C. By means of the invention of punctuation (vowel signs and accents) between the 6th and 8th cent, it was sought to ensure the preservation of the traditional pronunciation ; perhaps there was also the intention of lightening the task of learners of the language. Unfortunately, we are without precise details as to the history of this invention ; the only point that is practically certain is that Syriac influence must be assumed. (In Syr. a point above the letter indicates the fuller, stronger pro- nunciation ; a point under it the finer, weaker vocalization or even the absence of a vowel). Attention to these signs involved a large addition to the studies of the later Ma(s)soretes. For instance, 18 words beginning with lamed occur twice — in the one instance with shewa (or hirek with follo>ving shewa), in the other with pathah (cod. 916 A.D., Is 8"') ; alphabet of words ending in 1} which occur once (cod. 916 A.D., Is 34'-).
D. Two systems of punctuation are completely known to us : (a) that employed in most MSS and in all printed editions, the so - called Tiberian, named from the city of Tiberias, where the study of the Ma(s)sora flourished for centuries. This system has special accents for the three books. Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. — (b) the supralinear punctuation, so named because all the vowel signs are placed over the consonants ; it was in use, alongside of the Tiberian system, among a portion of the Jews of Babylonia (hence its usual designa- tion, ' Babylonian punctuation ') and Yemen (in Yemen till the 18th cent.). The signs for the prin- cipal vowels a, u, i are formed from the matres lectionis k, i, •; the disjunctive accents have mostly the form of the letter with which their name begins: e.g. » = ']pi zakeph, D = Nmo tarha. The accentual system is certainly dependent upon the Tiberian ; the vowel system, too, gives the impres- sion, at least to the present writer, of less origin- ality. The most important MS in which this system is employed is cod. Proph. post. Bab.- Petropol. 916 A.D. — The simple supralinear punctuation system adopted in many later Yemen codices is derived from the complicated system of cod. Petropol. 916 A.D. (G. Margoliouth, it is true, is of the opposite opinion). — (c) M. Friedlander describes ' A third system of symbols for the Heb. vowels and accents in JQR, 1895, pp. 504-567. (In two fragments of Bible text foun<l lately in Egypt and acquired by the Bodleian Library ; see Neubauer's Catalogue, No. 2604, xi., and 2608, i.). Cf. C. Levias in AJSL xv. 157-164, and P. Kahle in ZATIV xxi. (1901) pp. 273-317.
E. As the very name indicates, it Avas not the aim of the Ma(s)soretes to give anything new, but to preserve for future generations the Bible text exactly as it had come down to them, and this in regard not only to the consonantal text but also to its pronunciation. ' Tendency ' of any kind was foreign to them. Instead of S^'.i in Is 14" we should cerfciinly read byn, but the former pro- nvinciation is proved by Aquila and the Peshitta
to have been in use before the punctuation. Thf name of the well-known Canaanite god can hardly have been Molekk, but Melekh ; but already I.Xx Aq., Symm., Theod. have M6Xox = MT iijib.
F. i'lie distinction between Ma(s)soretes and punctuators is no absolute one. The Ma(s)sora, as is shown by cod. 916 A.D., was complete before the end of the 9th century. Aaron b. Moses b Asher, 'the great teacher' ("^njn icSarr), whos* activity fell within the first third of the lOtb cent., enjoj'ed already in his lifetime a great repu- tation, and as early as the year 989 the Biblp codex supplied by him with punctuation and Ma(s)sora was regarded as the model codex and as authoritative. This is the judgment, too, of the writer of the St. Petersburg Bible MS B19of (1009 A.D.), Moses Maimonides, of David l;Cinihi and of the later Jews. Aaron ben Asher himself had a rival in Moses b. David b. Naphtali, whose views were dillerent not only regarding many minutue of punctuation [daghesh, mctheg, accents), but even, at least in some passages, regarding the consonantal text (see Ginsburg, Introd. pp. 241- 286). In like manner there were not a few diH'er- ences amongst the older Ma(s)soretes. The tradition about the text was not a uniform one, and it must be acknowledged that there were ditierent schools of Ma(s)sorete3. According to the readings of the codices employed as standards must have been the ditierent indications in the Mas(s)oretic rubrics; and S. Baer is not justified when, in the case of two statements that ditt'er, he simply as a rule pronounces one to be wrong and corrects it from the other.
G. The content of the Mas(s)ora was collected into special books or reproduced in Bible MSS. Of those collections the best known is the book which is named from its opening words •■iS;i<i nj;x (ed. Frensdorff, Hanover, 1864) ; cf. Ginsburg, Introd. p. 464. In the MSS the detailed statements of the Mas(s)ora magna, varying indeed greatly in extent, according to the inclination or the ability of the scribe, are found on the top and bottom margins, some at the end of a codex or a book, only a few at the beginning. For the fullest collection of such material we are indebted to Ch. D. Ginsburg.