Almost simultaneously with these endeavors, the scholars of Palestine, especially of Tiberias, worked in the same directiim; and here rabbi Mocha, a disciple of Anan the Karaite, and his son ]\Ioses fixed another system of vocalization (about 570) distinguished as thai of Tiberias C3"in:: TipS) and the Palestinian or West- ern system (bx-.ri y-:X lip:). It is far more com- plete and extensive, and exhibits more sharply the niceties of the traditional pronunciation and intonation of the text than the Babylonian system, with which it competed, and was ultimately adopted by all the Jews. Even the Karaites, who, with their characteristic te- nacity and their antagonism to the Rabbanites, clung for some time to the older signs, because they had used them before their secession from the Talmudical sects, were at last, in ;».57, induced to abandon them in favor of those adopted in Palestine.
II. Cont rarer sits on the Subject Thus much for
the origin of the vowel-points, which during the IGih and 17th centuries were the cau.se of the fiercest con- troversy that agitated the republic of learning. Some centuries before, the dispute about the antiijuitv and origin of the Hebrew vowels commenced, and their au- thority was questioned. As early as the 9th century. Natronai II ben-Ililai Tq. v."), in reply to the question whether it is lawful to luit the points to the synagogal
scrolls of the Peiitatench, distinctly declared that "since the law, as given to ^Moses on Sinai, had no points, and the points are not Sinaitic (i. e. sacred), having been invented by the sages, and put down as signs for the reader; and, moreover, since it is prohibited to us to make any additions, on our own cogitations, lest we transgress the command 'Ye shall not add,' etc. (I)eut. iv, 2) ; hence we must not put the [loints to the scrolls of the law." The jjassage in the original, as found in the Vitry Machsor (q. v.), and (juoted by Luzzatto in Kerem Chemed, iii, 200, runs thus: "ilGX DX trbXTT'C;'
■ircn nr'ib -rrj min -isd, nnin -ieo Tprb 13 ■'rc^ T'ps "ra sbi mpj la i:r^r xb
ni-ip'3 ","^x -=^sb 7i^o^^. baa -^iv: -s i:rr"i?2
.min -ISO
1. Down to and throvtih the Middle Ages. — Among the Jews, it was generally maintained that the vowel- points were either given to Adam in Paradi.se, or com- municated to iMoses on Sinai, or were fixed by Ezra and the Great Synagogue. This view was deemed all the more orthodox since the famous Zohar ((p v.), the sacred code of the Cabalists, which was believed to be a revelation from God, communicated through I>. Simon ben-Jochai (q. v.), declared that " the letters are the body, and the vowel-points the soul: they move with the motion and stand still with the resting of the vow- el-iioints, just as an army moves after its sovereign"
(■impDi "(rrx iir^i-rax i^bTX -(inb-n N:-::ai ■(Wrbn ^na ••'biin3 ini-'inax 'ir;:':pT:i, Zo-
har, i, 15 b) ; that "the vowel-points proceeded from the same Holy Spirit which indited the Sacred Script- ures, and that far be the thought to say that the scribes made the points, since even if all the prophets bad been as great as Jloses, who received the law direct from Sinai, they could not have had the authority to alter the smallest point in a single letter, though it be the most insigniticant in the whole Bible" (ibid, on the Song of Solomon [ed. Anist. 1701], i, 57 b). R. Levi ben-.loseph. author of the book Sernadar, quotes, in favor of the antiquity of the vowel-points, the passage in Deut. xxvii, 8, " And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law i-ery jdainli/." Similar is the view expressed in the book Horayoth Ila-kore ( P'^'^lin Xliprt), said to belong to the 11th centur}-. E. IMoses the Pimctuator speaks of a period of forgetting, which closes with Ezra, who revealed the vowel-points again. Different entirely is the view of Aben-Ezra, Jiulah ha- Levi. and D. Kimchi. With the appearance of Elias Le- vita's {(]. V.) Masoreth ha-Mastjreth, the controversy took a new i>hase. He denied the divine origin and antiipiity of the vowel-points. According to Levita, the vowel- points and accents did not exist either before Ezra or in the time of Ezra, or after Ezra until the close of the Talmud. They originated with the sages at Tiberias. To make good his assertion, he examines the Ii'abbini- cal evidences in favor of the antiquity of the points, and comes to the conclusion that they belong to a later period, and are consequently of no avail. If he could be convinced by the testimony of earlier rabbiiKs, he would succumb. In favor of his opinion, he quotes Aben-Ezra, Kimchi, and Judah ha-Levi's Knsuri. He especially lays great stress upon the fact that the law which Closes put before the children of Israel was a plain codex, without points and without accents, and even without the division of verses, as is to be seen to the in-e.sent day. He reminds us that almost all the names both of the vowel-points and the accents are not Hebrew, but Arama3an and Babylonian — as, e. g., tzere. seijid, cholem, melaphi/m, mappik, dar/esh, etc. — and finds it very strange that the points and accents, if they were actually given by Jloses, could have been forgotten. Levita's book excited a great stir among his co-relig- ionist*; and to ineet it with aiguraent.s, Azariah de' Itossi