tanachic scrolls and making decisions based on the commonalities. An excellent example of this is from the Jerusalem Talmud.
Yerushalmi Taanit 20b:
Besides for reaching consensus on how the spellings of different words in the Tanach and which particular synonymous words are to be used and which are not, the Masoretes also conducted research into the pronunciation of the texts. As is known, Hebrew doesn't have vowel letters. Today we have vowel points for assisting in pronunciation, but this wasn't the case for thousands of years. Instead, the proper pronunciation was memorized, just like the rest of the Jewish Oral Tradition. This naturally led to disagreements on the pronunciation of certain words. The Masoretes took it upon themselves to create a system that would allow them to form a consensus also on the pronunciation of the words. This became known as Nikkud or Vowel Points. Three systems were originally created by different Masoretes: The Tiberian Nikkud, the Eretz Yisrael Nikkud and the Babylonian Nikkud. Eventually the Tiberian Nikkud became the most widespread.
In time, two particular Masorete families became prominent: The Ben-Asher family and the Ben-Naftali family. They spent their days copying perfected Tanachic texts based on the accumulated decisions of centuries of Masoretic developments and decisions. Ultimately, though, there were around 850 minute disagreements between Ben-Asher and Ben-Naftali. What does "minute" mean? For example, should the word מאוד in one place be spelled with a Vav or should it be spelled מאד, without a Vav? Should a certain word be spelled with one sort of vowel point or the other (this has ramifications on the pronunciation)? Such were their disagreements. Ultimately, Maimonides proclaimed the Ben-Asher version of Tanach to be the best, and his decision eventually reached consensus around the world. Thus, the Ben-Asher Tanach, for the most part, became the standard Tanach. There are still some differences between the texts of different communities, but far, far less than there used to be.
To conclude:
In the last couple of weeks, I've noticed that there are more and more members here on RF that do not seem to understand what the "Masoretic Text" is. As such, they have reached very wrong conclusions about it. This thread's intent is to explain what the MT is and to correct wrongful interpretations and subsequent conclusions.
What does "Masoretic" mean?
Masoretic comes from the Hebrew word מסורת - masoret, which means "tradition". The term "Masoretic" refers to the object being of the Jewish tradition.
What is the Masoretic Text?
The Masoretic Text is the form of the Tanach - the Pentateuch, Prophets and Writings - as we, the Jewish Nation, have it today.
Now I'll elaborate on the history of the MT:
The Masoretic Text was organized by a group of Jewish scholars titled "The Masoretes", or בעלי המסורה - Ba'alei Ha'Mesorah in Hebrew. These men lived from circa the 5th century to the 10th century. Their intent was to establish a standardized version of the Tanach for usage by all of the Jewish people, who by that point had been spread out from India to Spain, if not farther. Large distances between communities, the strife brought upon by the diaspora and the known fact of the existence of scribal errors brought upon the need for an edition of Tanach to be used by all communities, in hope of minimizing as much as possible future errors.
How was the standardized text created?
This is what many people seem to get wrong. It is often assumed that because there are significant differences between the MT and other versions of Tanach - most notably, the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls - that must mean that the Masoretes took some random version of the scriptures and then changed everything based on their personal biased religious views. That was not the case at all. The MT was formed by comparing multiple variant Tanachic scrolls and making decisions based on the commonalities. An excellent example of this is from the Jerusalem Talmud.
Yerushalmi Taanit 20b:
"שלשה ספרים מצאו בעזרה ספר מעוני וספר זעטוטי וספר היא באחד מצאו כתוב מעון אלהי קדש ובשנים כתיב (דברים ל״ג:כ״ז) מענה אלהי קדם וקיימו שנים וביטלו אחד. באחד מצאו כתוב וישלח את זעטוטי בני ישראל ובשנים כתוב (שמות כ״ד:ה׳) וישלח את נערי בני ישראל וקיימו שנים וביטלו אחד. באחד מצאו כתוב תשע היא ובשנים כתיב אחד עשר היא וקיימו שנים ובטלו אחד."
