some help in reading and understanding the text, but they were an imperfect system. Therefore the Tiberian Masoretes developed a written system to record more completely the vowel tradition that had been handed down orally through the centuries. What must be stressed at this point is that the Tiberian Masoretes were conserving the tradition that they had received with regard to the vowels of the text. They were not innovators. Bruce Waltke, following the work of James Barr, summarizes the evidence