The rediscovery'of the oldest codex of the

complete Tiberian Hebrew Bible enables us

to gain a new understanding of the rise of
the Massoretic Bible. In this paper Goshen-
Gottstein analy'zes the position of codices of
the Hebrew Bible, recounts the detective
work that led to the authentication of the
Aleppo Codex, and details for the first time
the manifold ramifications of this unique
treasure of the past for broadening our grasp
of the history of the Bible text.

M. H. Goshen-Gottstein
It is one of the fascinating pastimes of the historian
of biblical studies to try and evaluate the interrela-
he4 tionship between material discoveries and new
insights. Some decades, or even centuries, could not
boast any discoveries, and most of the scholarly

ALEPPO output consisted of rehashing formulations,

CODEX harmonizing positions, and exploring further

speculations. At other times, hard facts came in fast,
and scholars hardly managed to integrate the ever-
growing body of new information.
For over a century Bible scholars have become
used to a never-ending stream of treasures from the
and the past. It is part of this process that the very term
"biblical archeology" has slowly changed its contents,
Rise of the so much so that definitions such as Albright's, a
generation ago, would seem to many present-day
Massoretic Bible scholars rather all-embracing and overly comprehen-
sive. Even so, many a scholar who considers himself a
9Text biblical archeologist would still regard, say, a biblical
text from Qumran as part of his domain, possibly
because it was "excavated," whether by a professional
excavator or a Bedouin. Yet the recovery of a biblical
text not hidden in the caves of the Judean desert but
rather in the "Cave of Elijah" in the venerable
synagogue of Aleppo would probably be regarded as
belonging to another subspecialty of biblical studies. It
may be a thousand years old; it may be a discovery of
paramount importance-the biblical archeologist will
tend to pass the find to the textual critic or to the
specialist in matters massoretic.
REQUEST FROM THE AUTHOR
This article contains some reproductions from the
A leppo Codex for your convenience. In accordance with
religious custom, as explained in Maimonides' Code,
hiblical texts-even though only reproductions-should
not he discarded in such a way that the divine name
might be profaned. Kindly make sure that you keep this
issue in a special/Iy saqfeplace.

BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/SUMMER1979 145

9 all information to be studied. The
The Aleppo Codex is
the oldest codex of
the complete Hebrew
Bible.
146 BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/SUMMER1979
So much for the point of prin-
ciple whether the most important
discovery in the field of Hebrew
"massoretic" manuscripts is a legiti-
mate matter of interest for the
"biblical archeologist." To be sure,
our story does not rest entirely on a
single discovery but rather integrates
various discoveries and insights. Yet
without the Aleppo Codex our
reconstruction would have remained
much more tentative and clouded by
doubt. It is thanks to what can
rightly be termed the miraculous
recovery of this codex that we are
now able to retell the story of the
rise of the massoretic Bible.
Let us start with some basic
points. The rise of the codex form
of the book in the early Christian
era concerns books in various
languages and scripts. Yet a codex
of the Hebrew Bible is functionally
different from a codex of the
Septuagint or the Peshitta or most
other texts. It both coexists and
contrasts with another major form
of textual transmission: the scroll.
To be sure, scrolls of Hebrew
biblical texts in our possession today
predate Hebrew codices by more
than a millennium. That is to say,
we possess no codex of a Hebrew
biblical text earlier than the last
quarter of the 9th century C.E. This
brings us within two or three
decades of the Aleppo Codex itself.
From a functional point of view
there remains a basic difference
between scroll and codex. The scroll
was the original form of scribal
tradition, and it remained the only
one acceptable for liturgical use, at
least within medieval Rabbanite
Judaism. The outer form of the
scroll did not change, nor the scribal
conventions of its production. None
of the scribal refinements we shall
discuss-strokes and dots of various
shapes, to indicate vowels and tonal
accentuation-could ever be intro-
duced into a scroll for liturgical use.
However much the graphic notation
was refined, however exact the
details transmitted from generation
to generation, they were only noted
down in a codex. The codex became
the model for student and scribe, to
assist their memory in verifying
details; it became the storehouse for
knowledge thus mastered and
committed to memory was applied
when the sacred text was being read
aloud from a scroll before the
assembled congregation.
It will therefore be understood
why biblical texts in languages such
as Greek or Syriac were transmitted
in codex form fairly soon after the
codex became a convenient and
acceptable form. The Hebrew Bible,
on the other hand, was copied into
codices only as a result of what
amounted to a revolution in the
ways of its transmission.
A further remark is in order. In
the nature of things, the opening of
a scroll at the right spot is not
always easily achieved. The longer
the scroll, the more cumbersome the
process. Hence, the maximum length
of any biblical scroll is, so far as we
know, that of a major subdivision,
such as the Pentateuch. A scroll of
the entire Hebrew Bible could not
be handled. This fact must be borne
in mind when we speculate about
the emergence of the first codex of
the entire Hebrew Bible.
The facts known from the study
of the early Hebrew massoretic
codices, penned between the end of
the 9th century and the middle of
the 10th, bear out what we would
assume by analogy. Just as the first
Hebrew printers, six centuries later,
stuck to most conventions of scribes,
so the scribes of codices stuck to
various conventions of scrolls. They
tended to produce codices of one
book or of a part of the Bible, such
as the Pentateuch or the Prophets.
Penning for the first time a codex
of the entire Hebrew Bible with its
hundreds of thousands of separate
graphic details must have been a
mind-boggling undertaking, some-
thing to be achieved only after
untold years of developing expert
knowledge and skills. This should
suffice as a background for a
discussion of that very under-
taking-the Aleppo Codex.
"Song of David" (2 Samuel 22) as laid out
in the Aleppo Codex with the usual
occurrence of "massoretic notation" in the
margins.
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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST SUMMER 1979 147


