Manuscript
The Leningrad Codex
Also known as Codex Leningradensis · Firkovich B19a · L · St Petersburg Codex
hebrew-bibleold-testamentmasoretic-texttextual-criticism
Summary
The oldest complete Hebrew Bible that survived in one piece — and the book almost every modern Old Testament is translated from.
- Copied AD 1008 (the colophon supports 1008, possibly 1009).
- Written in hebrew on parchment.
- Kept at Russian National Library, St Petersburg (Firkovich B19a).
- Contains The complete Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
- Named in 15 of the places your Bible carries a footnote.
Sources (2)
- The Leningrad Codex — full facsimile · accessed 2026-08-06Public-domain facsimile of the complete manuscript.
- Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed. (Fortress Press, 2012) · accessed 2026-08-06The standard handbook of Hebrew Bible textual criticism.
What it is
It was copied in Cairo in AD 1008 by a scribe named Samuel ben Jacob, who signed and dated his work. "Leningrad" is where it ended up, not where it was made.
It holds the entire Hebrew Bible with the full Masoretic apparatus — the vowel points, the accents, and the marginal notes the Masoretes used to guard the text letter by letter.
The Aleppo Codex is several decades older and was the better text, but much of it has been missing since 1947. That is why this one carries the load.
Manuscript details
- Date
- AD 1008 (the colophon supports 1008, possibly 1009)
- Language
- Hebrew
- Script
- Square Hebrew with Tiberian vowel points and accents
- Material
- Parchment
- Held at
- Russian National Library, St Petersburg (Firkovich B19a)
- Found at
- Written in Cairo; acquired by Abraham Firkovich in the nineteenth century
- Contains
- The complete Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)
Why it matters
This is the load-bearing one. Its text is what the scholarly printed Hebrew Bible reproduces — Biblia Hebraica (1937), Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977) and Biblia Hebraica Quinta — so nearly every Old Testament on an English-speaking shelf traces back through this single book copied out by one named man in Cairo.
Where this witness is read
The words used here: codex
- codex
- a book with leaves and a spine, the form that replaced the scroll.
The KJV and the ASV translate the Hebrew Masoretic Text. Where The Leningrad Codex reads differently, the footnote in your Bible is pointing here.
- Mark 16:9-20The Ending of Mark
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- Codex Alexandrinus (A) (5th century).Contains the long ending, 16:9-20, without any mark of doubt.
- John 7:53 - 8:11The Woman Caught in Adultery
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi (C) (5th century).Both are damaged exactly here, so neither can be read directly, but in each case scholars have measured the missing leaves against the surviving handwriting, and there is not enough room for the passage. The gap is too small to have held it.
- 1 John 5:7-8The Three Heavenly Witnesses
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- Every Greek manuscript before roughly the 14th century (2nd-13th century).Reads only the earthly witnesses: "there are three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." The heavenly witnesses are absent from all of them, without exception.
- Matthew 17:21Prayer and fasting, a verse that is missing from Matthew
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- Old Latin and Syriac witnesses (4th–7th centuries).Mixed, some carry the sentence, some do not.
- Matthew 18:11"The Son of man is come to save that which was lost"
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- Latin and Syriac witnesses (4th–7th centuries).Divided; several of the earlier ones lack it.
- Acts 8:37The Ethiopian's confession, "If thou believest with all thine heart"
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- The earliest Greek manuscripts of Acts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Alexandrinus (4th–5th centuries).No verse 37. Verse 36 is followed immediately by verse 38 and the descent into the water.
- Matthew 6:13"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory"
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- The earliest Greek manuscripts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Bezae (4th–5th centuries).The prayer ends at "deliver us from evil."
- Luke 22:43-44The angel in Gethsemane and the sweat like drops of blood
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- An early Luke papyrus (P75) and Codex Vaticanus (3rd–4th centuries).Without the two verses, the prayer is followed directly by Jesus rising and coming to the disciples.
- John 5:4The angel who troubled the water at Bethesda
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- The earliest papyrus copies of John (P66, P75) (about AD 200 – 3rd century).No angel, no troubling of the water, the explanation is simply absent.
- Mark 1:41Compassion or anger? Jesus and the leper
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and the Byzantine majority (4th–15th centuries).*splanchnistheis*, "moved with compassion."
- Romans 8:1"No condemnation" — with a condition, or without one?
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, original hands (4th century)."...no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." The sentence ends there.
- 1 Timothy 3:16"God was manifest in the flesh" — two letters apart
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- Codex Sinaiticus, original hand (4th century).ΟΣ, "who was manifested in the flesh." A later corrector changed it to ΘΣ.
- Revelation 22:19"Book of life" or "tree of life" — and the missing last page
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- The Greek manuscripts of Revelation (4th–15th centuries, all of them)."the tree of life" — without known exception in Greek.
- Isaiah 53:11"He shall see light": the word the Dead Sea Scrolls restored
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- The Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran (1QIsaᵃ) (roughly the second century BC)."he shall see light" — the extra word present in the Hebrew.
- The Hebrew your King James Old Testament renders
- The Masoretic Hebrew text (the Aleppo Codex, about AD 930; the Leningrad Codex, AD 1008).יִרְאֶה יִשְׂבָּע“he shall see, he shall be satisfied”Quoted from Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977), at Isaiah 53:11.The King James and American Standard Old Testaments translate this reading.
One word changes. The teaching of Isaiah 53 holds either way, and the chapter reads the same in Hebrew and in Greek.
- Psalm 22:16"They pierced my hands and my feet", or "like a lion"?
- What The Leningrad Codex reads
- The Greek Old Testament (Septuagint) (translated in the last centuries BC).ὤρυξαν χεῖράς μου καὶ πόδας“they dug my hands and my feet”Quoted from Rahlfs and Hanhart, Septuaginta (2006), at Psalm 21:17.The Greek translators read a verb in their Hebrew, which puts that reading in the last centuries BC.
- The Hebrew your King James Old Testament renders
- The Masoretic Hebrew text (the Leningrad Codex, AD 1008).כָּאֲרִי יָדַי וְרַגְלָי“like a lion, my hands and my feet”Quoted from Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977), at Psalm 22:17.The King James works from this Hebrew and here departs from it, printing "they pierced my hands and my feet" with the ancient versions. The American Standard margin gives "like a lion".
One Hebrew letter changes. The crucifixion rests on the Gospels and on Paul, and the New Testament never quotes this verse.