Codex Leningradensis

Codex Leningradensis is the oldest available manuscript with the complete text of all 39 books of the Hebrew Bible. Codex Leningradensis dates from AD 1008 or 1009.

The Old Testament came into being before the beginning of our era, but the Codex Leningradensis is still of great significance for the study of the Old Testament. There are indeed more codices of the Hebrew Bible, but they are all less complete or from an even later date.
The Hebrew text we find in Codex Leningradensis and in other codices is the Masoretic text.

Codex Leningradensis found its way into the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg in 1863 via Abraham Firkovich (a Jewish businessman who used to buy old Jewish manuscripts in the Middle East). Under communism, St. Petersburg was called Leningrad, hence the codex is known by the name Codex Leningradensis (“the Codex of Leningrad”).