The Masoretes (ba'alei hamasorah, Hebrew בעלי המסורה) were groups of scribes and Bible scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries in the Muslim world, based primarily in present-day Israel in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, as well as in Iraq (Babylonia). Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes on the external form of the Biblical text in an attempt to fix the… (More on Masoretes)