The most valuable feature of the Masorah is undoubt- edly its collection of Keri.i. The first rudiments of this collection meet us in the Talmud. Of those subsequent-
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ly collected, it is probable that many were derived from the collation of MSS., others from the unsupported judg- ment of the Masoretes themselves. They often rest on plausible but superficial grounds, originating in the desire to substitute an easier for a more difficult read- ing; and to us it is of little consequence whether it were a transcriber or a Masoretic doctor by whom the substitution was first suggested. It seems clear that the Keris in all cases represent the readings which the Masoretes themselves approved as correct; and there would be the less hesitation in sanctioning them could we assume that they were always preserved in docu- ments separate from the text, and that the written text itself had remained intact. In effect, however, our MSS. often exhibit the text with the Keri readings in- corporated. The number of Keris is, according to Elias Levita, who spent twenty years in the study of the Masorah, 848; but the Bomberg Bible contains 1171, the Plantin Bible 793. Two lists of the Keris— the one exhibiting the variations of the printed Bibles with respect to them, the other distributing them into classes — are given in the beginning of Walton's Poly- glot, vol. vi. See Keri.
The Masorah furnishes also eighteen instances of what it calls Ci"iS1D "''pr', " Correction of the scribes." The real import of this is doubtful; but the recent view of Bleek, that it relates to alterations made in the text by the scribes, because of something there offensive to them, and that therefore the rejected reading is in each case the true reading, is not borne out by the Septua- gint, which in all the instances save one (Job vii, 20) confirms the present Masoretic text.
Furthermore, the Masorah contains certain 'p-i'^20, " Conjectures," which it does not raise to the dignity of Keris, respecting the true reading in difficult passages. Thus at Gen. xix, 23, for Xll^ was conjectured flXiJ^, because the word 'Cl'O'O is usually feminine.
The Masorah was originally preserved in distinct books by itself. A plan then arose of transferring it to the margins of the MSS. of the Bible. For this pur- pose large curtailments were necessary ; and various transcribers inserted in their margins only as much as they had room for, or strove to give it an ornamental character by reducing it into fanciful shapes. R. Jacob ben-Chayim, editor of the Bomberg Bible, complains much of the confusion into which it had fallen; and the service which he rendered in bringing it into order is honoral)ly acknowledged by Buxtorf. Further im- provements in the arrangement of it were made by Buxtorf himself in his Rabbinical Bible. The Masorah is now distinguished into the Masora mar/na and the Masora pin-i^a. the latter being an abridgment of the former, including all the Keris and other compendi- ous observations, and usually printed in Hebrew Bil)les at the foot of the page. The Masora mof/na, when accompanying the Bible, is disposed partly at the side of the text, against the passages to which its several observations refer, partly at the end, where the observa- tions are ranged in alphabetical order : it is thus divided into the Masora textualis and the Masora finalis.
The Masorah itself was but one of the fruits of the labors of the Jewish doctors in the INIasoretic period. A far more important work was the furnishing of the text with vowel-marks, by which the traditional pro- nunciation of it was imperishably recorded. Tliat the insertion of the Hebrew vowel-points was post-Talmud- ic is shown by the absence in the Talmud of all refer- ence to them. Jerome also, in recording the true pro- nunciation of any word, speaks only of the way in which it was read; and occasionally mentions the ambiguity arising from the variety of words represented by the same letters (Hupfeld, ^7;/f7. mul Krit. 1830, p. 549 sq.). The system was gradually elaborated, having been moulded in the first instance in imitation of the Ara- bian, which was itself the daughter of the Syrian. (So Hupfeld. Ewald maintains that the Hebrew system
was derived immediately from the Syrian.) The his- torj' of tlie Syrian and Arabian vocalization renders it probable that the elaboration of the system commenced not earlier than the 7th or 8th century. The vowel- marks are referred to in the Masorah ; and as they are all mentioned by R. Judah Chiyug in the beginning of the 11th century, they must have been perfected before that date. The Spanish rabbins of the 11th and 12th centuries knew nothing of their recent origin. That the system of punctuation with which we are familiar was fashioned in Palestine is shown by its difference from the Assyrian or Persian system displayed in one of the Eastern MSS. collated by Pinner at Odessa.
Contemporaneous with the written vocalization was the accentuation of the text. The import of the ac- cents was, as Hupfeld has shown, essentially rhythmical {Stud, und Krit. 1837) : hence they had from the first both a logical and a musical significance. With respect to the former they were called D'i53"l3, "senses ;" with respect to the latter, nj'^nS, "tones." Like the vowel- marks, they are mentioned in the Masorah, but not in the Talmud.