Authenticity and Scholarship

Unlike relics whose age must be inferred, the Leningrad Codex dates itself: its colophon gives the year of completion (variously computed as 1008 or 1009 CE by different eras of reckoning), and its script, vocalisation and Masoretic apparatus are entirely consistent with an early-11th-century Tiberian manuscript. Its authenticity is therefore not in dispute, and it functions as a fixed point against which other Masoretic witnesses are compared.

Scholarly discussion concerns its text rather than its genuineness. Because it was corrected toward the Ben Asher standard, it is very close to the Aleppo Codex, and where the two can be compared they agree in the overwhelming majority of details; the small divergences, and occasional scribal corrections visible in the Leningrad manuscript, are studied precisely because the book is the base of printed editions. Some scholars prefer the Aleppo Codex where it survives, treating Leningrad as the best complete substitute rather than the single most accurate witness. None of this touches the manuscript's date or integrity: it is a securely dated, complete and continuously housed book, which is what makes it so valuable as a reference text.