Leningrad Codex

This is ambiguous as, since 1876, these appellations refer to a different biblical codex (MS. Heb B 3) which is even older (AD 916), but contains only the later Prophets.

The biblical text as found in the codex contains the Hebrew letter-text along with Tiberian vowels and cantillation signs.

The carpet page shows a star with the names of the scribes on the edges and a blessing written in the middle.

Its former owner, the Crimean Karaite collector Abraham Firkovich, left no indication in his writings where he had acquired the codex, which was taken to Odessa in 1838 and later transferred to the Imperial Library in St Petersburg.

In 1935, the Leningrad Codex was lent to the Old Testament Seminar of the University of Leipzig for two years while Paul E. Kahle supervised its transcription for the Hebrew text of the third edition of Biblia Hebraica (BHK), published in Stuttgart, 1937.

The Leningrad Codex also served as the basis for two modern Jewish editions of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh):[citation needed] (Contrary to popular belief as previously stated on this page, the Koren editions of Tanakh are not based primarily on the Leningrad Codex, but on the second edition Mikraot Gedolot published by Daniel Bomberg in Venice in 1525, with changes made to the text based on a variety of older manuscripts which are not named by the publisher.

For minute masoretic details, however, Israeli and Jewish scholars have shown a marked preference for modern Hebrew editions based upon the Aleppo Codex.

[citation needed] As explained in the Contents section above, the order of the books in the Leningrad Codex follows the Tiberian textual tradition and is different from most modern Hebrew bibles: The Torah: The Nevi'im: The Ketuvim