Bible Manuscripts

Biblical Manuscript – Handwritten copy of section text of Bible 

A biblical manuscript is a handwritten copy of a section of the text of the Bible and the word Bible is derived from the Greek biblia or book, while manuscript comes from Latin manu or hand and scriptum or written. The original manuscript is known as the `autographs’.

These manuscripts are of different sizes from tiny scrolls comprising of individual verse of the Jewish scriptures to huge polyglot codices of both Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and the New Testament together with extracanonical works.

It is essential to study the biblical manuscripts since the handwritten copies of books may contain errors and the science of textual criticism tends to reconstruct the original text of the books particularly the ones which could have been published earlier to the invention of the printing press. The oldest Hebrew language manuscript of the Tanakh was the Aleppo and Leningrad codex.

The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls at Qumran pushed the manuscript history of the Tanakh back a millennium from the previous two complete codices and prior to this discovery, the earliest manuscripts of the Old Testament were of Greek like the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus.From the 800 manuscripts which were found at Qumran, 220 were from the Tanakh.

Ancient Manuscripts in Hebrew

Sections of the New Testament are preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work with over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts of various other ancient languages comprising of Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Coptic, Ethiopic and Armenian.

Though there are several ancient Biblical manuscripts, the importance of the Leningrad Codex as well as the Aleppo Codex, codices created by Masoretic scholars is in the comments contained in the text. The ancient biblical manuscripts that are written in Hebrew does not have vowels and even if there is no question with regards to the letters of a given text, there still remains a question as to how a particular word could be pronounced and its meaning. Similarly, the ancient biblical manuscripts like the Dead Sea Scrolls could contain no indication on how the Torah sections and the prophetic reading should be chanted in the synagogue.

Only Complete Copy of Hebrew Bible – Leningrad Codex

On the other hand codices like the Leningrad Codex and Aleppo Codex have vowel marking in the form of subscripts and superscripts and also contain other markings showing pitch relationships in guiding the cantor in chanting the prescribed Torah.

Besides this, an important aspect is that they contain massive marginal notations regarding cruxes in the text which are difficult to interpretation. Till they were damaged and lost partially, the Aleppo Codex was considered to be the `crown’ of the ancient biblical manuscripts as well as the version of the Hebrew Bible which eventually became the most authoritative text in Judaism and its loss was a big blow to Jewish scholarship though another complete codex existed in the Leningrad Code.

The only complete copy of the Hebrew Bible from the same period like the Aleppo Code was the Leningrad Codex in St. Petersburg which is similar to the Aleppo Codex in several respects with regards to dates as well as in distinction. The Leningrad Codex like the Aleppo Codex has vowel marking, extensive textual notes and cantillation signs.