שכחוהו עד בוא עזרא וגילהו: תפיסת הניקוד בין חידוש למסורת

Translated title of the contribution: They Forgot It Until Ezra, Who Recovered It: Innovative and Traditional Conceptions of Vocalisation

יונתן האורד

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The invention of the vocalisation and cantillation signs in late Antiquity or the early Middle Ages caused a dramatic shift in the shape of the biblical text. Their inception meant that the authoritative tradition was no longer preserved only by expert readers but committed to a written form and publicly available for the purpose of study or liturgical performance. The article surveys medieval evidence attesting to the different approaches to the dramatic change in the form of the biblical text. These testimonies are drawn from a wide range of sources – rabbinic and Karaite, halakhic, linguistic and mystical – and their comparison reveals a number of different strategies for dealing with the cultural implications of vocalisation. While halakhic authorities generally accepted the vocalised tradition, albeit adhering to the historical reality that the signs themselves are unoriginal, the Karaites and the kabbalists accepted the written form of the signs in full, projecting the form of their books onto the historical Torah given to Moses. In addition, a more sophisticated Ashkenazi model is presented, according to which the vocalisation was in fact original, but that it had been forgotten and recovered by Ezra, thus mediating between commitment to tradition on the one hand and the acknowledgement of historical facts and halakhic requirements on the other.
Translated title of the contributionThey Forgot It Until Ezra, Who Recovered It: Innovative and Traditional Conceptions of Vocalisation
Original languageHebrew
Pages (from-to)16-30
Number of pages15
Journalמוזה: כתב עת שפיט במדעי הרוח
Volume7
StatePublished - 2024

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