Also spelled Masoretes, Masora/h, and Masoretic Text.
Until the invention of the printing press, every copy of the biblical manuscript had to be hand-copied. While the ancient scribes were scrupulous in their work, the process was open to the inadvertant introduction of errors into the text. The need for a standardized text was early felt, and beginning about 500 AD a group of scribes—who later came to called the Massoretes, Hebrew for 'transmitters'—began to develop a textual apparatus of signs and symbols, and other critical notations in the margins (the Massorah) to facilitate the accurate preservation of the text. The text of the Hebrew OT they left behind and that serves as the standard modern Hebrew Text is known as the Massoretic Text (often abbreviated MT). The most widely used critical edition of the MT is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (usually abbreviated BHS.)
Pointings - Ketiv - Qere
Hebrew was originally consonantal, with no vowels. This was fine as long as it remained a spoken language. The written form of a consonantal word, however, is open to ambiguity; should, e.g., LV be read "love," "luv," "lava," "levi"? The Massoretes were insistent that the consonantal text should be preserved as it came down to them. By the 7th Cent, however, they had a complete system of vowel-signs, as well as punctuation and accentual marks, which they inserted into the texts to indicate how the words were to be read (what is often referred as pointings or niqqud). Where they felt that a correction or improvement needed to be made, they placed these in the margin. This created sometimes two forms of the word, the one that should be preserved, and therefore should be written in the text, and the corrected or preferred word which should be read. The Qere, "that which is to be read," is placed in the margin, while the Ketiv was preserved in the inviolable text. (The best example of the use of Ketiv and Qere is in the recording of the divine name Yahweh. What appears in the text (Ketiv) is always the consonants YHWH but the notes (Qere) indicates that it should be pronounced 'Adonay.')
The Massoretes, notes A. R. Millard, "used every imaginable safeguard, no matter how cumbersome or laborious, to ensure the accurate transmission of the text. The number of letters in a book was counted and its middle letter was given. Similarly, with words, and again the middle word of the book was noted. They collected any peculiarities in spelling or in the forms or positions of letters. They recorded the number of times a particular word or phrase occurred. Among the many lists they drew up is one containing the words that occur only twice in OT. Their lists finally included all orthographic peculiarities of the text." (IBD, 3.1538).
Such a massive project would have taken a long time and many persons and attempts to get it right. In fact three different systems of vocalization was attempted and the one that eventually won the day is known as the Tiberian (the city by the Sea of Galilee). The most famous Massoretes is probably the family of Aaron ben Asher from the first half of the 10th Cent, whose family slogged at the task for five generations.
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