The following are excerpts concerning the Aleppo Codex and its not so warm welcome in the Orthodox Jewish community due to differences that abound between the Aleppo and traditionally held text of the Tanakh.
"In Venice, circa 1524, a Tunisian scholar named Ya'acov Ben-Hhaim used the printing press to produce an edition of all 24 books of the canonized Bible, the first of its kind. With its inclusion of famous Bible commentators such as Rashi and Ibn Ezra, the Mikraot Gedolot Edition, as it became to be known, was accepted as the definitive and authoritative Torah text. After another printing in Warsaw, it became the standard for Orthodox [Jewish] communities. There is just one problem: the Mikraot Gedolot is highly inaccurate. Of that edition, the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets and the Writings together contain several thousands of errors. Not just of musical cantillations and vowels, but letters as well. Ya'acov Ben-Hhaim carried out his manuscript comparisons on texts that were within his geographical reach, but they were not accurate themselves. (It is interesting to note that the printing of the Mikraot Gedolot was executed under the aegis of a Christian printer, Daniel Bomberg, and Ben-Hhaim, who converted to Christianity. It is not clear, however, whether Ben-Hhaim's conversion was before or after 1524.)"
"You can put on blinders and cower from codices or you can look at it straight-on and decide how you're going to deal with it," says Penkower, who is Orthodox. "I don't think Judaism ever intended for people to avoid the truth in order to preserve their conception of Judaism and Jewish history. I guess it depends upon how strong you are religiously... there are some people out there whose way of dealing with new information is by not dealing with it."
"Why do certain Orthodox Jews and communities resist accepting the Aleppo Codex? Is it inertia or intransigence? Perhaps the fear that admitting to large-scale textual inaccuracies will cause a chink in their armor of faith? Or is it something more tangible?"
"Halacha unequivocally states that if the layout of the Torah text is incorrect, or a single letter is missing, the entire scroll is not kosher and may not be read from in a synagogue. If the reconstruction of the Aleppo Codex means that the most accurate text of the Torah is now available, then Torah scrolls need to be rewritten. (A new scroll costs about $35,000.)" [Some cost over $50,000] - "The True Torah?", by Robby Berman, Jerusalem Post.
It should be noted here that the Hebrew Tanakh of the Nesarim follows closely to that of the Aleppo Codex and somewhat to the Leningrad Codex. There are some vowel pointing that is different than both but they agree with most Yemenite manuscripts, which are seen to be the most reliable in many scholarly circles.
The following are excerpts concerning the Aleppo Codex and its not so warm welcome in the Orthodox Jewish community due to differences that abound between the Aleppo and traditionally held text of the Tanakh.
