Talk:Aleppo Codex

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[edit] What Maimonides said and didn't say

The famous quotation comes from his great codification of Jewish law, Mishneh Torah. The section is Hilchot Tefillin uMezuzah v'Sefer Torah, chapter 8, paragraph 4; I quote the Moznaim translation, as the only one I had to hand, although it is sometimes unclear and translates sefer uniformly as scroll although of course the Aleppo Codex is not a scroll.

Paragraph 1 explains p'tuchah - beginning a new paragraph. Paragraph 2 explains s'tumah - a gap in the middle of a line. Paragraph 3 discusses correcting a Sefer Torah if there is a mistake in p'tuchah or s'tumah or the layout of the songs in Beshallach or Ha'azinu.

Paragraph 4 says "Since I have seen great confusion about these matters in all the scrolls I have seen, and similarly, the masters of the tradition who have written down and composed to have it let known [which passages] are p'tuchot and which are s'tumot are divided with regard to the scrolls on which to rely, I saw fit to write down the entire list of all the passages in the Torah that are s'tumot and p'tuchot, and also the form of the songs. In this manner, all the scrolls can be corrected and checked against these [principles].

"The scroll on which I relied on for [clarification of] these matters was a scroll renowned in Egypt, which includes all the 24 books [of the Bible]. It was kept in Jerusalem for many years so that scrolls could be corrected from it. Everyone relies upon it because it was corrected by ben Asher, who spent many years writing it precisely, and [afterward] checked it many times.

"I relied [on this scroll] when I wrote a Torah scroll according to law."

He then goes on, as he said, to give a complete list of all the places in the Torah where there is a p'tuchah or s'tumah, and to give the laws of how to write the two special songs. Given the context, it is clear that he is referring to issues of formatting rather than text. Had he considered that there were places where the text, or even the spelling of some words, was in dispute, he would surely have given a list of them and what he considered that the text should be.

It must be remembered that Aaron ben Asher's contribution was mainly in the areas of vowel signs, the musical notes and especially the marginal masoretic notes. However, a sefer torah contains only the consonants of the Torah. It does not even have the verse dividers. While there may have been quite a lot of variation between manuscripts on the other points, there would have been far less disagreement on the consonants. Maimonides saw nothing worth saying about uncertainty in the consonants, which presumably means that the text was very stable by his time. RachelBrown 19:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mechon Mamre edition

I have put a "citation needed" template on the claim that Mechon Mamre's online edition of the Aleppo Codex differs in some fine details from the Breuer edition and reconstruction. Mechon Mamre has never been forthcoming about documenting their editorial decisions. Should they explicity document exactly what features of their reconstruction and edition differ from that of Breuer, then those facts should be noted in the article (and they would also be doing a fine service to scholarship). Until they do so, however, any claims about differences should be noted as exactly that, namely "claims," and a citation notice should be in place. Dovi (talk) 21:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not a 'they' but a 'he'. Mechon Mamre is the work of Shlomo Ben Avraham. I've been to his house, he has stacks and stacks of manuscripts in binders in his bookcase. I could call him up and ask him how his text differs. 89.138.192.76 (talk) 21:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

That would be fantastic! One easy way to deal with this would be if Rav Ben Avraham had a page at his website documenting his editioral method in detail (including if and how it differs from Breuer). Then the citation here could simply link to his own explanation.

It seems to me that the better documented the Mechon Mamre Tanakh is, the more it would be cited and linked to, and it would be better regarded as a standard text. It would be extraordinarily cool the website contained an interactive vehicle for discussing the editor's decisions and asking questions.Dovi (talk) 17:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I spoke to him. He says that his method involved finding all the old Yemenite manuscripts, and following the majority of them. his text differs from the Breuer in some places regarding nikkud. He also disagrees that the Aleppo Codex today is the exact compilation the Rambam used when writing the Mishneh Torah, since in the lists of paragraph breaks in the most accurate editions of the MT, there's two differences between that and the Aleppo Codex. NachMS (talk) 07:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Now THAT is interesting information. He states that he is consulting Yemenite mss for niqqud instead of directly transcribing the Aleppo codex. This first of all confirms my suspicion that for the letter-text (ketiv) there is nothing unique about the MM text. For the niqqud, then, it would be interesting to get an actual list of the mss he consults and try to confirm when and how he employs their data.

