Aaron ben Moses ben Asher

Aaron ben Asher ben Moshe ( called in Arabic Abu Sa'id, * 10th century; † ca 960 ) was a Masoret and grammarians from Tiberias. He was the decisive authority for the determination of the traditional Bible text in the first decades of the 10th century.

Life

Aaron ben Moshe was the last and most important representatives of the Ben Asher family, who worked as Masoretes during five or six generations in Tiberias. It is still not conclusively established whether he belonged to the Karaites, which was built in the Middle Ages as a group within Judaism, and as such was also accepted by Maimonides.

Masoret and grammarian

The Masoretic tradition of Ben Asher is the one that is accepted in the Jewish Bible. This does not mean that the Bible version in the usual expenditure corresponds exactly to the version of Ben Asher. Between the printed editions and the various manuscripts, their origin is suspected in the tradition of Ben Asher, there are some differences that exist mainly in the placement of the word accents and some vowels (mainly Schwa and Chataf ) and are for the average reader of minor importance. The fact that Ben Asher at different times used different Vokalisierungssysteme in certain words, suggests that his method of vocalization has evolved over the years.

Ben Asher was one of the first who established the basics of Hebrew grammar. His textbook Diqduqe ha - Teamim is referred to by David Kimchi in a commentary on the Bible than Mach Beret Ben Asher ( "Notes of Ben Asher "). Grammatical principles were at that time not an independent field. The value of this work lies rather in the fact that the conditions laid down by Ben Asher grammatical rules explain the linguistic background of vocalization. With some exceptions, the book is written in a rhyming poetic style and is based in the language of Pijjutim, ie religious hymns. It is believed that those parts that do not conform to this style, not of Ben Asher are. The language of the book shows some Arabic influence, particularly with regard to grammatical expressions.

The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia assumes the vocalized spelling from the Masoretic text of the Leningrad Codex, considered the oldest dated manuscript of the complete Hebrew Bible and identifies the Paul Kahle as a copy of the text of Aaron ben Moshe ben Asher.

Works

• Diqduqe ha - Teamim ( masoretisches textbook )
• The Dikduke of Ahron ben Moses ben Asher by Paul Kahle