Throughout the world, there are many manuscripts—ancient copies—of individual books and sections of the Hebrew Bible. The most famous are probably the manuscripts found at Khirbet Qumran near Ein Feshka—in other words, the manuscripts popularly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. These scrolls include some of the earliest surviving manuscripts of portions of the Hebrew Bible.
Two other important, though considerably later, manuscripts are the Aleppo Codex and the Cairo Bible, of the year 1010, better known today as the Leningrad Codex. The Aleppo Codex is slightly older than the Leningrad Codex, but the Leningrad Codex is complete, while the Aleppo Codex has a number of missing sections. Thus, although the Leningrad Codex is far from being the earliest surviving witness to any individual book of the Hebrew Bible, it is nonetheless the oldest complete codex of the Hebrew Bible.
Today, the Leningrad Codex is housed in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg as part of the First Firkovich Collection. The codex is generally dated to approximately 1008–1009 CE and is associated with Cairo, Egypt. Its scribe was Samuel ben Jacob.
The Leningrad Codex became part of Abraham Firkovich’s First Collection, although exactly where and when he obtained it remains uncertain. In 1862, funds were allocated for the Imperial Public Library to purchase Firkovich’s collection; in 1863, the manuscripts—including the Leningrad Codex—entered the library in St. Petersburg.
What is not a mystery is the importance the manuscript later acquired for printed editions of the Hebrew Bible. Paul E. Kahle advocated using the Leningrad Codex as the base text for the third edition of Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica. In 1935, the codex was loaned for two years for work connected with the edition, which appeared in 1937. The Leningrad Codex subsequently became the textual basis for major scholarly editions including Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Biblia Hebraica Quinta. Through these editions, it has exercised enormous influence on the textual basis used in modern translations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
While the Leningrad Codex is not nearly as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls, its importance for modern editions of the Hebrew Bible makes it an extraordinarily significant manuscript. However, not everyone can afford a flight to St. Petersburg, and even those who can may find it difficult to obtain permission to study the Leningrad Codex in person.
But fear not! Why? Because the West Semitic Research Project’s photographic facsimile of the Leningrad Codex can now be accessed digitally on computers, smartphones, and tablets through Accordance Bible Software. With Accordance’s Leningrad Codex Images module, one can double-check readings in BHS and BHQ, read the Masoretic notes, and examine the manuscript at home or on the go.
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