As far as the paragraph breaks, he seems to be mistaken: There is one place where a small space in the Aleppo codex was interpreted differently by Maimonides than by others who saw the codex intact, and another place where Maimonides' list is ambiguous. For both of these, see the footnotes to the Parashah article. Dovi (talk) 08:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh thanks, such information is quite useful to me. NachMS (talk) 10:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jerusalem - Cairo

The "History" section reads:

The Codex has had an eventful history. In the mid-11th century, about a century after it was written, the text was delivered to the Karaite community of Jerusalem, apparently after having been purchased from the heirs of Aharon ben Asher. Not long after (either in 1079 by the Seljuks or in 1099 by the Crusaders) it was looted from Jerusalem and eventually wound up in the Rabbanite synagogue in Cairo, where it was consulted by Maimonides.

Is this somebody’s opinion or does it have an actual source? I’m leaning towards the former. It just sounds like some one is trying to pull a reason out of thin air for why it ended up in Cairo. Why would the Sejuks take the book to Cairo since the Fatimids were their enemies? I think I have a more plausible historical reason for the appearance of the book in Cairo and I’ve even got a source for it.

In 1952, S.D. Goitein discovered two contemporary Jewish letters among the Cairo Geniza. One of these letters, the Letter of the Karaite elders of Ascalon, mentions how after the 1099 siege of Jerusalem, Karaite Jewish survivors and holy relics (torah scrolls, codexes, etc.) were held ransom by the Crusaders. The Karaite elders reached out to their coreligionists in Alexandria and funds were sent to pay for pockets of Jews and relics over several years. Those ransomed were then transported to the main Karaite community in Egypt. Now if the person who “guesstimated” the above material would like my source, please write me on my talk page. However, my source does not mention this codex by name. So keep in mind by adding whatever material I provide you with to this article is original research. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 03:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, the information I provided in the source above is based on the historical survery by Yosef Ofer, which is found in the companion volume to the Jerusalem Crown Tanakh (available online). Similar information can be found at aleppocodex.org. Everything is either based upon the colophones in the manuscript or other documented texts, and anything which is not is conjecture (on the part of Ofer and other scholars), namely: How did the codex get from Jerusalem to Cairo? The Seljuks and Crusaders are the two most obvious culprits, but there is no hard evidence for either. I see no reason why Goitein should not be referred to in a footnote on the word "Crusaders" as parallel, supporting fact. Dovi (talk) 12:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok, but why is the Jerusalem Crown Tanakh not directly referenced to after the statement? I found one website that mentions neither the Seljuks nor Crusaders, they just state it went missing after the First Crusade (see here). However, I did find material on the aleppocodex.org website that states its possible that it was apart of the holy books ransomed by the Crusaders (See point "4.4" here). It appears others have seen the same similarities as myself. I will be deleting the bit about Seljuks or Crusaders and will add both the "possible" statement from the Aleppo website and my own sources to explain the event in more detail. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. As to why something is not referenced, the "wiki way" is that if you find something that needs adding, then go ahead and add it! I'd love to hear more about your novel (from your user page). Dovi (talk) 21:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

PS Read Ofer's survey article here. Dovi (talk) 21:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I read his article earlier while cleaning up the external links. It does mention the Sejuks and Crusaders, but, although an educated guess, it falls short of the mark. As I previously explained, the Seljuks were at war against the Fatimids in Egypt. The Fatiminds where wanting to use the Crusaders as a buffer between them and the Seljuks to keep the Turkish forces from invading their lands. So, the Seljuks would not have had a reason to send a friendly mission to Cairo just to deliver a Jewish holy book (see The Crusades: Islamic Persecutive (1999) for more details). Nor would the Crusaders for the same reason. However, I understand that not everyone knows about the Karaite letter. I researched the First Crusade for years and didn't know about it until I contacted a Jewish Crusader historian from Hebrew University. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 21:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)