Hebrew Voices #174 – How We Got Our Hebrew Bible

In this episode of Hebrew Voices #174, How We Got Our Hebrew Bible, Nehemia brings on the world’s foremost expert in the Masoretic Text, Professor Yosef Ofer of Bar-Ilan University. They discuss how ancient Jewish scribes determined precisely which letters to copy, the primacy of the Aleppo Codex, and Maimonides’s preoccupation with dividing the biblical text into paragraphs.

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VIDEO CHAPTERS00:00 Intro01:08 What is the Masora?10:36 Masoretic decision-making20:55 The Aleppo Codex & Masoretic comments34:16 Maimonides & the uniformity of spaces46:49 The Sassoon Codex51:00 The two Masoretes57:48 Outro

VERSES MENTIONEDExodus 24:5Isaiah 13:10Sefer Ahava; Tefillin, Mezuzah and Sefer Torah 8:4 (Mishneh Torah)Ha’azinu - Deuteronomy 32

BOOKS MENTIONEDThe Masora on Scripture and Its Methods (English)המסורה למקרא ודרכיה (Hebrew)by Yosef Ofer

Jerusalem Crown (כתר ירושלים) - The Bible of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem[Torah, Prophets and Hagiographa according to the text and the Masora of the Aleppo Codex and related manuscripts, according to the method of Rav Mordechai Breuer with explanations of the version principles, scientific responsibility on that edition: Yosef Ofer] Jerusalem 2000

EPISODES RELATEDHebrew Voices #149 – Looking Under the Hood of a Torah Scroll: Part 2

OTHER LINKSProf Yosef Ofer's Website