What is the Aleppo Codex?

According to Schrader there would be no MS. older than that preserved at St. Petersburg, and called 'Codex Petropolitanus,' of the tenth century; but there seems no reason to doubt that the MS. preserved in the Synagogue at Aleppo, which the Jews of that place allege is Ben Asher's own copy, ranks first for antiquity. It has not yet been collated. Strack is our chief authority upon this manuscript. As to the ancient MSS. of which, as far as is with certainty known, we still possess only a record, see Kennicott, 'Dissertatio Generalis,' §§ 54, 55, or Horne's Introduction. Vicissitudes from Divine judgment or from persecution would account for the loss of the autographs of Old Testament and New Testament writings. Church history tells the story of the dire destruction of the Christian Books. The oldest MSS. of the Old and of the New Testament alike are copies. The reader may consult Westcott for the ordeal through which the Christian Books passed in early days. — De Rossi, although he considered his No. 634 to be of the eighth century, says that Hebrew MSS. of the twelfth century are 'very ancient:' this will afford an indication of the recent character of existing copies.

In lieu of Kennicott's large edition, the handy Hebrew Bible of Döderlein and Meissner (1793) might be used with advantage, because it is furnished with variant readings taken from both Kennicott and De Rossi, who together collated about 1500 MSS. and more than 400 printed documents. Kennicott's opinions can be learned from his 'Dissertation,' De Rossi's from the Prolegomena to his 'Varia lectiones Vet. Test.' (1784– 88). The most recent writer on the subject of the Text and of MSS. is Strack.

When the Arabs conquered those parts of the world where these learned Jews were chiefly settled, and when the earlier Caliphs in the eighth and ninth centuries patronised all kinds of learning;— a great impulse was given to the cultivation of the Hebrew language and literature, and to the critical study of the Bible. A succession of Jewish doctors then flourished in the East, who are styled the Masoretes, because their collection of writings is called the masorah or tradition. They directed their attention almost exclusively to the text of the Bible, selecting the best manuscripts, and rejecting what was corrupt. The scrupulous care they took may be judged from the fact that they have counted the number of words, and the number of letters in the Bible or in any particular parts. They have left on record what is the middle word, or the middle letter of the entire book; how many words begin with a particular letter, and many other minute labours of the same kind, trifling indeed, but still showing most remarkably how careful they were of even words and letters.

When the Arabs conquered those parts of the world where these learned Jews were chiefly settled, and when the earlier Caliphs in the eighth and ninth centuries patronised all kinds of learning;— a great impulse was given to the cultivation of the Hebrew language and literature, and to the critical study of the Bible. A succession of Jewish doctors then flourished in the East, who are styled the Masoretes, because their collection of writings is called the masorah or tradition. They directed their attention almost exclusively to the text of the Bible, selecting the best manuscripts, and rejecting what was corrupt. The scrupulous care they took may be judged from the fact that they have counted the number of words, and the number of letters in the Bible or in any particular parts. They have left on record what is the middle word, or the middle letter of the entire book; how many words begin with a particular letter, and many other minute labours of the same kind, trifling indeed, but still showing most remarkably how careful they were of even words and letters.

The consonants alone represent the Hebrew Text. Relics of the past, such as Inscriptions, Stones and Coins, have only consonants. As late as Jerome's day the Text was still unpointed. The Talmud, closed in the fifth or sixth century, never alludes to vowel-points: it gives instances of the different ways in which words were vocalised. In the appendices to Baer's editions will be found lists of ancient readings, which relate only to the consonants, and are called respectively 'Oriental' (or Babylonian) and 'Western' (or Palestinian) readings. On the other hand, in Walton's Polyglott, besides the Rabbinical Bibles and Baer's editions, we meet with lists associated respectively with the names of Ben Naphtali (Babylonian) and Ben Asher (Palestinian), which relate to the vowels and accents, and are said to belong to the eleventh century (A.C.)

The vowels had in the meantime been added by the Masorites, or authors of the Masora, who were Jewish critics between the sixth and tenth centuries. After the close of the Talmud, their work began in the Jewish Academies, as at Tiberias. Aben Esra says, 'We have received the whole punctuation from them:' see Bacher's 'Abraham Ibn Esra als Grammatiker' (1880), p.37 note. Another system of vocalisation appears to have obtained in the Babylonian schools, exhibited in the ancient MS. of which a facsimile was published by Strack in 1875. It is called the 'Codex of St. Petersburg.'

