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Prior to the advent of the printing press all the name David. In older or archaic Hebrew
copies of OT books were copied by hand (El- the name is spelled with the three consonants
lis Brotzman, Old Testament Textual Criti- d-w-d while in later Hebrew the spelling is d-
cism, p. 37). Regardless of how careful a w-y-d. In both cases it is pronounced dawi d
scribe was errors occurred due to the nature of and both forms occur in the Hebrew Bible.
manual copying. Many (but not all) of the tex- However, in the latter case y (or yod) has been
tual variants in both OT and NT manuscripts added to indicate a long vowel. Hebrew gram-
can be explained as scribal errors. However, marians refer to the use of a consonant to mark
a problem more fundamental to the Code than a long vowel as matres lectionis (Latin for
scribal error exists. "mothers of reading"). Ancient Hebrew
scribes incorporated matres lectionis into the
During the period in which the OT was biblical text to indicate long vowels. As one
written Hebrew was a living language, an eve- preeminent authority on the text of the OT
ryday language spoken, written and read by the wrote:
Israelites. As with all living languages He-
brew underwent orthographic or spelling "Text transmission prior to 300 BC was also
changes (as well as changes in syntax). The based on a predominant consonantal spelling.
relevancy to the Code is that Hebrew scribes As initially written, most early Old Testament
incorporated many such modifications to He- books would have been written in an exclu-
brew spelling practices into the text of the OT. sively consonantal text. From about the ninth
This was not due to carelessness or a lack of century on, certain consonants came to be used
reverence for the biblical books. Scribes were to indicate vowels. These 'helping' consonants
merely keeping the language of the Bible in are called matres lectionis, literally 'mothers
harmony with current usage. This is no differ- of reading.' They were first used to indicate
ent than "modernizing" the spelling of Old final long vowels (beginning in the ninth cen-
English words from documents authored hun- tury BC) and later (beginning in the eighth cen-
dreds of years ago (e.g., changing the second tury BC) they were also used to indicate
person plural form of the pronoun "ye" to medial long vowels. Matres lectionis were
"you"). subsequently added to the Old Testament
text [emphasis added], but not in a completely
Hebrew was originally written with a systematic way" (Ellis Brotzman, Old Testa-
purely consonantal alphabet (Frank Moore ment Textual Criticism, p. 40).
Cross, Jr. and David Noel Freedman, Early
Hebrew Orthography, p. 56). No characters Complicating the matter is that the dates for
existed for representing vowels. All of the the first usage of matres lectionis are approxi-
earliest books of the OT were written with this mations. Did the practice begin in the early or
exclusively consonantal text. Beginning in the late ninth century? Was the practice imple-
ninth century BC certain consonants began to mented consistently throughout Israel or did it
be used as "helpers" to mark long vowels. grow gradually by region? Was there a long
That is, a consonant was inserted within a syl- transition period to the new spelling method in
lable to indicate that a specific long vowel such a non-technological society? Did a bibli-
was to be pronounced. This "helper" letter cal author writing his original text during the
was not pronounced and did not affect the ninth century initially use matres lectionis or
original pronunciation or meaning of a word. It not? We have no way of knowing the answers
served to communicate to the reader that a to such questions. We know the use of matres
long vowel was present. A good example is lectionis began around the ninth century from

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