Aleppo Codex
The Codex of Aleppo ( Keter ( " Crown") Aram Tzova ) was up to his damage ( 1947), the oldest complete manuscript of the Masoretic Hebrew Bible. It now includes more 295 of 487 originally ( according to other sources: 480) leaves and is located in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum in the Shrine of the Book.
Formation
The consonants of the Codex were written about 920 AD in or near Tiberias (Israel ) by the writer Sch'lomo ben Buya'a. The text was then reviewed by Aaron ben Moshe ben Asher, vocalized and provided with Masoretic notes. Ben Asher was the last and most famous member of the Grammatikerfamilie Ben Asher from Tiberias, which formed the most accurate version of the Masorah and therefore the Hebrew Bible. The manuscript was intended from the outset as a pattern Codex. Only on Passover, Shavuot ( Feast of Weeks = ) and the Feast of Tabernacles was to be read from it; otherwise she just stood scholars for the clarification of doubts questions. For the " normal" Bible study she was not thought of.
Scope
It lacks beginning and end of the manuscript as well as individual pages from the center.
The current text coverage begins with the last word of Deuteronomy 28:17 ( ומשארתך, " and thy store ").
The following are the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, song of Songs.
The last leaf ends ( " comes out and, behold, ye daughters of Zion ...") with בנות ציון in Song of Songs 3:11.
There is a lack in particular: the end of the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, esters, Daniel and Ezra / Nehemiah.
History
Mid-11th century, about a century after it was written, the Codex came into the hands of Karäergemeinschaft of Jerusalem, after he was apparently bought the heirs of Aaron ben Asher. Not long after, he was taken as booty from Jerusalem (either 1071 or 1099 by the Seljuks by the Crusaders ), and finally plunged into the Rabbanitensynagoge in Cairo back to where it was used by Maimonides. Maimonides ' descendants brought him the end of the 14th century to Aleppo (Syria ). The church in Aleppo kept him for six centuries so carefully that it was almost impossible for outsiders to examine him. In particular, always permission to complete filming was denied. Subsequently, however, it turned out that, nevertheless, photographs of individual pages exist, from the years 1887 (Gen 26.37 to 27.30 ) and 1910 ( Dt 4.38 to 6.3 ) (see Würthwein, p 39, footnote 3 ).
During the pogrom in Aleppo in December 1947 in Aleppo, the ancient synagogue of the village was burned and the Codex damaged. The exact circumstances of the damage are controversial to this day. The Jews of Aleppo claim that the missing leaves were burned; on the other hand show the leaves obtained no evidence of the effects of fire ( the dark spots on the side edges based on fungus ).
In January 1958, the Codex was brought under not entirely clear circumstances to Jerusalem, where he remains to this day. A massive dispute arose over the legitimacy of the messenger to pass the Codex to the Israel Museum. Originating from Aleppo rabbis are of the opinion that the Codex only them had to be passed. On 31 December 1981 the Board of the Department of Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library, a sheet was passed out of the chronicle books. Part of a page from Exodus in 1987 known to the scholars of the Ben- Zvi Institute. In November 2007, appeared on another page. She had been rescued at the burning of the synagogue in 1947. The emergence of this previously missing pages could mean that other leaves are still present somewhere. So some scholars suspect that is still missing leaves may have been ripped out in 1947 by members of the Jewish community and privately hidden.
This contrasts with the assumption that the Codex was created in 1958 almost completely transferred to the Israel Museum. The director of the Ben- Zvi Institute at the Israel Museum, Meir Benayahu has never put together a decent catalog of incoming books, and in his term until his dismissal in suspicious circumstances in 1970 numerous manuscripts have disappeared from the stocks. The Israeli journalist for archaeological and religious subjects Matti Friedman writes in his book "The Aleppo Codex ": " We have only this one fact: The Crown of Aleppo was the end of January 1958, at a time when the lack of a significant part the handwriting was not documented anywhere, in the care of a library in which the books were not sure. In March of that year, 200 pages were missing. Over the decades, the scientists at the Ben- Zvi Institute let the public know again and again that they sought all over the world for the missing parts. You searched in old Aleppo, in Brooklyn, Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. They asked a clairvoyant in Switzerland, to commute the locality on maps of southern Lebanon. They watched as it seems, everywhere - not only in the mirror ". .
A collector of Judaica claimed in 1993 that a stock of 70 to 100 pages from the Aleppo Codex was offered to buy him mid- 1980 years in Jerusalem. He did not want to pay the asking price, so that the stock had gone to a collector in London, whose name he would not divulge.
Importance
The Codex of Aleppo is considered by many Jewish groups than most authoritative source for both the biblical text as well as for the vocalization and cantillation, as he proved most faithfully follows the Masoretic principles of Ben Asher school. He is also known as the most authoritative document of the Masorah considered ( " tradition " ), the tradition by which the Hebrew Scriptures have been preserved across over the generations. See also Masoretic text.
This assessment is based on the fact that the Codex of Aleppo was that manuscript that the rabbi and scholar Maimonides (1135-1204) used when he laid down the detailed rules for the writing of Torah scrolls in his Mishneh Torah ( Sefer Torah Hilkot, " The laws of the Torah scroll "). However, Maimonides quoted him only for the sectioning and other formatting issues, but not for the text version itself " The Codex, which we used in this work, is the well known in Egypt Codex, which was in Jerusalem and 24 books including ," he wrote.
The work of Moshe Goshen - Gottstein obtained in the few pages of the Torah seems to confirm that the Codex of Aleppo, in fact, was the manuscript used by Maimonides. In the introduction to his facsimile reprint of the Codex Goshen - Gottstein rated the Codex of Aleppo not only as the oldest single-volume Tanach, but as the first complete Tanakh, which was made by one or two people as a unified work in a consistent style.
In the Christian Bible, Science Codex of Aleppo is considered one of the oldest and most important witnesses to the Masoretic text, and used in scientific text issues with.
Modern editions
The Codex of Aleppo is the source of several modern editions of the Hebrew Bible, including the issue of Mordechai Breuer, the Hebrew University Bible Project (so far [ as of 2006 ] published: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel ) and the " Jerusalem Crown ": the latter follows the page Layout of the Codex, provides a value based on Breuer's work and text was printed in 2000 in Jerusalem. Here, a redesigned model was used, based on the calligraphy of the Codex.
This edition of the Bible is used in Israel in the swearing in of the President.