* 4
We are struck by the
enormous effort that
must have gone into
copying those hun-
dreds of thousands, if
not millions, of
details.
148 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979
The Aleppo Codex is the oldest
codex of the entire Hebrew Bible--
traditionally termed the 24 books--
fully vowelled, accentuated, and
adorned with marginal notes
according to a Tiberian massoretic
tradition. Its status is borne out by
the overall evaluation of many
technical details. Our judgment
happens to tally with the contents of
an authorship note appended to the
codex about a century after it was
written, but by no means depends
on it.
There are older Hebrew manu-
scripts-after all, the Qumran texts
predate the codex by more than a
thousand years. Also, we possess
one Tiberian massoretic manuscript
that definitely predates our codex.
That is the beautifully executed
manuscript of the Prophets known
as the Cairo Codex, belonging to
this very day to the Karaite
community in Cairo. The production
of that manuscript had been
undertaken by the great master,
Moshe ben Asher, the father of the
great master, Aaron [ben Moshe]
ben Asher, none other than the
massorete in charge of producing the
Aleppo Codex.
The claim is, then, that the
Aleppo Codex is the oldest codex
containing the entire Tiberian
massoretic Bible, that is to say, the
oldest we possess and the oldest of
which we know. May one claim
more than that? With all the caution
due when arguing from silence-
most probably, yes.
Given that Hebrew books
suffered through pogroms, war, or
persecution as much as Jewish
communities themselves, one cannot
attach too much weight to the fact
that this is quite simply the earliest
codex of that kind that survived.
Slightly more weighty is the
argument that no contemporary or
earlier source mentions any such
massoretic codex of the entire Bible
as being penned or supervised by a
master-massorete. More important,
still, is the fact that all our sources
point positively to Ben Asher's
oeuvre as being the decisive event.
To be sure, we cannot absolutely rule
out the possibility that there is a
reference pointing to a lost codex
penned by the father, Moshe ben
Asher. But the evidence against such
an assumption is compelling. Without
getting involved in a full-dress
technical discussion, we may state
for the moment that there is
excellent reason to maintain that the
Aleppo Codex is not only the oldest
manuscript of its type of which we
know, but the oldest Tiberian
massoretic codex of the entire Bible.
A further consideration is in
order. If we study a later codex of
an entire massoretic Bible-the work
of a copyist who does not have to
do any spade work-we are struck
by the enormous effort that must
have gone into copying those
hundreds of thousands, if not
millions, of details. Whereas some
copyists produced several copies of
the same part of the Bible, there are
almost no instances in which the
same copyist produced two copies of
the entire Bible. Even though work
was often divided between the scribe
who penned the letters and the
scribe-massorete who supplied vow-
els, accents, and massoretic notation,
the effort involved was so immense
that hardly any professional copyist
ever managed to produce more than
one copy of the entire Bible.
If this holds true with regard to
later copyists, it would be especially
so with regard to the superhuman
effort of the last scion born to the
house of "the old Rabbi Asher,"
who had founded a dynasty of
master-massoretes. Now that we
hold the original codex in our
hands, we can appreciate the
unbelievable akribia necessary and
the never-ending toil involved in
checking and rechecking all the
details for the entire Bible.
Up to this point we have used
terms such as "massoretic notation"
without further explanation. If we
look at a page of a massoretic
model codex, as reproduced here,
we see various letters or abbreviated
words on the left or right margins
as well as between the columns.
These correspond to tiny circlets
written over a word of the text.
Also, at the top and at the bottom
of the page we find units of short
 shorthand notes as to the specific
orthography of a word was perhaps
the major achievement of the
massoretic endeavor.
It has been known for genera-
tions that in all massoretic codices
there are thousands of discrepancies
between the text itself and the notes
that go with it. As centuries passed
by, copyists copied both texts and
\ far as our reconstruction of events
*i* )'" notes, but those did not tally. The
X401 copyists understood less and less of
what they were doing. In fact, very
VIIIA often they turned the notes into
I't fanciful figures of ornamentation,
without any remnant of textual
value. Even if the notes were left
intact, they no longer served with
absolute precision the basic text to
which they were attached. The
Detail from Deuteronomy 32 of the question of absolute precision and
characteristictiny marginalnotations relative correlation between text and
which appear in the left margin of the massoretic notation thus became a
text on p. 157.
major touchstone for judging the
quotes centered around a word (not quality of a codex.
always spelled out) which are a sort Though the evaluation of the
of concordancoid, mnemotechnical Aleppo Codex is very complicated,
aid. Marginal notations usually the problem of methodology-of
consist of a Hebrew letter, the how one goes about this evalua-
numerical value of which indicates tion-is not in itself complicated
the number of occurrences of that since it rests on various typological
graphic unit in that selfsame orthog- tests. It is the only manuscript of
raphy. Or else, it might be the letter the entire massoretic Bible in which
lamed, indicating "letha," i.e., not in the correspondence between text and
existence elsewhere. massoretic notation is practically
Deciphering these notes in this perfect. If we ignore the inevitable
day and age of computer-arranged signs of human frailty, the codex
concordances is not everybody's cup turns out to be the only example
of tea; but for the history of stabi- in existence of almost complete
lizing the tiniest massoretic details, harmony between text and massora.
they are of the utmost importance. It is largely this internal evidence
Every letter of the Bible is that substantiates our claim with
meaningful. Almost every second regard to the uniqueness and
word raises a problem of plene or authenticity of this codex.
defective spelling, i.e., whether a We may now come back to our
vowel is indicated by a mater previous observation and, perhaps,
lectionis or not. Each spelling, rephrase it from a different point of
according to Rabbinic tradition, may departure. The first production of a
be indicative of some deeper codex of an entire massoretic
meaning. Hence, in theory, scru- Hebrew Bible was a major event in
pulously guarding the exact orthog- the history of the development of
raphy and informing future scribes our Bible text. No later copying or
in a framework of running marginal adaptation would be quite the same.
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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979
There is considerable merit to the
argument that if the father, Moshe
ben Asher, had succeeded in
producing such a codex, he would
have been credited with such an
unparalleled achievement; and
Maimonides might well have chosen
his codex as his standard. But there
is not the slightest reason to assume
that such a codex ever existed. As
goes, the man who actually achieved
that distinction, obviously basing
himself on the family tradition, was
the son, Aaron [ben Moshe] ben
Asher. The codex he produced was
what centuries later became known
as the Aleppo Codex.
At this juncture another detail
ought to be examined. We have
stressed time and again the differ-
ence between a codex of the entire
Bible and a codex of one book or one
part of the Bible. What are the facts
with regard to the Aleppo Codex?
A look at the facsimile will
show that there are 294 folios. A
quick count will indicate that
roughly the following parts are
missing: most of the Pentateuch, a
few chapters from II Kings,
Jeremiah, Minor Prophets, Chroni-
cles, and Psalms, as well as the
entire final part of the codex,
containing much of Song of Songs,
Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra,
and Nehemiah. If we reckon the
parts missing proportionally to the
entire text, we arrive at the
conclusion that in its present state
the codex is reduced to about three
quarters of its original contents.
If we speak, then, of this codex
as the oldest one of the entire
massoretic Bible, we speak of its
original status, of the basic achieve-
ment of Aaron ben Asher. It is less
than gracious-as some people have
done-to confuse the issue by
playing upon words and maintaining
that the Aleppo Codex is not the
oldest codex of the entire massoretic
Bible. But from the point of view of
Detail from Deuteronomy 32 of the
"concordancoid,mnemotechnicalaid"
which appearsat the top of the text on
p. 157.
149

