Sister of Leningrad Codex Discovered!

Congratulations to Kim Phillips, Tyndale House Research Associate, for discovering a manuscript of the Former Prophets by Samuel ben Jacob the scribe of the Leningrad Codex. This should make a significant difference to our understanding of the main manuscript used for the study of the Hebrew Bible today.

The Tyndale House notice is here. The original article is online freely in the Tyndale Bulletin.

A Contract to copy Scripture from AD 1021

Without doubt, one of the most important manuscripts for our modern editions of the Hebrew Scriptures is the Leningrad Codex B19a, and many institutions own the facsimile edition. [Interesting that people stick with the name ‘Leningrad Codex’ and that the name has not gone the way of the Rhodes statues.] This manuscripts is dated, and to my surprise I learned that from some years later we have a contract with the scribe of the Leningrad Codex, Samuel ben Jacob, to copy ‘Eight Prophets and the Writings’ for the respectable sum of 25 dinars.

Read the full story here in the fragment of the month of the Taylor-Schechter Research Unit of the Cambridge University Library.