MASORA. - The body of critical observations on the original text of the Old Testament. Transmitted in part orally in the rabbinic schools from the time of the scribes (especially from the 2nd century B.C.), they were augmented and put into writing from the 6th century onward, after the Talmud had been compiled. This body of observations determined the unitary and immutable form of the biblical text (the Masoretic text).
The term M. (massōrāh "tradition," from neo-Hebrew māsar "to hand down"; a recent form for massōreth, which has nothing in common with Ezek. 20:37 māsōreth = ma'āsōreth "bond"; P. Kahle, in H. Bauer-P. Leander, Hist. Grammatik der hebr. Sprache des Alt. Text., I, Halle 1922, § 6 b) expresses the traditional character of the compilation; and Masoretes (ba'ālē ham-massōrāh "masters" or "authors of the M.") were the name given to the Jewish doctors (9th-10th centuries) who devoted themselves to it.
The M. therefore takes up and presupposes: a) the centuries-long work of the scribes (2nd century B.C. - 5th century A.D.) for the fixing of the consonantal text; b) the work of the naqdanim (= punctuators, from nēqūdah "punctuation"), the Jewish doctors (7th-8th centuries) who with numerous signs (points) fixed especially the vocalization. The content of the M. is therefore very varied. To a) belong the division into verses, their enumeration, the elimination of every divergent reading; to b), besides the vocalization, certain modes in the pronunciation of the consonants, the syllabic division, the accents, the linking of words to one another, the pauses, the modulation.
The M. offers the exact number of pericopes and verses (total figure: 23,206; the book of Ezekiel, for example, comprises 1273), of words, of consonants; the index of the verses (for example, Gen. 27:40; Ev. 22:28; Lev. 15:7, etc.), of the words, of the syllables, that stand exactly at the middle of each book. Other precisions: for example, that one verse (Jer. 21:7) has 42 words and 160 letters; that in four verses (Gen. 18:5; 24:55; Num. 12:14; Ps. 36:7) there is a wāw added through the fault of the scribes which must not be taken into account; etc.
Excellent was the criterion of not touching the consonants of the text, but noting in the margin the textual correction, the reading chosen, with the qērē (q, qr = to be read) and hēthib (kth = written; cf. P. Joüon [v. bibl.], § 16 e f). The full and the defective spelling are noted. A small circle is placed on the term to which the observation is directed. The observations were written in the margin and at the end of biblical manuscripts, or in separate lists. The language of the M. is in part neo-Hebrew, in part Aramaic.
This work was not carried out in a uniform manner. Notable divergences existed, in the reading of the sacred text, between the Eastern (Babylonian) and the Western (Palestinian or Tiberian) Masoretic schools. Among the latter the school of Ben 'Āšēr (v., beginning of the 10th century) prevailed, and imposed itself over the other, its contemporary and rival, of Ben Naphtālī (v.), and it is the textus masoreticus receptus.
As for form, a distinction is made between the "great" and the "small" M.; the latter in the rabbinic Bibles stands at the side, between the columns of the text; it gives the qērē, marks the apaxlegomena (l' = lēth "there is not" elsewhere), etc.; the former, arranged in the upper and lower margin, explains the preceding more extensively. Both are called "marginal M." as opposed to the "final," relegated to the end of each book, with the numbering of the verses, etc.; it contains moreover, by way of appendix, a kind of dictionary, where in alphabetical order all the observations of the marginal M. are taken up again; and finally there follow the variant readings and observations of Ben Naphtālī and of the Babylonian schools.
The M. was truly the "hedge" of the sacred text (si'āg lē-Thārāh). The critical authority of the Masoretic consonantal text, also through comparison with the Chester-Beatty papyri, is ever better recognized by critics. It must be regarded as the foundation of every critical recension, which gives greater assurance the less it departs from it. If the pronunciation fixed by the naqdanim involves a certain research, a certain emphasis, and has more or less artificial details, there is nevertheless no reason to suspect it as a whole. The internal coherence of the system and the comparison with related languages speak in favor of the vocalizers (P. Joüon, § 1 b).
Jacob ben Hajjim prepared the editio princeps of the Masoretic Bible (Biblia magna Rabbinica, Bomberg, Venice 1524-25), after having searched extensively among the manuscripts, collecting and arranging the Masoretic material. Although he had at his disposal only codices of the 14th-15th centuries, he did fundamental work and established the textus receptus. Critical editions: B. Kennicott (Oxford 1776, 1780); J. B. De Rossi (4 vols., Parma 1784-1888); Chr. D. Ginsburg (4 vols., London 1908-26). On the contrary, the Hebrew Bible of Kittel (v. bibl.) in the 3rd ed. offers, thanks to P. Kahle, the text and the M. of Ben 'Āšēr according to the Leningrad manuscript (B 19 A) of 1008, about 600 years older than those used by Ben Hajjim; a faithful copy of the model codex preserved at Aleppo.