Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (; 10th century, died c. 960) was a

sofer A sofer, sopher, sofer SeTaM, or sofer ST"M (, "scribe"; plural , ) is a Jewish scribe who can transcribe Sifrei Kodesh (holy scrolls), tefillin (phylacteries), Mezuzah, mezuzot (ST"M, , is an abbreviation of these three terms) and other religio ...

(Jewish scribe) who lived in

Tiberias Tiberias ( ; , ; ) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Heb ...

. He perfected the Tiberian system of writing vowel sounds in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

. The system is still in use today, serving as the basis for grammatical analysis.

Biography

Aaron ben Moses ben Asher lived and worked in the city of

, on the western shore of the

Sea of Galilee The Sea of Galilee (, Judeo-Aramaic languages, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ), also called Lake Tiberias, Genezareth Lake or Kinneret, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth ...

. He was descended from a long line of

Masoretes The Masoretes (, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe- scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily in the Jewish centers of the Levant (e.g., Tiberias and Jerusalem) an ...

, starting with someone called Asher, but nothing is known about them other than their names. His father, Moses ben Asher, is credited with writing the Cairo Codex of the Prophets (895 CE). If authentic, it is among the oldest manuscripts containing a large proportion of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Karaite. While many modern scholars lean toward this being true, there is no clear consensus, and so the question remains open. The idea was first suggested in 1860 by Simhah Pinsker, who argued that Masoretes in general should be ‘suspected’ of being Karaites since they seem to have devoted all of their time to the Bible and showed no interest in rabbinic Midrash or Talmud, which at times contradicts the Masoretic Text. Numerous other pieces of circumstantial evidence were presented to make a strong case, however not strong enough to tip the scales and end the debate. Some examples of evidence for this assertion include: * Strong parallels to Karaite theology in the way both Aaron and his father Moshe write about all three parts of the Hebrew Bible being equally authoritative in terms of ''

halakha ''Halakha'' ( ; , ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Judaism, Jewish religious laws that are derived from the Torah, Written and Oral Torah. ''Halakha'' is ...

'' (a classic Karaite position); * The Masoretic Text does not follow the order set down in the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

( Isaiah after

Ezekiel Ezekiel, also spelled Ezechiel (; ; ), was an Israelite priest. The Book of Ezekiel, relating his visions and acts, is named after him. The Abrahamic religions acknowledge Ezekiel as a prophet. According to the narrative, Ezekiel prophesied ...

), which was accepted as authoritative by Rabbanites, but rejected by the Karaites (the Masoretic Text also differs from verses quoted in the Talmud); * The Codex contains a prayer for the protection of a temple (presumably referring to the Karaite temple, as the Rabbanites did not have a temple at the time); * Writings of the time refer to the Ben Ashers with honorifics more typically used by Karaites (such as ''melamed'' (teacher) and ''maskil'' ('enlightened one'); * Indications that the Codex Cairensis, thought to have been written by his father, was sponsored by a Karaite (based on language used by the sponsor); * The Codex was in the possession of the Karaites since the time of its inscribed dedication (even before they ransomed it from the

crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

). A turning point came in the 1950s when Benjamin Klar discovered that an anti-Karaite polemical poem by Sa‘adia Gaon criticized a Karaite masorete by the name of "ben Asher". This agrees with Sa‘adia's rejection of ben Asher in favor of the rival school of ben Naftali, as well as the fact that ben Asher became accepted as relations between the Karaites and Rabbanites improved. Aron Dotan has dealt with many of the arguments, including Klar's, and also argued that the approval of Maimonides is evidence against the claim. However, according to Zer, few researchers have expressed their support for Dotan's position.

Works

Ben Asher was the first systematic Hebrew grammarian. In an age where Hebrew grammatical principles were not considered worthy of independent study, he was the first to take this discipline seriously. His ''Sefer Dikdukei ha-Te'amim'' ('Grammatical Analysis of the Accents') was an original collection of grammatical rules and Masoretic information. Ben Asher added ''mesorah'' ( vowelization and cantillation notes) to the

Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex () is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, and was endorsed for its accuracy by Maimonides. ...

, correcting its letter-text according to the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

. The value of this work is that the grammatical rules presented by ben Asher reveal the linguistic background of vocalization for the first time.

Legacy

For over a thousand years, ben Asher has been regarded by Jews of all persuasions as having produced the most accurate version of the Masoretic Text. Since his day, handwritten manuscripts and printed versions of the Hebrew Bible have, for the most part, followed his system.

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

accepted the views of ben Asher only in regard to open and closed sections, but apparently admired his work generally and helped to establish and spread his authority. Referring to a Bible manuscript then in Egypt, Maimonides wrote: "All relied on it, since it was corrected by ben Asher and was worked on and analyzed by him for many years, and was proofread many times in accordance with the masorah, and I based myself on this manuscript in the ''

Sefer Torah file:SeferTorah.jpg, A Sephardic Torah scroll rolled to the first paragraph of the Shema file:Köln-Tora-und-Innenansicht-Synagoge-Glockengasse-040.JPG, An Ashkenazi Torah scroll rolled to the Decalogue file:Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Inte ...

'' that I wrote".

Umberto Cassuto Umberto Cassuto, also known as Moshe David Cassuto (16 September 1883 – 19 December 1951), was an Italian historian, a rabbi, and a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic literature, in the University of Florence, then at the University ...

used the Aleppo Codex as the basis of his edition of the Hebrew Bible.

Footnotes

References

External links

Aaron ben Moses ben AsherWas the Masorete of the Aleppo Codex of Rabbanite or of Karaite Origin? Zer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aaron ben Moses ben Asher 10th-century rabbis Grammarians of Hebrew Linguists of Hebrew Jewish grammarians Jewish scribes (soferim) Medieval Hebraists Orthographers People from Tiberias Rabbis of the Land of Israel