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SCHOLARS PRODUCE FACSIMILE OF LENINGRAD CODEX, WORLD’S OLDEST COMPLETE MANUSCRIPT OF HEBREW BIBLE

A team of scholars headed by University of California, San Diego historian David Noel Freedman has produced a facsimile edition of the Leningrad Codex, the world’s oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. Although the Codex originated in Cairo, it is named Leningrad for the city where it has long been housed.

The decade-long effort to reproduce the Leningrad Codex was a collaboration between Freedman, editor of the new edition, managing editor Astrid Beck of the University of Michigan, and a team of photographers directed by Bruce Zuckerman of the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California. Marilyn Lundberg and Garth Moller of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center in Claremont, Calif., were also involved. The facsimile edition was recently published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing and is now available to scholars and others throughout the world.

"The project was an enormous undertaking," said Freedman, "It required the photographic team to work arduously long hours under extremely difficult circumstances in St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) photographing the manuscript and developing film on the spot to ensure the highest possible level of quality."

According to Freedman, this facsimile edition was developed primarily for the use of scholars, although it should be of interest to anybody who wants to read the oldest complete Hebrew Bible for themselves. The Codex is considered to be an almost inexhaustible source for biblical textual research as well as for Hebrew linguistics and the history of Jewish art. The editors also expect the facsimile to be used by codicologists, historians, and experts in Hebrew literature.

Dating to the year 1010, the Leningrad Codex is used today as the basis for most modern printed editions of the Hebrew Bible. Although there are older parts of bibles still in existence, there is no older manuscript remaining which contains the whole Hebrew Bible. In addition to its biblical significance, the Codex, one of the oldest illuminated Hebrew biblical manuscripts, is also considered to be an outstanding example of medieval Jewish art. Although much of the facsimile is printed in black and white, the 16 illuminated "Carpet Pages" decorated in gold, blue, and red painted ornaments were printed in color.

Scholars believe that the Codex was written in Cairo and later sold to someone living in Damascus. In 1862, Abraham Firkovich, a Jewish businessman and a collector of ancient manuscripts donated the Codex, along with other rare manuscripts, to the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities in Russia. The Firkovich collection was subsequently transferred to the St. Petersburg Imperial Library. A few years later, the Codex found its way to its current home, the Russian National Library, when the library purchased portions of the St. Petersburg Imperial Library’s collection. Little is known about how the Codex came into Firkovich’s possession, although it is known that he traveled extensively through the Middle East and the Crimea in his quest for ancient Jewish manuscripts.

According to Freedman, one of the reasons why the Leningrad Codex is so important to scholars is because it is the finest remaining example of the Masoretic system developed by the Ben Asher family. The Leningrad Codex belongs to a group of Hebrew texts called Masoretic texts. The Hebrew alphabet itself, which developed from the Phoenician alphabet, has no true vowels. Consequently, the oldest Hebrew biblical fragments have only consonants, some of which are used as half-vowels, similar to our y, w, or h.

During the Middle Ages, a group of scholars called the Masoretes became interested in developing a system for marking the vowels because they were concerned that the pronunciation of the words would be lost, since Hebrew was no longer a spoken language. They also wanted to develop a way of marking punctuation, accents, and the musical notes used when the biblical text was chanted in the synagogue. The most popular system of signs -- a series of accents and marks placed above and below vowels and consonants -- was developed by the Ben Asher family. It is the same system that is preserved in the Leningrad Codex.

Freedman, one of the nation’s top biblical scholars, first got the idea to produce a facsimile edition of the Leningrad Codex about 25 years ago, after examining an earlier facsimile, known as the Makor edition, which was produced in very small quantities in 1971.

"Unfortunately, this earlier edition was based on microfilm of poor quality, making some of the most significant portions of the text either illegible or very difficult to decipher," said Freedman. "It was obvious to me and many other Hebrew scholars of the need for a high quality facsimile edition of the Codex."

Freedman, holder of the UCSD Endowed Chair in Hebrew Biblical Studies, is the editor-in-chief of the award-winning Anchor Bible Project, a comprehensive series of scholarly commentaries about the Bible in the English-speaking world. The series includes the Anchor Bible Dictionary and the Anchor Bible Reference Library.

For information about purchasing The Leningrad Codex, A Facsimile Edition, please contact Dove Booksellers at (734) 522-7442. The list price for the facsimile edition is $255; however, special discounts are available.