Leningrad Codex

So prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the most complete manuscript we have of the Hebrew Bible dated from the Middle Ages.

And it's either the Leningrad or the Aleppo Codex, one of the two.

I think it's the Leningrad Codex.

Anyway, the point is it's from the Middle Ages.

Now, once we found the Dead Sea Scrolls, then we now had things that were 1,000 years older than even that.

Now, in Ruth 311, Boaz then calls Ruth, after she called herself a Nahariah, Boaz calls her an Eshet Chayil, a woman of noble character, which is exactly the the phrase that opens Proverbs 31.10. Now hang with me.

In some Hebrew orderings of the Bible, including the Leningrad Codex, Ruth comes right after Proverbs instead of way before it, which is brilliant in my opinion, because in that order, the Bible proceeds like this.

It The early chapters of Proverbs warn against the foreign woman or unfamiliar woman.

Proverbs ends on a positive note by describing the noble woman in 31.

the earliest copy, I mean.

In other words, the New Testament version that went the furthest back was called the Leningrad Codex.

It was from about 1000 AD.

And the actual events of the Old Testament come to an end about 400 BC.

They shouldn't.

The frequency notes in the Leningrad Codex contain several errors, something on the order of 150 in the Torah alone.

A hundred and fifty.

That's the count in the scholarship on the manuscript.

The most useful evidence of whether any of this worked isn't the rules.

It's the scrolls.

The Leningrad Codex is from 109, and it's the oldest complete Masoretic manuscript of the Hebrew Bible.

The Aleppo Codex is 10th century and older, but it's incomplete.

That's not disputed, man.

It's like the Leningrad Codex.

It's like the Masoretes didn't even exist until like the 700 or 800.

So you're telling me the Dead

And it is striking because it was written about 1,000 years earlier than that manuscript I just mentioned that has been the basis for our English Bible translations.

The one I mentioned is Codex Leningradensis.

It's called that because it was kept in Leningrad, and so it's called Leningradensis.

And it's the whole Hebrew Bible, and Bible translators rely principally on that that copy from the year 1000.

The question is, where do these three verses at the end of 52 belong? They're grouped in your, uh, King James Bible here, and in most Bibles today, as belonging to chapter 52.

But in the, uh, Leningrad Codex, which is the oldest complete Hebrew manuscript from about 1008 AD, cha- the verses seven to 13, 14, and 15 there are actually grouped with chapter 53.

Do you remember how they are in the, uh, Dead Sea Scrolls Isaiah scroll?

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, they're just like here.

Nehemiah and Chronicles.

Man of God, look for the Leningrad Codex.

L-E-N-I-E- L-E-N-I-N-G-R-A-D. Leningrad.

I need to show you something real quick.

Codex.

This is the complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible.

Now, look at the arrangement.

What book follows Proverbs in the Leningrad? So ask that in the Le- Leningrad, which one follows Proverbs? Go down.

They're doing normal archaeology in Jordan.

And they find an ancient plaster inscription in the wall.

And here's what it says.

The warnings and sayings of Balaam, son of Beor.

He's some kind of a soothsayer.

That's why his warnings are being preserved.

So in other words, Balaam is now today a historically validated figure because of this plaster inscription that came straight out of the ground.

Now fast forward to the, let's just take an example from the Christian scriptures.