Fourth, from the perspicuity of Scripture.
Fourth, from the perspicuity of Scripture.
§ 339. We prove our opinion: (IV) From the perspicuity of Scripture. God wanted His Word to be written clearly and perspicuously. But writing without points among the Hebrews is unclear and, in fact, more obscure than among the Greeks with their abbreviations. Therefore it is not likely that God wanted His Word to be written without points when He consigned it to letters through His instruments. Those who claim that the rabbinic scholars invented the vowel points and added them to the Scriptures are forced to claim that Holy Scripture obtained a greater light from the inventions of man. That consequence is false, because God wanted Scripture to be clear, perspicuous, and firm in and of itself and not to borrow light from the inventions of men.
** In Deut. 27:8, Moses is ordered to “write all the words of this Law 
, declaring well.” Yet if he had written without vowel points, he would not have declared it well. **
The royal prophet in Ps. 19:[8] and 119:105 and, from there, Peter (2 Pet. 1:19) call prophetic Scripture “a lamp” and “a light shining in a dark place,” namely, because it has been divinely equipped with a native, innate light through which it can illumine humans to a saving knowledge of God and to eternal life. But by no means does it need some light brought to it by the inventions of man. Therefore one should also in no way consider the foregoing likely: that the rabbinic scholars added the vowel points to Scripture.
The truth of the major premise is likewise evident, namely, that those who claim the rabbinic scholars invented the points and added them to Scripture are compelled to claim that Holy Scripture has drawn a greater light from man’s inventions, for it is not doubtful or unclear to anyone that a pointed text is more clear and perspicuous than one that lacks such vowel points. You see, if different pointing were substituted, we can easily be drawn into a completely different meaning from that which arises from a pointed text. And who would ponder whether the very foundation of our faith is not deemed slippery and uncertain, or at least is deemed to depend on the inventions of men, if the Hebrew Bible is said to have been published by Moses and the prophets without points, but afterward, after a number of centuries, to have been completed by their addition? Surely this would be the same as if someone were to say that we have received the corpus of sacred literature from holy men of God, but we owe the life and breath thereof to the rabbinic scholars. How much significance and importance lies in the vowel points, especially also in the point dagesh, to explain the meaning of a word and, in fact, even to change that meaning, is well-known to those who are skilled in the Hebrew language. If those defenses, however—in fact, if those changes of meanings—depend uniquely on their authors [the rabbinic scholars] and not on the prophets who were moved by the Spirit of God, much indeed would depart from the certainty and authority of Holy Scripture. If the true reading and pronunciation of the prophets had been shown only by the rabbinic scholars, we would have been “built on the foundation of the rabbinic scholars,” not “on the foundation of the prophets” (Eph. 2:20).
They make the exception that “the true reading was handed down and preserved in the synagogue.” We respond. (1) By this argument the true and genuine meaning of Scripture will depend exclusively upon the Church. Scripture will become a dead letter, an inanimate cadaver, for which the Church will be compelled to breathe in movement and meaning. (2) There is no memory so fruitful that it can observe all the vowels in so many myriads of syllables. (3) Some vowels are similar to each other, and the pronunciation of people differs; therefore error could easily have arisen and been propagated from that. (4) During the time of Manasseh and Ammon, before Josiah, the Book of the Law was neglected for about sixty-seven years. (5) There is no medium more practical by which the purity and integrity of Scripture could have been preserved in the synagogues than if the Bible, read publicly in the synagogues, were deemed to have been pointed.