The Masoretes were a group of rabbis who compiled a system of critical notes on the external form of the Biblical text, and who effectively determined the precise text of the Tanakh in the Jewish community. See the article on the Masoretic text for a full discussion of their work. See [1] for the role of the masoretes. The Karaite ben Asher family is responsible for the preservation and production of the Masoretic Text, which all current Hebrew Bibles (reproductions of the text of the Torah excluding a Torah scroll) are based upon.
Their system of notes represents the literary labors of innumerable scholars, of which the beginning falls probably in pre-Maccabean times and the end reaches to the year 1425 CE.
See also: Masoretic text
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