Leningradensis is almost universally regarded as the oldest and best copy of the Masoretic Text, the name given to the precise form the Hebrew developed by the Masoretes as their standard. Subsequently, every newly-written copy was carefully counted to verify its accuracy. The Masoretes also introduced various quality control measures for the reproduction of manuscripts: they tabulated the number of words and letters in each biblical book. In this way, they were able for the first time to record in writing the Jewish oral tradition of the pronunciation of Scripture. Among other innovations, they devised a system of markings (called “points”) placed above and below the Hebrew consonants to indicate the vowel to be pronounced after the consonant. The Masoretes raised the reproduction of the Hebrew Scriptures to a high art. It takes its name from the Masoretes, a school of Jewish scribes who flourished between AD 700 to AD 1000. The Masoretic Text is the standard Hebrew form of the books of the Jewish Bible, the form used for chant and proclamation in traditional Jewish synagogues to this day. Leningradensis is a complete copy of the Masoretic Text written in Galilee around AD 1000. the form of book most familiar to us) called Leningradensis, held in the Imperial Russian Library in St. However, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew of the protocanonical books of the Old Testament is a codex (a book formed by leaves of paper stitched on one side i.e.

The oldest partial copies of the text of any biblical book are to be found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (treated in next post). The original manuscripts ( the autographs) written by the sacred authors themselves are no longer extant for any book of the Bible. The Oldest Manuscripts of the Old Testament In this follow up to the last post, we discuss important manuscripts (hand-written copies) of the Old Testament.

Old testament manuscripts online