The Masorites then, amongst other things, laboured honestly to fix the pronunciation of the Text when Hebrew was becoming a dead language. This appears to have been their earliest and their best work. They must also have invented the elaborate system of accents which, besides being phonetic symbols, provide an analysis of the sentence, showing what words go together. The interpreter is rash who departs from them without very good reason. Amongst the minative with which the Masorites occupied themselves was the counting of words and letters; the attention of the reader is directed to the middle word of a book, and so on. They took note of every 'jot and tittle.' The points must have been intended as the permanent expression of the traditional pronunciation. Notwithstanding that they have been subject to much controversy from the days of Buxtorf (seventeenth century), all scholars agree in following them in the main. Thrupp says, 'Nothing can be more remote from the truth than that we are at liberty to supply vowels to the text at our own unfettered discretion'; and De Wette, 'On the whole, the Masoretic text is a much better witness for punctuation than the often ignorant versions and hasty critics.' The accents stand upon the same footing.

We must now consider the history and condition of the Text represented by the MSS. The existing MSS. are based upon a strictly Jewish arrangement of the Text belonging to Christian times. Upon this 'Recension' — if the expression be correct have we to depend; so that there is no such variety of MS. evidence for any Hebrew readings of Old Testament texts as may be obtained for Greek readings in the New Testament writings. This doubtless damps the ardour of critics, which finds vent in an often too free use of versions: this is all that they have to fall back upon. The Text must for the most part have acquired a fixed form before the birth of Christ, as Aquila and the other Greek translators, of whom we shall have more to say, depart from it less than do the LXX. Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel, the Targumists, or Chaldee Paraphrasts, also follow it very closely. The essential agreement of the Hebrew MSS. of the Old Testament is beyond comparison greater than that of Greek MSS. of the New. The former do on the whole give the same Text, that is, the Text which underlies the Masora: it is in the truest sense substance of tradition (cf. chap. 10). The Jews have so far been faithful to their trust. We may contrast with it the corrupt state of Mahommedan texts of which Arabic scholars complain. A proof of the general accuracy of the Hebrew Text we possess is afforded by the variation that exists between parallel passages, in which the temptation to alter would be strong: cf. Pss. 14 and 53; Ps. 18 and 2 Sam. 22. The state of the Greek Text of the New Testament in this respect stands on a much lower level.

Like the Jews themselves, the MSS. are scattered far and wide: some, being the Synagogue rolls, are in the custody of Jewish congregations of all lands; others, being private copies, in our great British libraries. The Jews regard the Spanish copies as of most value; De Rossi and his followers prefer the Italian and German. However this may be, De Rossi seems right in regarding those MSS. of greatest excellence which are ancient (see his 16th canon), and doubtless it is satisfactory when they agree with the ancient versions (56th canon).

The Hebrew Text has of course been inherited by us from the ancient Jews. The Text which has long been the common working-book of students is that of Van der Hooght (1703), revised by Hahn, Theile, and others. No one seems yet to have dealt with the criticism of the Old Testament Text in the same masterly way as has been done for the New Testament by Griesbach, Lachmann, and their followers. It is wise not to depart from the 'Masoretic Text:' so thought even the free critic De Wette. Some compensation for the want of a standard critical Text is to be found in the carefully edited Texts of Baer, already alluded to, brought out under the auspices of Professor Delitzsch. They are furnished with useful critical notes, and ample use has been made both of MSS. and Editions. The following are all that have as yet appeared: Genesis, Ezra and Nehemiah (with Daniel), Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets.

The original writings were copied on manuscripts, in painstaking accuracy. This was assured through various techniques, such as counting the number of occurrences of each letter, etc.

Evidence for the accuracy of transmission abounds. Until 1947, the oldest known OT manuscripts were from around 1,000 AD. Bible critics claimed that these had to be very inaccurate because so many centuries had elapsed. The famous Qumran discovery, in 1947, proved them wrong (the critics, not the manuscripts). The caves in Qumran contained copies of all books of the Old Testament (except Esther) - from 100 - 200 years BC. A careful comparison showed that these manuscripts were virtually identical to the ones that had been known before (from 1000 AD).

The 'oracles of God' were committed to Israel, Rom. 3:2, and they have been zealous defenders of the letter of the O.T. For a long time it was thought that their great care and exactitude in copying had preserved the manuscripts from error; but it has been abundantly proved that those copyists erred, as all others have erred in this respect, and numerous errors have been discovered in the MSS, though many of them are seen at once to be mistakes of the pen, some doubtless caused through the similarity of the Hebrew letters, and are easily corrected. Other differences can be set right by the preponderance of evidence in the MSS themselves now that many of these have been collated.

As is well known the O.T. was written in Hebrew, except the portions mentioned under ARAMAIC. Until the labours of Kennicott and De' Rossi it was thought that there were no errors in the Hebrew manuscripts, but many differences were found. The variations however are for the most part trivial mistakes of the copyists, which do not materially affect the text. The examination of MSS goes to prove that the penmen must have exercised great care, some of the Hebrew letters being very similar.

In what we have said about the text, it must be understood that we refer chiefly to the New Testament. That of the Old Testament remains what it was, the Massoretic text, manuscripts of which are not so ancient even as those of the New Testament, and which have so little variety in them as practically to be a unit. The Septuagint and other versions are too uncertain for us to allow them at present to affect the integrity of the text as we have it.