That is not a problem and is equally true of modern Hebrew writing. The vowel markings were developed by scholars during the middle ages whose goal was to prod

That is not a problem and is equally true of modern Hebrew writing. The vowel markings were developed by scholars during the middle ages whose goal was to produce a perfect copy of the Hebrew Bible, centuries after the original texts were written. Those markings are not strictly necessary for native Hebrew speakers, but when they were invented the majority of Jews, even Jewish scholars, were not native Hebrew speakers. Semitic languages like Hebrew and Arabic do not require vowels when written down because of their grammar. For the most part pronunciation can be determined from consonants and the context of each word (the context within a sentence). In English there are a few examples e.g. "He grws" versus "He grw" -- the first is clearly missing an 'o' while the second is clearly missing an 'e'. In Hebrew that can be done with almost every word and sentence, and thus vowels are not typically written because they are unnecessary for native speakers.