| The Leningrad Codex, which dates to approximately the same time as the Aleppo codex, has been claimed to be a product of the Ben-Asher scriptorium. However, its own colophon says only that it was corrected from manuscripts written by Ben-Asher; there is no evidence that Ben-Asher himself ever saw it. The Aleppo Codex was the manuscript used by the rabbi and scholar Maimonides (1135-1204) when he set down the exact rules for writing scrolls of the Torah, Hilkhot Sefer Torah ("the Laws of the Torah Scroll") in his Mishneh Torah. This halachic ruling gave the Aleppo Codex what is for Jews the seal of supreme textual authority, even though Maimonides only quoted it for paragraphing and other details of formatting, and not for the text itself. "The codex which we used in these works is the codex known in Egypt, which includes 24 books, which was in Jerusalem," he wrote. Contents The beginning (nearly all of the Torah) and end of the manuscript are missing, as well as some pages in between. When the Aleppo Codex was complete (until 1947), it followed the Tiberian textual tradition in the order of its books, similar to the Leningrad Codex, and which also matches the later tradition of Sephardic biblical manuscripts. Torah and Nevi'im appear in the same order found in most printed bibles, but the order for the books for Ketuvim differs markedly. In the Aleppo Codex, the order of Ketuvim is: - Chronicles,
- Psalms,
- Job,
- Proverbs,
- Ruth,
- Song of Songs,
- Ecclesiastes,
- Lamentations,
- Esther,
- Daniel,
- Ezra-Nehemiah.
The current text is missing almost the entire Torah (Genesis through most of Deuteronomy). It begins with the last word of Deuteronomy 28:17 (ומשארתך, "and your kneading trough"). After that, the books of Nevi'im appear in their traditional order (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets). The Ketuvim follow as above, but currently end at the last leaf with בנות ציון in Song of Songs 3:11 ("come out, you daughters of Zion.."). Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, and Ezra-Nehemiah are missing. History The Codex has had an eventful history. In the mid-11th century, about a century after it was written, the text was delivered to the Karaite community of Jerusalem, apparently after having been purchased from the heirs of Aharon ben Asher. Not long after (either in 1079 by the Seljuks or in 1099 by the Crusaders) it was looted from Jerusalem and eventually wound up in the Rabbanite synagogue in Cairo, where it was consulted by Maimonides. Maimonides' descendants brought it to Aleppo, Syria, at the end of the 14th century. The biblical name of this region in Syria is Aram Tsova, whence the modern name for the codex in Hebrew. It remained there until 1947, when the Muslim anti-Jewish riots desecrated the synagogue and vandalized the holy books, where it resided. The Aleppo Codex was broken up and burned. The codex disappeared, but resurfaced in 1958, when it was smuggled into Israel and presented to the president of the state, Itzhak Ben-Zvi. On arrival, it was found that parts of the codex had been lost. The Aleppo Codex was entrusted to the Ben-Zvi Institute and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Later, after the university denied him access to the codex, Rabbi Mordechai Breuer began his own monumental reconstruction of the Masoretic text on the basis of other well-known ancient manuscripts. His results matched the Aleppo Codex almost exactly. Thus today, Breuer's version is used authoritatively for the reconstruction of the missing portions of the Aleppo Codex. The "Keter Yrushalayim" (כתר ירושלים, "Jerusalem Crown") is a modern version of the Tanakh, based on the Aleppo Codex and the work of Breuer, which is the official version of the Bible of the State of Israel. Aleppo The Aleppo community guarded it zealously for some six hundred years. The community received queries from Jews around the world, who asked that various textual details be checked, correspondence which is preserved in the responsa literature, and which allows for the reconstruction of certain details in the parts that are missing today. However, the community limited direct observation of the manuscript by outsiders, especially by scholars in modern times. Paul Kahle, when revising the text of the Biblia Hebraica in the 1920s, tried and failed to obtain a photographic copy. This forced him to use the Leningrad Codex instead for the third edition, which appeared in 1937. The only modern scholar allowed to compare it with a standard printed Hebrew Bible and take notes on the differences was Umberto Cassuto. This secrecy made it impossible to confirm the authenticity of the Codex, and indeed Cassuto doubted that it was Maimonides' codex, though he agreed that it was 10th century. During the riots against Jews and Jewish property in Aleppo in December 1947 , the community's ancient synagogue was burned and the Codex was damaged, so that no more than 295 of the original 487 leaves survived. In particular, only the last few pages of the Torah are extant. The missing leaves are a subject of fierce controversy. The Jews of Aleppo claim that they were burned. However, scholarly analysis has shown no evidence of fire having reached the codex itself (the dark marks on the pages are due to fungus). Some scholars instead accuse members of the Jewish community of having torn off the missing leaves and keeping them privately hidden. Two "missing" leaves have turned up, leaving open the possibility that even more may have survived the anti-Jewish riots in 1947. In January 1958 , the Aleppo Codex was brought back to Jerusalem, by the influence of then Israeli President, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, where it remains in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum. This finally gave scholars the chance to examine it and consider the claims that it is indeed the manuscript referred to by Maimonides. The work of Moshe Goshen-Gottstein on the few surviving pages of the Torah seems to have confirmed these claims beyond reasonable doubt. Goshen-Gottstein suggested (in the introduction to his facsimile reprint of the codex) that not only is it the oldest known Tanakh in one volume, it was the first time ever that a complete Tanakh had been produced by one or two people as a unified entity in a consistent style. The Aleppo Codex is the source for several modern editions of the Hebrew Bible, including the two editions of Mordechai Breuer and "The Jerusalem Crown" (printed in Jerusalem in 2000 , with a text based on Breuer's work and a newly-designed typeface based on the calligraphy of the Codex and based on its page-layout). The latter edition is used when the President of Israel is sworn into office. Modern editions Several complete or partial editions of the Tanakh based on the Aleppo Codex have been published over the past three decades in Israel, some of them under the academic auspices of Israeli universities. These editions incorporate reconstructions of the missing parts of the codex based on the methodology of Mordechai Breuer or similar systems, and by taking into account all available historical testimony about the contents of the codex. Complete editions: These are complete editions of the Tanakh, usually in one volume (but sometimes also sold in three volumes). They do not include the masoretic notes of the Aleppo Codex. - Mossad Harav Kuk edition, Mordechai Breuer, ed. Torah (1977); Nevi'im (1979); Ketuvim (1982); full Tanakh in one volume 1989. This was the first edition to include a reconstruction of the letters, vowels, and cantillation marks in the missing parts of the Aleppo codex.