Contrary to wide-
spread belief, the
Leningrad Codex
does not mirror the
tradition of Aaron
ben Asher with abso-
lute fidelity.
150 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979
the present generation, the fact
cannot be denied: what was a codex
of the entire Bible for over a
thousand years has been desecrated,
torn, and partly burned by Syrian
pogromists who vented their hatred
three decades ago, after the
establishment of a Jewish state was
determined. They stormed the
synagogue in Aleppo and nearly
succeeded in destroying the entire
codex. Whether one terms it a
miracle or proof of supreme Jewish
self-sacrifice, whatever has been
salvaged was literally pulled out of
the fire. The Aleppo Codex, as
extant today, has ceased to be a
codex of the entire Bible.
Hence, we face the irony of
history also in the field of Bible
codices. When the late Paul Kahle
realized, back in the 1930s, that the
Jewish community of Aleppo would
never grant him permission to use
Aaron ben Asher's original manu-
script, he decided to use a
substitute. Henceforth, the editions
of Kittel's Biblia Hebraica were
based on the so-called Leningrad
Codex (see below). Now that
vandals have burned part of the
Aleppo Codex, that substitute
remains, indeed, the oldest extant
codex of the entire Hebrew Bible.
Thus, when we were able, for the
first time, to study side by side the
two oldest manuscripts of the entire
Hebrew Bible-the codices named
after the cities of Aleppo and
Leningrad-only one remained
intact. Yet at the same time, com-
parison showed the two codices for
what they are: the Aleppo Codex--
the perfect original masterpiece
which authenticates itself by internal
criteria; the Leningrad Codex-a
none-too-successful effort to adapt a
manuscript of a different Tiberian
subgroup to a Ben Asher Codex.
The very attempt of the "harmoniz-
ing" massorete of the Leningrad
Codex is the most telling proof one
can imagine that Aaron ben Asher's
text was used as a model a few
decades after his death. No scribe in
his right mind would go to the
trouble to adapt an existing
manuscript to another model unless
he recognized its superiority. This is
what the (second) scribe of the
Leningrad Codex attempted. Yet
such an undertaking was doomed to
failure because the scribe could, at
the very best, deal with differences
of some methegs or even accents
and matres lectionis. But he could
not change the layout of sections
and Songs.
The history of internal dishar-
mony among manuscripts started
then and there. By various counts,
the consonantal text of the
Leningrad Codex-wrongly pro-
claimed to this day as practically
identical with Aaron ben Asher's
codex-has been shown to be about
the furthest removed from that
subtradition, if we count the
identical and the different features of
early codices. It is only after two
decades of intensive comparative
study of various indicators that we
are able to back up earlier hunches
with numerical data. Since even
specialists in other subfields of
biblical philology are usually unable
to appreciate minutiae of massoretic
argument, it is quite easy to confuse
the issue with a few clever sounding
bon mots. It is not a very encour-
aging sign for the state of biblical
philology that some scholars have
been able to get away with general
statements without ever having spent
the years necessary to acquaint
themselves with the facts.
Rather than cataloging baseless
misstatements, we should now take a
look at the decisive statement of
Maimonides which has remained the
basis for scholarly inquiry for many
centuries. This is what that towering
halachist had to say on the subject,
and it is from here that the search
started:
Since I have seen greatconfusionin all
the scrollswhich 1 looked into for these
matters, and also the Massoreteswho
compose[writings]to makeknownopen
and closed sections contradict one
another according to the books on
which they base themselves,I saw fit to
note down here all the sections of the
Law, closed and open, as well as the
layout of the Songs [viz Exodus 15,
Deuteronomy32] so as to correctall the
books accordingly.The book on which
we basedourselvesin thesemattersis the

one well knownin Egyptwhichcontains
all the twenty-fourbooks, which was
formerly in Jerusalemas a model for
correcting books. Everybody used to
accept it as authoritative,for Ben Asher
went over it mostexactlyfor manyyears
and correctedit many times . . ." (Mai-
monides, Code, Laws of Torah Scrolls
VIII, 4).
We ought to stress immediately
that this statement of Maimonides
leaves no doubt that he deals with a He was struck by the considerable
specific issue, and we should avoid
any loose generalizations. He does
not speak about orthography, or
about vowels, accents, or differences confusion, he relied on one
of metheg, or about massoretic
notation. He does not say whose
book he would not accept or whose
system seems untrustworthy. This
needs stressing because it is rather
disconcerting to see how reputable
scholars have invented completely
different statements allegedly made
by Maimonides in this context. He
states unequivocally what has
become the basis of later decisions
within the accepted Jewish legal
system (halacha); he deals expressly
with the issue where a section
should be marked, what type the
section is, and how the two large
Pentateuchal poems should be laid
out. The lending of his authority to
a certain model codex is done on
the basis that it is known to him
that everyone used to rely on it. The study it primarily in the light of his
description has a causal flavor: Ben
Asher spent many years to ensure
utmost correctness, so everyone used aware today that only a small
to accept his book as authoritative.
Hence, Maimonides accepts that
codex as authoritative and copies
out the relevant details so as to
make that particular tradition
halachically binding.
At this juncture I should add
another piece of information, small
but decisive. Local lore of Aleppo
Jewry had it for centuries that the
model codex they cherished and held
in awe in the "Cave of Elijah" was
none other than the very codex
prepared by Ben Asher and declared
authoritative (as regards the details
mentioned) by Maimonides. As with
other tales of local lore, scholars
were justified in doubting that pious
identification. Local traditions are
not scholarly proof. It was one of
the major achievements of modern
philological detective work to show
that the legend was true. While the
technical proof cannot be detailed
here, we shall come back to some of
the points involved in this iden-
tification.
Meanwhile, we may ponder the
rather daring step taken by a
master-halachist like Maimonides.
differences between books in his day
as regards the occurrence and type
of sections. In order to remedy that
particular codex which happened to
be available to him in Cairo (or,
rather, Fustat). That codex served as
a model for the Torah scroll he had
written for himself in order to fulfill
the demands of the Divine law.
Moreover, he seemed to expect that
if he copied the details into his
Code, scribes would accept those
features as normative. Henceforth,
mistakes would be eradicated, and
the correct way of writing Torah
scrolls would be restored.
Was Maimonides really so
naive, or was there more to the
story than meets the eye?
In order to explore the prob-
lem, it is not enough to approach it
from the point of view of the
tradition of the Bible text. We must
halachic reasoning and procedures.
The historian of halacha is well
number of halachic rulings handed
down by Maimonides are not clearly
based on a statement from Talmudic
or Gaonic literature. Sometimes we
suspect that the reason for a
halachic difference between him and,
say, his great critic Rabbi Abraham
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979
ben David of Posquieres is to be
found in a variant text in their
sources, rather than in different
interpretations of a Talmudic text.
But in general, halachic decisions by
Maimonides are based in one way
or another on an identifiable
Rabbinic source. The one major
exception in the huge field covered
by Maimonides' Code is the issue of
writing a Torah scroll. There he
takes, as it were, one codex and
declares, "Only this one is correct."
This is not a matter of inter-
preting a Rabbinic text. It is a
matter of throwing his authority
behind a certain fact and denying
recognition to all other facts. Even
more surprising: whatever the later
developments, no rabbinic authority,
contemporary or otherwise, ever
declared that Maimonides was
wrong and that another model
codex should be adopted. To be
sure, the modern student of biblical
antiquities has the right and duty to
raise questions. For him the decision
of Maimonides is a subject of
inquiry. It does not affect the
modern student if the conclusion of
his scholarly analysis would turn out
to be that Maimonides was ill-
informed. But he will have to bear
in mind that in order to elevate the
layout of one particular codex to
the position of an absolute
halachically perfect model, Maimon-
ides must have had extremely
compelling reasons. This was no
matter for arbitrary whims, and the
halachic opponents of Maimonides
were not the men to acquiesce in
such a whim.
Let us look at a point which is
decisive in the context of our story.
Maimonides looked for a model for
writing his scroll of the Law, and he
dealt with the laws concerning
Torah scrolls. It stands to reason
that he should have chosen a model
codex of the Pentateuch. As stated
above, codices of parts of the Bible
were in existence and were easier to
come by. But this is not what he
did. Only one particular codex was
authoritative for him, and that was
a codex of the entire Bible, although
the nonpentateuchal parts were of
no relevance for his purpose.
151
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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST SUMMER 1979 153


