iainduguid
Thanks for the response. That really helps to clarify the issues, though I'm not sure that Lightfoot is arguing what you seem to be suggesting. Going back to post#2 in the thread, it seems that there were three options under discussion:
1) the vowels are not original: they are a "human invention" that may come from after the time of Christ. This presumably doesn't deny that some vowels existed at the time of writing (otherwise what did Moses think he was writing?), but suggests that the present vowels are an uninspired human guess at what those original vowels were.
2) "others are of opinion, they were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, as to the power of them in pronouncing and reading, though not as to the make and figures of them in writing". Like the first view, this position agrees that the vowels were not marked on the original manuscripts, but in contrast emphasizes the fact that they were accurately handed down through the tradition, preserved by God so that at the point at which they were written in by the Masoretes they clearly reflect the divinely inspired text.
3) "others believe they were ab origine, and were invented by Adam together with the letters, or however that they were coeval with the letters, and in use as soon as they were". This view suggests that Hebrew vowel consonants and vowel points were invented by Adam (!) and were transmitted together from the pen of the divinely inspired authors.
Gill clearly favors option 3 ("upon the whole it may be concluded, that they were originally put by the sacred penmen, Moses and the prophets"). The Formula Consensus Helvetica seems to allow for option 2 or 3 ("either the vowel points themselves, or at least the power of the points...are inspired" - see post #9 for the full text). Lightfoot's position seems to be option 3 (the letters and vowels of the Hebrew were,—as the soul and body of a child,—knit together at their conception and beginning"); however, he ups the ante even further when he affirms that not only the vowel points but even the masoretic accents are divinely inspired (and were presumably written from the start.
My view is that option 3 is not plausible given modern discoveries. You seem to suggest that anyone denying that is taking option 1. Rather, I think option 2 is the proper option to take, one which is fully in conformity with historic reformed orthodoxy. Whichever option you take, you are still left with the task of believing textual criticism to establish the consonants and the vowels of the inspired autographs. In that task, copies of the Scriptures such as the 1Q Isa a scroll are useful witnesses alongside the masoretic text, not least to underscore the accuracy with which the MT has been transmitted.