- Horev publishers, Jerusalem, 1996-98. Mordechai Breuer, ed. This was the first edition to incorporate newly discovered information on the parashah divisions of the Aleppo Codex for Nevi'im and Ketuvim. The text of the Horev Tanakh has been reprinted in several forms with various commentaries by the same publisher.
- Jerusalem Crown: The Bible of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2000. Edited according to the method of Mordechai Breuer under the supervision of Yosef Ofer, with additional proofreading and refinements since the Horev edition.
- Jerusalem Simanim Institute, Feldheim Publishers, 2004 (published in one-volume and three-volume editions).
Complete online edition: - Mechon Mamre provides an online edition of the Tanakh according to the Aleppo Codex, basing its reconstruction of the missing parts on "similar manuscripts" (apparently according to the method of Mordechai Breuer or a similar method). The text is offered in four formats: (a) Masoretic letter-text, (b) "full" letter-text, (c) masoretic text with vowels (niqqud), and (d) masoretic text with vowels and cantillation signs. See external links below.
Partial editions: - Hebrew University Bible Project (Isaiah, Jeremiah). Includes the masoretic notes of the Aleppo Codex.
- Mikraot Gedolot Haketer, Bar-Ilan University (1992-present). A multi-volume critical edition of the Mikraot Gedolot, nine volumes published to date including Genesis (2 vols.), Joshua & Judges (1 vol.), Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Psalms (2 vols.). Includes the masoretic notes of the Aleppo Codex and a new commentary on them. Differs from the Breuer reconstuction and presentation for some masoretic details.
References - Fragment of ancient parchment from Bible given to Jerusalem scholars Retrieved on 03/14/2009
- M. H. Goshen-Gottstein, "The Aleppo Codex and the Rise of the Massoretic Bible Text" The Biblical Archaeologist 42.3 (Summer 1979), pp. 145-163.
- Photo taken in 1910 by Joseph Segall and published in Travels through Northern Syria (London, 1910), p. 99. Reprinted and analyzed in Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, "A Recovered Part of the Aleppo Codex," Textus 5 (1966):53-59 (Plate I) Missing page
- Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith. Karaite marriage documents from the Cairo Geniza: legal tradition and community life in mediaeval Egypt and Palestine. Etudes sur le judaïsme médiéval, t. 20. Leiden: Brill, 1998 (ISBN 9004108866), pg. 148
- Olszowy: pp. 54-55 and footnote #86
- The Vicissitudes of the Aleppo Codex – See 4.4 The Crusades and the Ransoming of Books. Retrieved on 03/14/2009.
- Kedar, Benjamin Z. "The Jerusalem Massacre of July 1099 in the Western Historiography of the Crusades." in The Crusades (Vol. 3). ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar and Jonathan S.C. Riley-Smith. Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2004 (ISBN 075464099X), pg. 59
- Goitein, S.D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza. Vol. V: The Individual: Portrait of a Mediterranean Personality of the High Middle Ages as Reflected in the Cairo Geniza. University of California Press, 1988 (ISBN 0520056477), pg. 376
- Goitein: pp. 375–376 and footnote #81 on pg. 612
- Olszowy: pp. 54-55 and footnote #86
- "Ben-Zvi Institute calls for return of Aleppo Codex fragments", Haaretz, December 3, 2007. Retrieved on 03/14/2009.
- In this edition, the masoretic text and symbols were encoded and graphic layout was enabled by the computer program Taj, developed by Daniel Weissman.
- "After consultation.. with the greatest Torah scholars and grammarians, the biblical text in this edition was chosen to conform with the Aleppo Codex which as is well known was corrected by Ben-Asher.. Where this manuscript is not extant we have relied on the Leningrad Codex.. Similarly the open and closed sections that are missing in the Aleppo Codex have been completed according to the biblical list compiled by Rabbi Shalom Shachna Yelin that were published in the Jubilee volume for Rabbi Breuer.. (translated from the Hebrew on p. 12 of the introduction).
External links |