Vowel signs were
invented because the
exact liturgical tradi-
tion of reciting the
Hebrew Bible was in
danger of being lost
after the Muslim con-
quests ca. 700 C.E.
154 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979
It is no coincidence that that
very codex turns out-when mea-
sured by our criteria of inner
consistency and correlation with
otherwise established Ben Asher
readings-to be unique, indeed.
After years of painstaking, detailed
comparison the modern critic has to
concede not only that the Aleppo
local lore is correct, but he is
compelled by the circumstances to
admit that Maimonides knew exactly
what he was talking about. What
looks to the critical eye at first
blush like an arbitrary decision was
in reality based on a tradition about
the unique trustworthiness of the
codex of Ben Asher.
We may now proceed one
further step. We have already
remarked on the fact that whereas
the modern philologist tends to
dwell on differences of readings with
regard to vowels, accents, and
methegs, Maimonides' concern was
different. The major point of
halachic interest-as we can see for
instance in tractate Megilla of the
Palestinian Talmud-concerns the
question of proper division into
sections. The real importance of that
particular feature was perhaps not
quite clear until very recently, for
only now do we possess various
scrolls or fragments of the same
biblical text, as written or kept at
Qumran. These fragments enable us,
for the first time, to deal with some
important details of scribal tradition
in writing a sacred text over two
thousand years ago. Only today are
we able to put forward some
educated guesses as to why certain
features were endowed with halachic
importance and why, in the end,
Maimonides put his authority behind
one particular codex in that regard.
The following observation rests
on an examination of parallel texts
of Isaiah from Qumran, as well as
tentative results of some other
comparisons. Most of the fragmen-
tary material, though not all of it,
comes from Cave IV. The striking
Facingpages of prosetext (pp. 152-53)in
the Aleppo Codex showinga section from
1 Kings(11:8b-12:7).The circletat the
extremeright marginof the right page is
considereda massoreticcorrectionmark.
fact is that in spite of quasi-
recensional differences-not to speak
of textual and orthographic
changes-there exists a considerable
unity of tradition as to the place of
a section, that is to say, where to
leave some empty space to mark off
a textual subdivision. This is true
both with regard to Qumran frag-
ments among themselves and to the
stubbornly guarded tradition kept
alive for a thousand years from, let
us say, 150 B.C.E. till 850 C.E.
The place of a section seems
pretty well fixed, although far from
being absolutely uniform, whereas
the type of section-open, closed, or
otherwise-seems more open to
variation. To put it differently, we
are beginning to gather some
material for the history of fixed
scribal responsibilities and customs.
Such activities developed over a
thousand years beyond the limits of
textual differences. Cutting the
textual continuity into sections turns
out to have been one of the earliest
and most basic responsibilities of the
ancient scribes, or as they are called,
the soferim-that is, possibly,
counters of letters.
Now that we can see for the
first time the results of scribal
tradition in the Qumran period, we
can appreciate why the exact
position and type of section space
became the halachically decisive
feature. It remains to be seen
whether one day we also shall
recover some fragments of Penta-
teuchal Songs.
A thousand years had passed
since the days of Qumran. When
Aaron ben Asher finally attempted
to utilize the combined experience of
his family for the preparation of the
codex which was to become known
by his name, he was obviously most
careful in matters of primary masso-
retic responsibility, i.e., spelling and
preservation of textual layout.
Meanwhile, further fields of special-
ization had developed: the tradition
of special orthography (types of
letters), the tradition of vocalization,
accentuation, and methegs (gacyas),
the tradition of massoretic marginal
notation. By the 9th century, layer
upon layer had grown until the
massorete's eye had to coordinate
and survey hundreds of thousands of
minute details. To be sure, the
Aleppo Codex was singled out by
Maimonides because of its reliability
as regards the one feature halachi-
cally relevant. Today we can
appreciate that the achievement of
Ben Asher was just as amazing in
other areas of his massoretic
activity.
For the first time, Bible scholars
are able today to study the oldest
codex of the entire Hebrew Bible
side by side with the first published
parts of the large critical edition of
the Hebrew University Bible which
collates in one of its apparatuses the
differences from all the early masso-
retic codices. It becomes immediately
clear that the quantity of differences
stands in an inverse relationship to
the historical development of
massoretic activity. There are
comparatively few differences with
regard to cutting into sections-
although the differences in the books
of the prophets are noticeably more
than in pentateuchal codices. A
larger number concerns differences
of plene and defective orthography;
the bulk deals with differences of
methegs-just as we would assume
from the quotes in Mishael ben
Uzziel's "Treatise on Differences
between Ben Asher and Ben
Naphtali" (see below). How do
these findings relate to the historical
development?
For three centuries--roughly
between 1500 and 1800-there raged
a controversy about the nature and
"inspirational" position of the
Hebrew vowels, largely as part of
theological feuds between the
Catholic and Protestant churches.
Today it is practically impossible not
to accept the results of prolonged
study: that the massoretes active
between ca. 700 and 900 C.E. added
a new dimension of activity in order
to achieve their goal. That goal was
to devise a reliable and exact
graphic notation for indicating
details of the liturgic reading of the
Bible in public.
How can one indicate which
words should be read together? How
to indicate main stress and secondary
stress? When to lift one's voice or to
lower? How to note which syllable is
in danger of being swallowed-hence
one ought to linger for an additional
split second?
There were differences between
individuals, as well as between rival
studios, concerning the minutiae. But
what seems minute to us is not too
trivial to note if the word of God is
concerned. Even if two massoretes
grew up in the same studio or
workshop, they never perceived
exactly the same thing. Yet the
slightest hesitation or holding back
in the enunciation of a syllable was
worthy of note, hence the immense
number of differences as regards
methegs, differences which the
ordinary student of the Bible today
hardly notices. It boggles the mind
to realize how those students of the
Bible text, over a thousand years
ago, toiled for generations in order
to refine their system of graphic
notation.
Putting side by side the Aleppo
Codex, the Hebrew University Bible,
and the "Treatise on Differences"
will resolve an age-old miscon-
ception. We knew all along the
names of some master-massoretes,
but hardly anything more than their
names. Over the centuries the names
of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali had
become synonymous with the issue
of textual differences. Late medieval
writers and modern scholars had
gotten into the habit of relating any
kind of textual divergence to the
alleged feud between the two. Any
list of variants, whatever its true
origin, was related to them.
Today the picture has changed,
and so has our understanding of
the essence of massoretic activity-
