Background
For over a thousand years Ben-Asher has been regarded by Jews of all streams around the world as having produced the most accurate version of the masoretic text. Since his day, both handwritten manuscripts of the Tanakh and printed versions strove to emulate his achievement and continue to do so. He lived and worked in the city of Tiberias (Hebrew טבריה) on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee (Hebrew ים כנרת).
Ben-Asher 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 (895CE); if authentic, it is among the oldest manuscripts containing a large proportion of the Hebrew Bible. Umberto Cassuto used this manuscript as the basis of his edition of the Hebrew Bible. Aaron ben Asher himself added vowelization and cantillation notes, and mesorah to the Aleppo Codex, correcting its letter-text according to the masorah.
Maimonides, by accepting the views of Ben-Asher (though only in regard to open and closed sections), helped establish and spread his authority. Referring to a Bible manuscript then in Egypt, he wrote: "All relied on it, since it was corrected by Ben-Asher and was worked on and analyzed by him for many years, and was proofread many times in accordance with the masorah, and I based myself on this manuscript in the Sefer Torah that I wrote".
Read more about this topic: Aaron Ben Moses Ben Asher
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