This brings us to the middle of the Talmudic age. The learning of the schools which had been formed in Jerusalem about the time of our Saviour by IliUel and Shammai was preserved, after the destruction of the city, in the academies of Jabneh, Sepphoris, Ctesarea, and Tiberias. The great pillar of the Jewish literature of this period was K. Judah the Holy, to whom is as- cribed the compilation of the Mishna, the text of the Talmud, and who died about A.D. 220. After his death there grew into repute the Jewish academies of Sura, Nahardea, and Pum-Beditha, on the Euphrates. The twofold Gemara, or commentary, was now appended to the Mishna, thus completing the Talmud. The Jeru- salem Gemara proceeded from the Jews of Tiberias, probably towards the end of the 4th century: the Bab- ylonian from the academies on the Euphrates, perhaps by the end of the 5th. That, along with the task of collecting and commenting on their various legal tradi- tions, the Jews of these several academies would occupy themselves with the text of the sacred writings is in every way probable, and is indeed shown by various Talmudic notices. See Masorail
It is after the Talmudic period that Hupfeld places the introduction into the text of the two large points (in Hebrew pi03 r]"lD, Soph-po.iu}:) to mark the end of each verse. They are manifestly of older date than the accents, by which thej* are, in effect, supplemented (Siitd. und Krit. 1837, p. 857). Coeval, perhaps, with the use of the Soph-pasuk is that of the Miiklcrph, or hyphen, to unite words that are so closely conjoined as to have but one accent between them. It must be older than the accentual marks, tlie presence or absence of which is determined by it. It doubtless indicates the way in which the text was traditionally read, and there- fore embodies traditional authority for the conjunction or separation of words. Internal evidence shows this to be the case in such passages as Psa. xlv, 5, p1^"m:"\ But the use of it cannot be relied on, as it often in the poetical books conflicts with the rhythm; c. g. in Psa.
xix, 9, 10 (comp. Mason and Bernard's Grammar, ii, 187).
3. Masoretic Period. — Such modifications of the text as these were the precursors of the new method of deal- ing with it which constitutes the work of the Masoretes. It is evident from the notices of the Talmud that a number of oral traditions had been gradually accumu- lating respecting both the integrity of particular pas- sages of the text itself, and also the manner in which it was to be read. The time at length arrived when it became desirable to secure the permanence of all such traditions by committing them to writing. The very process of collecting them would add greatly to their number; the traditions of various academies would be superadded the one upon the other; and with these would be gradually incorporated the various critical ob- servations of the collectors themselves, and the results of their comparisons of different manuscripts. The vast heterogeneous mass of traditions and criticisms thus compiled and embodied in writing forms what is known as the n~0'2, Masorah, i. e. Tradition. A similar name had been applied in the iNIishna to the oral tradi- tion before it was committed to writing, where it had been described as the hedge or fence, S'^'^O, of the law {Pirke Abot/i, iii, 13).
Buxtorf, in his Tiberius, which is devoted to an ac- count of the Masorah, ranges its contents imder the three heads of observations respecting the verses, words, and letters of the sacred text. With regard to the verses, the Masoretes recorded how many there were in each book, and the middle verse in each ; also how many verses began with particular letters, or began and end- ed with the same word, or contained a particular num- ber of words and letters, or particular words a certain number of times, etc. With regard to the words, they recorded the Kei-is and Ketkibs, where different words were to be read from those contained in the text, or where words were to be omitted or supplied. They noted that certain words were to be found so many times in the beginning, middle, or end of a verse, or with a particular construction or meaning. They noted also of particular words, and this especially in cases where mistakes in transcription were likely to arise, whether they were to be written plene or defective, i. e. with or without the matres lectionis ; also their vocali- zation and accentuation, and how many times they oc- curred so vocalized and accented. With regard to the let- ters, they computed how often each letter of the alpha- bet occurred in the O. T. : they noted fifteen instances of letters stigmatized with the extraordinary points : they commented also on all the unusual letters, viz. the majitsculie, which they variously computed ; the minuKcnlfe, of which they reckoned thirty-three ; the suspeiiso'. four in number; and the inverso', of which, the letter being in each case 5, there are eight or nine.
The compilation of the Masorah did not meet with universal approval among the Jews, of whom some regretted the consequent cessation of oral traditions. Others condemned the frivolous character of many of its remarks. The formation of the written jMasorah mav have extended from the 6th or 7th to the 10th or 11th century. It is essentially an incomplete work; and the labors of the Jewish doctors upon the sacred text mif;bt have unendingly furnished materials for the enlargen)cnt of the older traditions, the preservation of which had l)cen the primary object in view. Nor must it be implicitly relied on. Its computations of the number of letters in the Bible are said to be far from correct ; and its observations, as is remarked by Jacob ben-Chayim, do not always agree with those of the Tal- mud, nor yet with each other; though we have no means of distinguishing between its earlier and its later portions.