Masoretes

The Masoretes were a group of scholars who developed the system of the Masorah (“tradition”), after which they are named. Aside from a few names from the later generations, especially from the Ben Asher family, we know very little about the Masoretes. They seem to have begun their work in the sixth century, and the last known member of the Ben Asher family, Aaron, probably lived around the beginning of the tenth century.

Content by Masoretes

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Masorah

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This image shows a leaf from the Damascus Pentateuch, with the Masorah in the margins. The Damascus Pentateuch is an incomplete Bible codex written around 1000 CE. This is the first page, which starts…

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List of Large and Small Letters in the Bible

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The consonantal Hebrew text that is the basis for the Masoretic Bible was transmitted with some orthographic irregularities. Among them are letters that were written larger or smaller than the…

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Book of Word Pairs

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The consonantal Hebrew text that is the basis for the Masoretic Bible was transmitted with some orthographic irregularities. The Book of Word Pairs (Sefer okhlah va-okhlah) is an independent Masoretic…