Question:

What is known about The Leningrad Codex of the Prophets? I have only been
able to obtain information such as what books of the Bible it contains,
when it was written, and who discovered it. If you could send me any
additional information I would really appreciate it.

Answer:

I do not normally do this, but rather than compose my own answer, I am
going to borrow a nice article on the Leningrad Codex from an excellent
web site on such topics. This is found at the following URL

http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/educational_site/biblical_manuscripts/Leni
ngradCodex.shtml

Up until 1947, when the Dead Sea Scrolls came to light, the Leningrad
Codes was perhaps the most important single Hebrew manuscript of the Old
Testament, because it was the oldest existing manuscript of the entire Old
Testament. With the emergence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it still remains a
very important piece of evidence concerning the original Old Testament
books. It represents the best of the manuscripts of the Masoretic Text,
put together by the Masoretes in the second half of the first millennium.

John Oakes

The Leningrad Codex

The Leningrad Codex

The Leningrad Codex, or Leningradensis, is the oldest complete Hebrew
bible still preserved. While there are older parts of Bibles, or biblical
books, still in existence, there is no older manuscript which contains the
whole Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament in Hebrew). The Leningrad Codex is
considered one of the best examples of the Masoretic text.

How Old is the Manuscript?

The manuscript was written around the year 1010 C. E. It was probably
written in Cairo, and later sold to someone living in Damascus.

Where is the Original Manuscript?

Today it is in St. Petersburg, Russia, in the Russian National Library
(Saltykov-Shchedrin), where it has been since the mid-1800’s. When the
Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center and West Semitic Research photographed
the Bible in 1990, the city was still called Leningrad. The name of the
manuscript continues to be called the Leningrad Codex in order to avoid
confusion.

What do we mean when we talk about the Masoretic Text?

This manuscript belongs to a group of Hebrew texts called the Masoretic
texts. The Hebrew alphabet itself, which developed from the Phoenician
alphabet, has no true vowels, so the oldest Hebrew biblical fragments have
only consonants, some of which are used as half-vowels, like our y, w, and
h.

The Leningrad Codex
Click the image to view an enhanced version.

Sometime in the Middle Ages a group of scholars called Masoretes became
interested in developing a system for marking the vowels. They were
concerned that the pronunciation of the words might be lost, since Hebrew
was no longer a spoken language. Besides vowels, they also wanted a way of
marking punctuation, accents, and the musical notes used when the biblical
text was chanted in the synagogue.

The most popular system of signs was developed by the Ben Asher family,
and it is their system that is preserved in the Leningrad Codex. If you
look carefully at a page you can see that the consonants, or letters, have
little marks above and below them. Some of the marks are called “vowel
points,” and some are called “accents.” The accents both act as
punctuation and as musical notation.

The Masoretes were also interested in copying the biblical text very
carefully so that it would be preserved from generation to generation. The
way they tried to ensure this was the use of notes in the margins. In the
margins beside the biblical verses they put little letters as symbols.
The Leningrad Codex
Click the image to view an enhanced version.

These symbols told the scribe copying the text information about unusual
forms or words that should not be changed. For instance, they might put a
circle over a word that occurred nowhere else in the Bible. In the margin
they would then put the letter “l” which told the scribe, “yes, this is a
unique word, but it is not an error, so just copy it the way it is.” The
notes at the top or bottom of a page would usually give more information
about the symbols in the side margins.

What is a Codex?

The Leningrad Bible is called a “Codex” because it is in the form of a
book (“codex” being an old word for “book”). The Bibles in the synagogues
were in the form of scrolls, which meant that one never had an entire
Bible together in one scroll. The codex would not have been used in the
synagogue, but would have been used as a study Bible by students and
scholars.

What books of the Bible does the Leningrad Codex contain?

The Codex includes all of the books in the Jewish Bible, or the Protestant
Old Testament. The order of books in the Leningrad Bible is not quite the
same as you will usually find in a modern Bible. First of all, the books
is in the Jewish order, divided into three main parts: Instruction
(Torah), Prophets (Nevi’im) and Writings (Ketuvim). In modern Jewish
Bibles the order of the books is:

Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy

The Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel (1&2), Kings (1&2)

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

The Twelve minor prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah,

Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).

The Writings: Psalms, Proverbs, Job, The Song of Songs, Ruth,
Lamentations,

Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles (1&2).

The Leningrad Codex contains all these books, plus extensive scholarly
notes, and 16 illuminated (decorative) pages. However, the order is a
little bit different than what you would find in a modern Jewish Bible.

Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy

The Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

The Twelve minor prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah,

Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).

The Writings: Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, The Song of Songs,
Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah.

Notice that the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah are
all one book in this manuscript, which, of course, they were originally.
Notice, too, that the Twelve minor prophets make up one book. This is
because at one time they were all copied together on one long scroll.

Why is the Leningrad Codex important?

The Leningrad Codex is used today as the basis for most modern printed
editions of the Hebrew Bible, together with a few other incomplete Hebrew
Bibles. This is because it is the oldest complete manuscript copied with
the Masoretic system developed by the Ben Asher family.

Photograph by Bruce and Kenneth Zuckerman, West Semitic Research in
collaboration with the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center.