Theft, espionage, corruption and a cover-up lasting decades — a new book by a Times of Israel reporter exposes the extraordinary saga of the uniquely revered, 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex
A new book by a Times of Israel reporter reveals dramatic new information about the fate of a manuscript many consider Judaism’s most important book — the 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex.
The manuscript — or the part of it that did not go mysteriously missing in the mid-20th century — is currently held alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It is revered as the authoritative version of the Hebrew Bible and considered by believing Jews to be the perfect version of the divine text.
The fate of the manuscript’s 200 missing pages, and the question of how the codex traveled to Jerusalem from a dark grotto in Aleppo, Syria, have been the subject of speculation and are at the heart of Friedman’s investigation, The Aleppo Codex, slated for publication in the U.S. on May 15.