largely, though not exclusively,
thanks to the fact that we possess
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979
the codex produced by Aaron ben
Asher. The "differences" between
those two masters concern the very
last divergences which could not be
resolved. The graphic notation had
been refined to its tiniest tittles and
had become practically unanimous.
Even so, some slight differences
remained, almost all of them with
regard to the use of a metheg. Yet
those last minute differences were
still deemed so important for the
correct tradition of Bible reading
that they were collected in lists in
order to make sure that all future
generations would remain aware of
all the smallest details of public
Bible reading, even those which were
not accepted by Ben Asher, whose
particular brand of tradition was
generally accepted.
We have dwelt on the position
of the Aleppo Codex, written about
900 C.E. It is an educated guess that
it must have taken about 200 years
for the graphic system to develop to
perfection. That takes us back to
about 700 C.E.-if we bear in mind
the list of names of Aaron's
forefathers, back to the "old Asher."
We possess no direct evidence as to
the very onset of the invention of
graphic notation, nor do we have
any hard facts to connect the
invention of massoretic graphic
notation with the misnamed Syriac
"massora," as was claimed a century
ago. In any event, why was it about
700 C.E. that graphic notation
became necessary?
The correct answer was prob-
ably given in the first generation of
Renaissance Hebraists, yet nobody
paid attention to it because it was
not given in a technical treatise on
Bible or language, nor was the
author a scholar of great repute. In
his disputation against his former
coreligionists, entitled Shebhile Tohu
(Itinera Deserta, Venice 1539),
wrote Gerardus Veltwych-then
recently baptized-referring to the
opinion which Elija Levita had
published a year earlier in his
Massoreth Ha-massoreth with regard
to the late origin of vowel signs:
ThereforeI hold thatafterthe religionof
Ishmael had been victorious in all the
155
 countries of the Orient and there was
some peacein the landof Israel,... they
put their minds to it and spent every
effort to make the lost languageread-
able. ...
If we translate Veltwych's idea
into a historical hypothesis, it
roughly amounts to this: the
invention of vowel signs is one of
the instances where traditional
inhibitions were overcome because of
external danger. They were invented
because Hebrew was in danger of
being lost after the Muslim
onslaught, yet they could not be
devised during wartime, but rather
in a period of relative quiet, because
such an invention requires time and
leisure.
Veltwych's observation, which
ought to be read in its full context,
reflects a keen historical mind. It
explains the why and when of
graphic notation. Without being
based on all the evidence we possess
today-culminating in the monu-
mental achievement of Aaron ben
Asher-it strikes us as amazingly to
the point.
Up to now we have taken it for
granted that the Aleppo Codex is,
indeed, the very model codex
declared authoritative by Maimon-
ides. Again, we cannot reopen the
discussion of all the technical details,
the more so since they are of an
intricate halachic nature. But I
should like to dwell on the major
evidence because it is of far-reaching
interest for understanding the
process of both textual and halachic
development. At this juncture, it will
be useful if the reader will look at
the reproductions of the relevant
pages of the codex.
One ought to remember two
basic facts. On the one hand, all
evidence is restricted a priori to the
S precious manuscript had been
156 BIBLICALARCHEOLOGIST/SUMMER1979
Pentateuch, since Maimonides was
only concerned with that part of the
Bible. On the other hand, we have
already noted that practically the
entire Pentateuch part of the Aleppo
Codex was destroyed in a pogrom
30 years ago. To be exact, only 11
pages out of the existing 588 of the
facsimile belong to the Pentateuch.
Whatever proof we wish to
offer must come from these few
leaves-a rather difficult demand. As
it happens, the crucial evidence has
survived, in a most unlikely fashion.
It is a clearly stated halachic
precept that in a Torah scroll the
Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32
must be laid out in 70 lines. We are
told exactly how to start the prose
lines at the top of the column and
how to divide the Song into 70
lines. This is normative teaching, as
laid down in Rabbi Joseph Caro's
code, Shulhan cAruch, based in turn
on what we find printed in
Maimonides' code, Mishne Torah.
Counting the lines in the
reproduction of the Aleppo Codex
will show that the song is laid out
in 67 lines. This is such an obvious
discrepancy that one must imme-
diately reach the conclusion that the
Aleppo Codex cannot be the codex
mentioned by Maimonides. It stands
to reason that this was the very fact
that caught the eye of the late
Umberto Cassuto, who was the only
modern Bible scholar with rabbinic
training who was allowed to look at
the codex when it was still in
Aleppo. His announcement in 1946,
subsequent to his visit to Aleppo in
1944, caused much consternation.
Cassuto flatly denied the possibility
that the Aleppo Codex could have
been the codex used by Maimonides.
Most tantalizingly, however, he
never indicated the reasons for his
judgment because as he said, they
were of too technical a nature for a
public announcement.
Cassuto was the only modern
scholar to be allowed by the Aleppo
community to study the codex at
some length, even though he was
not allowed to take notes. When it
was announced in 1948 that the
destroyed, it was inevitable that his
judgment had to be accepted. There
was nothing to argue about-he had
never stated his reasoning and
nobody was aware of the facts,
anyway. Very soon afterward he
passed away. This is where matters
stood until the codex reappeared.
The importance of what has
emerged since then does not just
lie in the facts themselves. It lies
also in what we learn about the
dynamics of textual change and
halachic decision, about the power
of local traditions which turn out to
be stronger than all the care which
an authority such as Maimonides
exercised in order to get matters
straight.
It is true that our printed
editions of Maimonides' Code state
that Deuteronomy 32 should be laid
out in 70 lines. This as well as some
other obvious discrepancies between
the facts of the codex and the text
of the Code is, in all probability,
what made Cassuto deny the identity
of the Aleppo Codex with the one
used by Maimonides. However, if
we refuse to rely on printed editions
and take the trouble to check the
copy of the Code prepared by
Maimonides himself-the Bodleian
MS Hunt 80, which fortunately has
survived-we are in for a surprise,
for the text reads 67 lines! If we go
on to check other ancient manu-
scripts of the Code, we see how
"correctors" crossed out 67 and
wrote 70 and then changed some of
the catch words so as to fit the
number.
In other words, Maimonides'
original wording and list fit exactly
the facts of the Aleppo Codex! Yet
those facts ran directly contrary to a
widespread custom of certain masso-
retes; so some copyists of the Code
substituted precisely the kind of
division and arrangement which
Maimonides had set out to prevent
in the first place. Thus, as irony
would have it, they caused him to
turn into accepted halacha precisely
the opposite of what he had really
The layout of the "Song of Moses" is
shown in the next three photographs.
Here the Song is laid out in 67 lines,
which matches the original "precorrected"
version in Maimonides Code.
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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979 157

