Dear Isaac, The answer is No! The Masoretes were extremely carefult copyists, and they would not dream of altering a single consonant in the holy text. A comparison of the matres lectiones in the DSS with the Masoretic vowels shows that by and large the system used by the Masoretes were already used at Qumran. However, regarding the short vowels shewa and patah and regarding stress the DSS are silent.
In my opinion the Masoretes did not alter consonants or vowels, and the Masoretes did not invent a system of four verbal conjugations. The Masoretes carefully pointed the text and made their accent marks on the basis of the recitation of the text that they heard in the Synagogue. This vocalization and accentuation, which was pragmatic (based on recitation) were by later scholars given a semantic interpretation, and the system of four verbal conjugations, of which the Masorewtes knew nothing, was born. Best regards, Rolf Furuli Stavern Norway Fredag 24. Mai 2013 16:48 CEST skrev Isaac Fried <[email protected]>: > Is it conceivable that the "masorates" would disfigure the sacred > text itself to mark something that is only questionably there, or > that naturally articulates itself? > > Isaac Fried, Boston University > > On May 23, 2013, at 10:13 AM, John Leake wrote: > > > but I myself think it I more likely that the daghesh is a symbol of > > gemination > _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
