Question: What is a “Codex?” I have read that it was of popular use after the scrolls, but I’m not sure exactly what it was. Can you please explain?

Answer: The term “Codex” refers to books in their modern, bound form with a cover and pages that one turns. This is as opposed to scrolls, as was common in ancient times and is preserved in our traditional, hand-written, sacred copies of books of the Jewish Bible. Of course, before the invention of the printing press, bound books with pages were also hand-written. A Torah scroll, or hand-written scroll of other books of the Bible used in synagogues, has no vowels or cantillation marks for the reader. Therefore, they must be memorized before reading in the synagogue. The earliest documents we have that record vowels and cantillations are in codice. There existed the traditions for the vowels and cantillations back to Moses at Sinai, but those were memorized. Eventually, scholars wrote down these traditions in the form of the vowel and cantillation marks we have today. One of the most famous and authoritative codice known is the Keter Aram Soba – or the Aleppo Codex, a copy of the Hebrew Bible with vowels and cantillation marks that was hand-copied in the 10th Century of the common era. This copy of the Hebrew Bible was actually used by Maimonides to study the nuances of the traditions of the Hebrew Bible (at the time the text was housed in the Cairo Synagogue). Maimonides descendants brought the text to the city of Aleppo, Syria in the late 1300’s, where it remained for five hundred years. Although parts of this book are missing, most of it is in Israel today, where it remains in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum. Other famous codice of the Hebrew Bible include the Leningrad Codex and the Cairo Codex. However, the Aleppo Codex is considered to be the most accurate in traditional, Jewish circles. Early codice of the Talmud also exist, as well as other important books of Torah literature.

J. Kolakowski