 written. We can only assume that
this was a pia fraus-that those
copyists could not imagine, for good
reasons, that Maimonides had really
meant what he had written. Surely
he must have erred-and hence they
tactfully and tacitly corrected the
text of the Code.
The facts of the Code, then, fit
the facts of the Aleppo Codex
perfectly. The unbelievable mishap
that befell Maimonides' true ruling
goes a long way to suggest that the
facts may fit uniquely. Since we can
see from various medieval dis-
cussions that the correct number
(67) and arrangement of catchwords
seemed to experts like an exercise in
squaring the circle, we have fairly
convincing evidence that if there
ever was another manuscript that
fitted the description exactly, none
of the medieval scholars had seen it
or was even ready to admit the
possibility of its existence.
We must realize, however, that
while Maimonides knew exactly why
he accepted the layout of that one
codex as binding, the forces against
him were greater. It was neither his
authority that was openly disputed
nor the facts of the Codex. It was
simply that a different system was
quietly substituted and made out to
represent his decision. To make the
irony complete, being convinced that
this was, indeed, the ruling of the
master, the scribes of later manu-
scripts, as well as the printers of the
Code, caused the authority of
Maimonides to be thrown precisely
behind the kind of tradition which
he had declared faulty.
We have stressed sufficiently
that the halachically authoritative
position of the Aleppo Codex is not
based on details of orthography and
methegs. But the study of internal
correlations leaves no doubt that
massoretes around 1000 C.E. had
good reason to hold in highest
esteem "the correct codices prepared
by the master Aaron [ben Moshe]
ben Asher." On the other hand,
rival traditions were deeply rooted
and could not easily be brought into
line. Precisely because the differences
were not very obvious, non-Ben
Asher traditions easily were mixed
158 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979
into the stream, and most copyists
produced what were technically
codices mixti. It would carry us too
far afield were we to analyze the
ways in which the medieval
responsa-literature dealt with these
obvious discrepancies.
The responsa-literature clears up
some other misapprehensions.
Throughout the Middle Ages, Jewish
scholars were fully aware that there
were differences between codices. To
be sure, they did not think in terms
of readings and recensions. They
spoke of "correct" or "reliable"
codices. It was self-understood that
just as God is one, so also his
Torah is one. That was not to deny
the obvious, i.e., that there are
more-or-less reliable scribes and
more-or-less correct manuscripts.
Within the Jewish tradition
there were no such terms as "Masso-
retic Text" or "Textus Receptus. "
Such terms were completely alien to
the conceptual framework of
massoretic scholars or halachists. It
will be the final task of the present
paper to explain how these terms
grew to denote the realities of the
Tiberian Bible text, of which the
Aleppo Codex was the earliest and
most renowned model codex.
We may start by trying to trace
the turning point in the history of
understanding the nature of the
Bible text. That point was the very
moment when a relatively fixed
printed form emerged and when
Christian Hebraists took over from
their Jewish masters and started to
speculate about the nature of the
Hebrew text as part of their inner-
Christian debates about the author-
ity of the Bible.
In a certain sense we may fix
the year 1525 as the turning point,
i.e., the year when Bomberg's
printing press turned a particular
Tiberian subcrystallization, as edited
by Jacob ben Hayim, into the
Hebrew Bible text. To the naked eye
there are hardly any differences
between the Aleppo Codex and that
Venice publication of Ben Hayim's
Rabbinic Bible. Today, however,
once the apparatus of the Hebrew
University Bible enables us to see
the innumerable differences, we can
begin to appreciate their importance.
We have already intimated that
the problem was a Christian one.
The text as printed in 1525 became
an absolute model because the time
was ripe for a theological misinter-
pretation which has partly been
carried over into modern times.
In the context of the Christian
debate, the text as transmitted by
the massoretes came to be regarded
in certain Christian quarters in the
16th century as absolutely correct
and divinely guarded. The "Masso-
retic Text" was conceived of
axiomatically not only as the
original text, but "original" was
interpreted to include all those
graphic refinements which had been
devised by the massoretes. The very
tittles of vowel and accent signs had
been transmitted by the massoretes
from the time of Moses. To speak
of the "correct Massoretic Text"
implied, as it were, the continuous
chain of pure divine word from Sinai.
The array of forces was rather
amazing, and throughout the 16th
century, positions were explored both
by Catholic and Protestant church-
men. Whereas Elija Levita was
generally recognized as the master-
Hebraist whose word was accepted by
all Christians, his astonishingly
accurate picture of the late rise of
vowel- and accent-signs was not
accepted by most Protestant scholars
in the outgoing 16th and early 17th
centuries. Since the slogan of sola
scriptura was interpreted to refer to
what now became the "Massoretic
Layoutof the middleportionof the
"Song of Moses"(continuedfrom
previousphotograph).
.i i

