Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Yigal Levin wrote:
> How about another point-of-view: the Masorets knew Hebrew and did have a
> valid tradition of vocalization, punctuation and meaning. This is not saying
> that they were infallible, but that all in all they knew what they were
> doing. However, they realized that the situation in the wider Jewish world,
> especially that of the Diaspora, was different, and that if a unified system
> of preserving the Masoretic tradition was not devised, unity of reading
> Scripture in the Jewish word would fall apart. Something like the reasons
> for the codification of the Mishnah and of the Talmuds.

Hello Yigal,

What do you think of the following suggestion? -- that given the
various traditions
in various communities -- Babylonian, Tiberian, European -- and the 
unavoidable
mixing of individuals from one community in another as some move from one to
another, there was an interest in each community to clarify its unique
tradition
to avoid the mixing of traditions and creating an artificial tradition
that is neither
here nor there.

Yitzhak Sapir