*This page was migrated in July 2022 from my older website, biblicalambiguities.net.
24 July 2022
The Leningrad Codex is the oldest manuscript still that still preserves the entire Hebrew Bible, and is a very high-quality example of a Bible in the Masoretic tradition.
Prior to 1947, the Aleppo Codex was the oldest complete Codex, but it was shielded from open academic scrutiny and therefore not available to academia. Then, at some point between 1947 (if you believe one story) and 1958 (if you believe another), a large minority of its pages disappeared. The Aleppo Codex is now in Israeli hands and available to academic study, but it is too late for it to function as the standard codex of the academic world.
This leaves the Leningrad Codex in that position, which is a closely related manuscript. It is the basis of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, and therefore the standard text used by most academics in the English-speaking world.
In addition to its role as the base text for BHS, the Leningrad Codex is to be found in electronic form at the Westminster Leningrad Codex website. A facsimile of the codex can also be found online at archive.org.
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