Ketiv-Ḳere or Polyphony: The שׂ-שׁ Distinction According to the Masoretes, the Rabbis, Jerome, Qirqisānī, and Hai Gao

Abstract

The ketiv-kere phenomenon is recorded, albeit only selectively (Yeivin 1980: § § 95,103) in an apparatus (the lists and marginal dotes of the Masorah), but it is not itself an apparatus. It is the set of all discrepancies (including those not noted m the apparatus) between the oral text/reading tradition (milkra') of the Bible and its written text tradition (masoret).53 The kere is rooted in oral tradition, and that is why, already in the first half of the ninth century, it became an issue in sectarian polemics concerning the authority of oral tradition in Judaism.