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979 159


Speaking of the "Mas-
soretic Text" as a
fountain kept in pris-
teen purity was not a
Jewish concept.
160 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979
Text," as a whole, including signs for
vowels and accents, reformers were
driven in the direction of turning the
"Massoretic Text," down to its
smallest detail, into the pure
receptacle of divine inspiration. As is
well known, this process culminated
in the self-defeating claims of the
renowned Basel Hebraist, Johannes
Buxtorf.
It is worth stressing again that
this idea of the "Massoretic Text" was
not a formulated Jewish position,
although it happened to fit
ideologically with medieval Karaite
views. Again, since Kabbalistic
writings made much of the hidden
meanings of points-and Christian
Hebraists had been drawn in the first
place to the study of Hebrew because
of their attraction to the hidden
teachings of Kabbala-the axiom of
the "purity" of the massoretic text
was strengthened from various sides.
On the other hand, Catholics, as a
rule, were driven to find proofs
against the reliability of that
text and against the early origin of
graphic notation.
The full details of that history
will be discussed elsewhere. Suffice it
to say that we have today a pretty
good idea how the concept of the
"Massoretic Text" spread in Chris-
tian Hebraist circles, how the
Tiberian Bible text developed, and
how the subcrystallization perpet-
uated in the early printed texts
related to an originally different
Tiberian subcrystallization, as can
now be seen from Aaron ben
Asher's codex.
Even more astonishing is the
use of the well-established term
Textus Receptus, which to many.
scholars has become synonymous
with "Tiberian" or "massoretic."
Thus the text of the Aleppo Codex
could be termed today at once
Tiberian, massoretic, and Receptus,
and possible differences have become
blurred.
As in various other instances,
terms originating within the frame-
work of the study of the New
Testament were easily adapted to
that of the Old Testament, and their
origin and specific meaning were
quickly forgotten.
We might pause for a moment
and remind ourselves that there were
severe problems with the first edition
of the Greek New Testament which
Erasmus published rather hastily for
his Basel publisher, for reasons of
marketing competition. Roughly
speaking, that was the time when
Jacob ben Hayim published his
Hebrew text, while the Alcala
Polyglot had already been printed but
not yet published. To be sure, the
textual problems with regard to the
Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek
New Testament are of a totally
different order, but no Christian
scholar at the beginning of the 16th
century could have had any inkling
of that.
The full details of that history
will be discussed elsewhere. Suffice it
to say that we have today a pretty
good idea how the concept of the
"Massoretic Text" spread in Chris-
tian Hebraist circles, how the
Tiberian Bible text developed, and
how the subcrystallization perpet-
uated in the early printed texts related
to an originally different Tiberian
subcrystallization, as can now be seen
from Aaron ben Asher's codex.
Between the mid-16th century
and the beginning of the 17th a
generally accepted Greek text
emerged, largely thanks to the
influence of the renowned Paris
printer Stephanus (hence the Greek
sigma tau as a symbol). Even
specialists in New Testament textual
studies do not quite seem to have
realized that when the 1633 Elzevir
edition of the Greek New Testament
appeared, the author of the
preface-lately said to have been
Scaliger's disciple Heinsius-did not
yet use textus receptus as a term, but
rather built a descriptive syntagma:
textum ergo habes nunc ab omnibus
receptum... "Herewith you have the
text now accepted by every one."
Unless some student of the
history of New Testament studies
proves otherwise, I am inclined to
Layoutof the final part of the "Songof
Moses"(continuedfrom previoustwo
photographs).
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BIBLICAL SUMMER 1979 161

ARCHEOLOGIST,/
suggest that Textus Receptus as a
term came into vogue about a century
later, in the writings of Bengel or
Wettstein. In other words, Textus
Receptus became a meaningful term
in 18th-century New Testament
textual studies. I submit that only
after the term Textus Receptus was
signs-into the one-and-only correct
and true text, and it took genera-
tions of modern scholars to
appreciate the correct facts-up to
the reemergence of the original
manuscript of Aaron ben Asher, the
justly famous Aleppo Codex.
Penkower, 1.
in Maimonides and the Aleppo Codex.
press Textus 9.
Yeivin, 1.
1968 The Aleppo Codex of the Bible-A
Study of its Vocalization and Accen-
tuation. Publications of the Hebrew
University Bible Project 3 (Hebrew).

adopted in New Testament studies BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

was it taken over into Old Testament
textual criticism, in spite of structural
and typological differences. Thus it
became part and parcel of the issues
which Kennicott set out to study and
which have kept scholars busy ever
since.
Our survey of some of the
major issues connected with the
position of the Aleppo Codex and
the rise of the Massoretic Bible text
has taken us far afield. On the one
hand, these seem the driest of dry
questions-details of orthography
and tiny accent strokes. Yet they
become of decisive importance in the
struggle to guard traditions of
liturgical reading in a chain from
millennium to millennium.
As students of biblical antiqui-
ties, we have noted how biblical
fragments from Qumran, written
2000 years ago, link up with the
story of the dynasty of the "old
Asher," which for generations toiled
to save the purity of the Torah
in the face of the encroachment
of Islam.
Another two centuries, and the
towering figure of Maimonides
attempted to create order out of the
chaos of rival traditions by lending
his authority to Ben Asher's codex--
and failed. This paper was not
meant to explore halachic rami-
fications; but the lesson we learned
from the substitute readings in
Maimonides' Code was a very basic
one, both for the history of biblical
philology and of halacha.
From there we moved to the
great Bible printings of the early
16th century, which, by the very
nature of the process, turned a
particular Tiberian subtype into
what became the "Massoretic Text"
or finally, "Textus Receptus. It was
the stress on sola scriptura in
Protestant circles that turned that
subtype-including all its accent
Some material on the subject matter of this paper
can be found in other publications of the present
writer and others. Only publications by scholars
who have used the codex at least in part have
been mentioned.
Ben-Zvi, I.
1960 The Codex of Ben Asher. Textus 1:
1-16.
Breuer, M.
1976 The Aleppo Codex and the Accepted
Text of the Bible. Jerusalem: Mosad
Harav Kook (Hebrew).
Cohen, M.
1973 Orthographic Systems in the Ancient
Massora Codices. Unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Hebrew University
(Hebrew).
Dotan, A.
1977 Ben Asher's Creed. Missoula, MT:
Scholars Press.
Goshen-Gottstein, M. H.
1960 Text and Language in Bible and
Qumran. Jerusalem: Orient Pub.
House.
1962 The Missing Part of the Aleppo
Codex. Textus 2: 53-59.
1963 The Rise of the Tiberian Bible Text.
Pp. 79-122 in Biblical and Other
Studies, ed. A. Altman. Cambridge:
Harvard University.
1965 The Aleppo Codex and the Scribe Ibn
Buy~ca. Tarbiz 33: 149-56 (Hebrew).
1965 The Book of Isaiah: sample edition
with Introduction. Jerusalem: Mag-
nes Press.
1966 A Recovered Part of the Aleppo
Codex. Textus 5: 53-59.
1967 Hebrew Biblical Manuscripts. Biblica
48: 243-90.
1972 Biblica Rabbinica. (Introduction to
the reprint of the 1525 edition.)
Jerusalem: Makor.
1975 The Hebrew University Bible: The
Book of Isaiah, Vol. I. Jerusalem:
Magnes Press for Hebrew University
Bible Project.
1976 The Aleppo Codex: I. Facsmimile.
Jerusalem: Magnes Press for Hebrew
University Bible Project.
Lipschiitz, L.
1965 Kitab al-Khilaf. Publications of the
Hebrew University'Bible Project 2.
Loewinger, D. S.
1960 The Aleppo Codex and the Ben Asher
Tradition. Textus 1: 59-111.