"Three scrolls were found in the Temple court: The Me'onei scroll and the Za'atutei scroll and the Hi' scroll. In one they found written "the eternal God is Me'on" and in two it was written "the eternal God is Me'onah (a dwelling place)" (Deut. 33:27), so they adopted the reading of the two scrolls and discarded that of the one scroll. In one they found written "And he sent the za‘atutei (nobles) of the children of Israel", and in the other two they found written And he sent na‘arei (the young men of) the children of Israel" (Exo. 24:5), so they retained the reading of the two and abandoned that of the one. In one of the scrolls hi’ was written nine times, but in the other two hi’ was written eleven times, so they adopted the reading of the two and discarded that of the one."
As evidenced by this story from the Talmud, the differences between various scrolls were quite minute and consensus was reached by adopting the most common variants. This is a classic Jewish way to reach consensus, which is to follow the majority. Based on the writings of the Masoretes, we know that the variants between the different texts in their time featured multiple such minute differences. Nowhere were there differences on the level suggested by some when the MT is compared to the Septuagint or the DSS. This raises questions about those latter versions (see below in my conclusion).
Besides for reaching consensus on how the spellings of different words in the Tanach and which particular synonymous words are to be used and which are not, the Masoretes also conducted research into the pronunciation of the texts. As is known, Hebrew doesn't have vowel letters. Today we have vowel points for assisting in pronunciation, but this wasn't the case for thousands of years. Instead, the proper pronunciation was memorized, just like the rest of the Jewish Oral Tradition. This naturally led to disagreements on the pronunciation of certain words. The Masoretes took it upon themselves to create a system that would allow them to form a consensus also on the pronunciation of the words. This became known as Nikkud or Vowel Points. Three systems were originally created by different Masoretes: The Tiberian Nikkud, the Eretz Yisrael Nikkud and the Babylonian Nikkud. Eventually the Tiberian Nikkud became the most widespread.
In time, two particular Masorete families became prominent: The Ben-Asher family and the Ben-Naftali family. They spent their days copying perfected Tanachic texts based on the accumulated decisions of centuries of Masoretic developments and decisions. Ultimately, though, there were around 850 minute disagreements between Ben-Asher and Ben-Naftali. What does "minute" mean? For example, should the word מאוד in one place be spelled with a Vav or should it be spelled מאד, without a Vav? Should a certain word be spelled with one sort of vowel point or the other (this has ramifications on the pronunciation)? Such were their disagreements. Ultimately, Maimonides proclaimed the Ben-Asher version of Tanach to be the best, and his decision eventually reached consensus around the world. Thus, the Ben-Asher Tanach, for the most part, became the standard Tanach. There are still some differences between the texts of different communities, but far, far less than there used to be.
To conclude:
- The Masoretic Text is the result of careful analysis of hundreds of variant Tanach scrolls assembled over a period of some five centuries or so by men who dedicated their lives to the mission of forming a standard, majority-based version of the Tanach.
- The Masoretes did not invent anything. What they did was reach a consensus about the proper way to spell and pronounce the words of the Tanach, based on past versions and traditions.
- The more blatant differences between the scrolls used by the majority of the Jewish people for many centuries and those used by the authors of the DSS are not mentioned, to my knowledge, in the Tannaic and Amoraic texts (Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud, Zohar and Midrashim) we currently have extant. Some of the slighter differences between the Septuagints and the common scrolls used in the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods were pointed out in some of the Tannaic and Amoraic texts that we have extant, in discussions that formed the precursors to the work of the Masoretes. Were these scrolls - the ones used by the authors of the various Septuagints and the authors of the DSS - more commonly-used, one would expect a wholly different reaction from the sages, perhaps a more serious discussion of the variants, if nothing else. That such discussions do not seem to exist raises questions about the validity of the textual variants that appear in the DSS and the Septuagints.
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