Manuscript
The Leningrad Codex
Also known as Codex Leningradensis · Firkovich B19a · L · St Petersburg Codex
The oldest complete Hebrew Bible that survived in one piece — and the book almost every modern Old Testament is translated from.
hebrew-bibleold-testamentmasoretic-texttextual-criticism
Overview
The Leningrad Codex(AD 1008 (the colophon supports 1008, possibly 1009))— Written in Cairo; acquired by Abraham Firkovich in the nineteenth century
It was copied in Cairo in AD 1008 by a scribe named Samuel ben Jacob, who signed and dated his work. "Leningrad" is where it ended up, not where it was made.
It holds the entire Hebrew Bible with the full Masoretic apparatus — the vowel points, the accents, and the marginal notes the Masoretes used to guard the text letter by letter.
The Aleppo Codex is several decades older and was the better text, but much of it has been missing since 1947. That is why this one carries the load.
Manuscript Details
- Date
- AD 1008 (the colophon supports 1008, possibly 1009)
- Language
- Hebrew
- Script
- Square Hebrew with Tiberian vowel points and accents
- Material
- Parchment
- Current location
- Russian National Library, St Petersburg (Firkovich B19a)
- Discovery location
- Written in Cairo; acquired by Abraham Firkovich in the nineteenth century
- Contains books
- The complete Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)
- Tags
- hebrew-bible · old-testament · masoretic-text · textual-criticism
Significance
This is the load-bearing one. Its text is what the scholarly printed Hebrew Bible reproduces — Biblia Hebraica (1937), Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977) and Biblia Hebraica Quinta — so nearly every Old Testament on an English-speaking shelf traces back through this single book copied out by one named man in Cairo.
Where this witness is read
The Leningrad Codex is one of the manuscripts named in the places your Bible carries a footnote. Each passage below shows what this witness reads and the case each way.
- Mark 16:9-20The Ending of MarkCodex Alexandrinus (A) (5th century) reads: Contains the long ending, 16:9-20, without any mark of doubt.
- John 7:53 - 8:11The Woman Caught in AdulteryCodex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi (C) (5th century) reads: Both are damaged exactly here, so neither can be read directly — but in each case scholars have measured the missing leaves against the surviving handwriting, and there is not enough room for the passage. The gap is too small to have held it.
- 1 John 5:7-8The Three Heavenly WitnessesEvery Greek manuscript before roughly the 14th century (2nd-13th century) reads: Reads only the earthly witnesses: "there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." The heavenly witnesses are absent from all of them, without exception.
- Matthew 17:21Prayer and fasting — a verse that is missing from MatthewOld Latin and Syriac witnesses (4th–7th centuries) reads: Mixed — some carry the sentence, some do not.
- Matthew 18:11"The Son of man is come to save that which was lost"Latin and Syriac witnesses (4th–7th centuries) reads: Divided; several of the earlier ones lack it.
- Acts 8:37The Ethiopian's confession — "If thou believest with all thine heart"The earliest Greek manuscripts of Acts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Alexandrinus (4th–5th centuries) reads: No verse 37. Verse 36 is followed immediately by verse 38 and the descent into the water.
- Matthew 6:13"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory"The earliest Greek manuscripts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Bezae (4th–5th centuries) reads: The prayer ends at "deliver us from evil."
- Luke 22:43-44The angel in Gethsemane and the sweat like drops of bloodAn early Luke papyrus (P75) and Codex Vaticanus (3rd–4th centuries) reads: Without the two verses — the prayer is followed directly by Jesus rising and coming to the disciples.
- John 5:4The angel who troubled the water at BethesdaThe earliest papyrus copies of John (P66, P75) (about AD 200 – 3rd century) reads: No angel, no troubling of the water — the explanation is simply absent.
- Mark 1:41Compassion or anger? Jesus and the leperCodex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and the Byzantine majority (4th–15th centuries) reads: *splanchnistheis* — "moved with compassion."
- Romans 8:1"No condemnation" — with a condition, or without one?Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, original hands (4th century) reads: "...no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." The sentence ends there.
- 1 Timothy 3:16"God was manifest in the flesh" — two letters apartCodex Sinaiticus, original hand (4th century) reads: ΟΣ — "who was manifested in the flesh." A later corrector changed it to ΘΣ.
- Revelation 22:19"Book of life" or "tree of life" — and the missing last pageThe Greek manuscripts of Revelation (4th–15th centuries, all of them) reads: "the tree of life" — without known exception in Greek.
- Isaiah 53:11"He shall see light" — a word the Dead Sea Scrolls restoredThe Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (1QIsaᵃ) (roughly the second century BC) reads: "he shall see light" — the extra word present in the Hebrew.
- Psalm 22:16"They pierced my hands and my feet" — or "like a lion"?The Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) (translated in the last centuries BC) reads: "They dug/pierced my hands and my feet" — a verb. This is Jewish translators reading a Hebrew text as "pierced" long before there was any Christian reason to.