Aaron ben Moses ben Asher
Jewish Scribe who perfected the written language
Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (Hebrew: אַהֲרוֹן בֶּן משֶׁה בֶּן אָשֵׁר, romanized: ʾAhăron ben Moše ben ʾĀšēr; 10th century, died c. 960) was a sofer (Jewish scribe) who lived in Tiberias. He perfected the Tiberian system of writing vowel sounds in Hebrew. The system is still in use today, serving as the basis for grammatical analysis.
Biography
Aaron ben Moses ben Asher lived and worked in the city of Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. He was descended from a long line of Masoretes, starting with someone called Asher, but nothing is known about them other than their names. His father, Moses ben Asher, is credited with writing the Cairo Codex of the Prophets (895 CE). If authentic, it is among the oldest manuscripts containing a large proportion of the Hebrew Bible.
Was ben Asher a Karaite?
Scholars have long debated as to whether Aaron ben Asher was a Karaite.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q302952. VIAF identifies the subject as 239151778198718130008. The Library of Congress control number is n82094884. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aaron ben Moses ben Asher” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.