By the time of the Masoretes, however, the proper pronunciation of Hebrew was being lost because many Jews were no longer fluent in that language. Groups of Masoretes in Babylon and Israel invented signs to be placed around the consonants to indicate accents and proper pronunciation of vowels. At least three different systems were developed, but the one that proved most influential was that of the Masoretes in Tiberias, by the Sea of Galilee, the home of the Ben Asher family.

Sources list five generations of Masoretes from this unique family, beginning with Asher the Elder of the eighth century C.E. The others were Nehemiah Ben Asher, Asher Ben Nehemiah, Moses Ben Asher, and, finally, Aaron Ben Moses Ben Asher of the tenth century C.E.a These men were in the vanguard of those perfecting the written symbols that would best express what they understood to be the proper pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible text. To develop these symbols, they had to determine the basis of the Hebrew grammatical system. No clear system of rules for Hebrew grammar had ever been recorded. Therefore, one might say that these Masoretes were among the first Hebrew grammarians.

Aaron, the final Masorete of the Ben Asher family tradition, was the first to record and edit this information. He did so in a work entitled “Sefer Dikdukei ha-Te’amim,” the first book of Hebrew grammatical rules. This book became the basis for the work of other Hebrew grammarians for centuries to come.

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The System for Hebrew Pronunciation

THE search for the best method of recording vowel signs and accent marks lasted for centuries among the Masoretes. Hence, it is not surprising to find continuing development with each generation of the Ben Asher family. Existing manuscripts represent the styles and methods of only the last two Masoretes of the Ben Asher family, Moses and Aaron.e A comparative study of these manuscripts shows that Aaron developed rules on certain minor points of pronunciation and notation that differed from those of his father, Moses.

Ben Naphtali was a contemporary of Aaron Ben Asher. The Cairo Codex of Moses Ben Asher contains many readings that are attributed to Ben Naphtali. Therefore, either Ben Naphtali himself studied under Moses Ben Asher or both of them preserved a more ancient common tradition. Many scholars speak of the differences between the Ben Asher and the Ben Naphtali systems, but M. H. Goshen-Gottstein writes: “It would not be too far from the truth to speak of the two subsystems inside the Ben Asher family and to term the contrast of readings: Ben Asher versus Ben Asher.” So it would be inaccurate to speak of a single Ben Asher method. It was not the result of inherent superiority that Aaron Ben Asher’s methods became the final accepted form. Only because the 12th-century Talmudic scholar Moses Maimonides praised an Aaron Ben Asher text was preference given to it.

[Artwork​—Hebrew characters]

Part of Exodus 6:2 with and without vowel points and diacritical marks

[Footnotes]