162 BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979

 Men and Terms
Abraham ben David: Rabbi in Pos-
quieres (12th century), eminent halachic
opponent of Maimonides.
Alcala Polyglot: First polyglot Bible,
also known as Complutensis, author-
ized by the Pope for publication, with
delay, in 1522.
Aleppo Codex, authorship note: Note
appended (in lieu of colophon) at the
end of Aleppo Codex and lost in the
1948 pogrom. The contents of this note
now are borne out by internal evidence.
It reads (as published by I. Ben-Zvi
1964: 14): "This complete copy of the
twenty-four Books, which was written
by our Master and Teacher Solomon
known as Ben Buydac .. .and pointed
and given a full Massorah by the great
scholar and wise sage, lord of scribes
and father of the sages and chief of the
scholars, etc. Master Rab Aaron the son
of Master Rab Asher, etc."
Bengel: 18th-century New Testament
scholar.
Biblia Hebraica: Widely used student
edition of the Hebrew Bible with text-
critical notes, edited originally by Kittel,
offering since the third edition a text
based on the Leningrad Codex.
Bomberg: Famous 16th-century Vene-
tian Christian printer of many major
Hebrew texts.
Buxtorf: Renowned 17th-century Basel
Hebraist and foremost champion of the
belief in the origin of vowel points in
biblical times.
Cassuto: Late Professor of Biblical
Studies in the Hebrew University.
Cave of Elijah: Niche in the Aleppo
synagogue in which the chest with the
codex was kept.
codices mixti: Manuscripts that do not
preserve a text of undisturbed lineage,
but exhibit influences from various
sources.
Elija Levita: Foremost wandering
teacher of Hebrew to Christian scholars
in the early 16th century and most
penetrating student of massoretic mat-
ters before modern times.
Erasmus: Renowned Rotterdam pre-
Reformation humanist and editor of the
first printing of the Greek New Tes-
tament.
Gaonic literature: Writings of legal and
exegetical nature by the heads of
academies of the post-Talmudic period.
halacha: System of legal tradition,
reasoning, and decision as developed
from the Talmudic period onward and doctrine, as held binding by Rome.
codified in the Middle Ages. Shulhan CAruch: The code of halacha
Kabbala: System of esoteric theologi- written by R. Josef Karo (16th century),
cal teaching, developed for centuries by the final major medieval codification.
Jewish sages, which was widely held, Syriac "Massora": Tradition of reading
around 1500, to contain the solution to difficult words in the Bible text as
the problems of the ailing Church. taught in academies of the Syriac
Karaite: Jewish sect, as developed in Church and laid down in special manu-
the Gaonic period, which rejected the scripts (about 1000 C.E.), which has
oral tradition of the Talmudic sages and some superficial similarities with the
recognized verbatim interpretation of system of Hebrew Massora.
the written Law only. Textus Receptus: "The received text,"
Kennicott: 18th-centuryBritishscholar i.e., by the authority and unbroken
who was responsible for a large-scale tradition, as it were, of Church or
textual collation of medieval Hebrew Synagogue.
biblical manuscripts. Tiberian tradition: One of the three
Maimonides: Most widely acclaimed graphic traditions of Hebrew vowel and
all-round medieval scholar (Spain and accent signs, and the one most accom-
Egypt, 12th century), active in halacha, plished and finally accepted by all
philosophy, and medicine alike. Jewish communities.
metheg: Small vertical stroke, written Tractate: Any of the dozens of subdi-
next to vowel and indicating slight tonal visions of the Talmud, arranged accor-
accent or secondary stress. ding to subject matter.
Mishael ben Uzziel: Compiler of most Veltwych: Jewish 16th-century con-
trustworthy list of minute differences vert, Orientalist, and statesman.
still remaining between the texts of the Wettstein: 18th-century New Testa-
two massoretic masters, Ben Asher and ment scholar.
Ben Naphtali.
Mishne Torah: The code of halacha
written by Maimonides, the first of the
two major medieval codifications.
Palestinian Talmud: Literary crystal-
lization of Rabbinic tradition as dis-
cussed and taught in the academies
of Palestine, roughly between 200 and
350 C.E.
Peshitta: Bible version in the Syriac
language, as created for and used by the
Aramaic-speaking Church of Edessa.
Rabbanite: Tradition of mainstream
Judaism which recognizes both written
and oral Law, in contrast to Karaites.
Rabbinic Bible: Edition of Hebrew
Bible and its major traditional com-
mentaries, as first printed in 1518 and
1525 by Bomberg in Venice.
responsa: Literary genre of written
replies to questions concerning specific
issues of halacha. O
Scaliger: Most renowned of humanist o
philologists (around 1600) who turned
the then recently founded University of o
Leiden into a major center of Reformed o
scholarship.
Septuagint: Greek version of the Bible,
originally reflecting the state of the text
in Egypt ca. 200 B.C.E.
sola scriptura: "scripture only"-slo-
gan of the Reformation in its fight
against the tradition of Catholic Church
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST/ SUMMER 1979 163