Now most modern Scholars claim that the Hebrew Older Testament was originally written in consonants alone. They argue that the vowels in our present extant Hebrew manuscript copies thereof, were inserted first by the Judaistic Masoretic Scholars after the time of Christ’s incarnation – and thenceforth so transmitted to and also by their successors.
They claim that Jesus, in His references to the "jot" and the "tittle" in Matthew 5:18, meant the smallest written consonant (or "jot") and even the smallest portion of such consonants (viz. what they call a "tittle"). The latter, they say, is in Hebrew script akin to the "spurs" which in English script would distinguish a "P" from an "R" or an "O" from a "Q."
