BEN ASHER FAMILY,
a family of masoretic scholars.Moshe ben Asher (9th cent.), fourth in the line of Tiberian Masoretes descended from Asher the Elder and father of the last, Aharon ben Moshe ben Asher. The family may have had Karaite sympathies. Moshe is author of the oldest extant Hebrew Bible codex of the Former and Latter Prophets, copied in Tiberias in 897. Decorated with Islamic-style artwork, the manuscript is in the Karaite synagogue in Cairo. In only one-third of the cases do Moshe’s vocalization and cantillation agree with those of his son whose method is the basis of the modern Masoretic Text. More than half of the readings accord with Moshe ben David ben Naftali, the other great Tiberian Masorete. Song of the Vine, a poem comparing Israel to a vine producing the prophets, is probably also the work of Moshe.... ...
Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
