Westminster Leningrad Codex Hebrew Old Testament

Bibles available in a Library or Collection

Digital Bible Library
Bible For Developers

Websites we know of that host this Bible.

Westminster Leningrad Codex (HEBWLC)

Overview

The Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC) is a digital edition of the Leningrad Codex (Codex Leningradensis), the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, dated to 1008 or 1009 CE. The manuscript was produced in Cairo by the scribe Samuel ben Jacob, based on manuscripts by the Masoretic scholar Aaron ben Moses ben Asher. [1] Unusually for a Masoretic codex, the same scribe wrote the consonantal text, the vowel pointing, and the Masoretic notes. [1] The physical manuscript is preserved in the National Library of Russia under the accession “Firkovich B 19 A.” [1]

The digital text was pioneered by J. Alan Groves (1952-2007), a Dartmouth engineering graduate at Westminster Theological Seminary who recognized the potential of computers for linguistic analysis of biblical texts. The first electronic version of the WLC was released in 1987, originally derived from an earlier digital text produced by scholars at the University of Michigan and Claremont Graduate University, but substantially revised since the mid-1980s. [2] In 1991, version 1.0 of the Westminster Hebrew Morphology was completed, providing automated word-by-word linguistic analysis of every word in the Hebrew Bible. [2] Groves also served as Technical Editor for Biblia Hebraica Quinta, a new critical Hebrew Bible edition published by the German Bible Society. [2] After Groves’s death in 2007, the J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research (renamed from the Westminster Hebrew Institute in 2006) incorporated as an independent nonprofit in 2009 and continues to maintain the WLC. [2] The text is in the public domain and freely available for personal use and academic research.

Language and People

Ancient Hebrew (ISO 639-3: hbo). [Glottolog: anci1244]

References