"A Modern Invention"

Concerning the vowel points it has been said that the Reformers believed in their inspiration. Perhaps a few did. However, many did not. Luther did not. Calvin did not. Zwingli did not. Etc.

"During and Since the Reformation. — Passing over the names of other Catholic divines who also assumed a late origin of the vowel-points, we find that almost the entire period of the Reformation sided with Levita. Luther (who called the vowels a modern invention neues Menschenftfindlein), Calvin, Zwingli, Mercier, Pellican, Leo Judah, Piscator. John Scaliger, Drusius, etc., boldly declaimed against the antiquity, divine origin, and authority of the points."

Taken from Biblical Cyclopedia. [https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/]

References:

See Ginsburg, Levita's Massoreth ha-Massoreth (Lond. 1867), p. 44 sq.; Pick, “The Vowel-points Controversy,” in the Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review, Jan. 1877; Schnedermann, Die Controverse des Ludovicus Cappellus mit den Buxtonfen fiber das Alter der hebr. Punctation (Leips. 1879); Kautzsch, Johannes Buxtorf der Altere (Basle, 1879). (B. P.)