Writings

Writings: Judaism

The Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, was copied by hand, and the Torah is read aloud in worship. Rabbinic tradition holds that an Oral Torah was given at Sinai and taught by mouth, though movements differ on revelation. The ten entries run from silver amulets, disputed in date and as copies of biblical text, to a Talmud of 1342 CE.

Last reviewed:

The entries

  1. The Great Isaiah Scroll

    Scroll. Copy made: 150 to 100 BCE, when the scroll was copied, by handwriting.

  2. The Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls

    Inscription. Copy made: late 7th to early 6th century BCE, when the amulets were inscribed on the dating of Barkay and Yardeni.

  3. The Aleppo Codex

    Codex. Copy made: about 930 CE.

  4. The Leningrad Codex

    Codex. Copy made: about 1008 to 1009 CE, on Ben Outhwaite's reading of the colophon.

  5. The Nash Papyrus

    Papyrus. Copy made: second century BCE, the usual dating of when the papyrus was written.

  6. The Cairo Genizah and leaf T-S 12.182

    Manuscript. Copy made: 6th or 7th century CE, the lower, Greek writing of Psalm 22 that the bar marks, with the upper, Hebrew poem about the 10th century CE.

  7. The Kaufmann Mishnah

    Codex. Copy made: 10th to 12th century CE.

  8. The Munich Talmud

    Codex. Copy made: 15 December 1342 CE, the Bavarian State Library's conversion of the colophon's date, 17 Tevet 5103.

  9. The Samaritan Pentateuch

    Codex. Copy made: 1211 CE, per the John Rylands Library.

  10. The En-Gedi Leviticus scroll

    Scroll. Copy made: third or fourth century CE, when the scroll was made, by radiocarbon dating of the parchment.

How were Judaism's texts handed down?

The Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, was copied by hand, and the Torah is read aloud in worship.12 Rabbinic tradition holds that an Oral Torah was taught by mouth.34 The Tanakh's three parts are Torah (the five books of Moses), Neviim (the Prophets), and Ketuvim (the Writings).5678

Marc Shapiro writes that the Talmud calls scribes soferim because they count the letters of the Torah, an early concern for accuracy. The religious community he describes, which he ties to no movement, reads the Torah publicly a number of times each week. Its scrolls differ in places from the Aleppo Codex, a bound Tanakh of about 930 CE whose Torah is mostly lost. In correcting Torah scrolls, he writes, scholarly conclusions do not trump religious tradition.19 The Center for Online Judaic Studies says that, according to tradition and Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, Maimonides relied on that codex in ruling on Torah scrolls. The Encyclopaedia Judaica calls this generally agreed, though Cassuto doubted it and Dotan later supported his position.910

Rabbinic tradition holds that the Oral Torah, the teaching that explains the written one, was given to Moses at Sinai. The Orthodox Union, an Orthodox organization, teaches this and says it was written down, as the Mishnah, its first collection, and the Gemara, its later discussion (together the Talmud), only when hardship threatened its loss.341112

Other movements differ on revelation. Emet Ve-Emunah, the Conservative statement of 1988, holds that Sinai was the single greatest event in the history of God's revelation, but that revelation was not limited to Sinai.13 The Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the Reform rabbis' organization, holds that Torah results from the relationship between God and the Jewish people (1976) and is God's ongoing revelation (1999).1415

Lawrence Schiffman holds that individual sages kept notebooks of oral traditions and later had written texts of parts of the Mishnah. Judah, he holds, issued it orally, and a written Mishnah became the formal object of study only at the end of the period of the Amoraim, the sages who discussed it, about 500 CE or later. He reports that medieval authorities disagreed on when it was written down. Yaakov Elman argues that it was reduced to writing before the middle of the fourth century.1617

How much survives, and how old are the oldest copies?

No source used here counts all copies. Cambridge's Genizah Research Unit counts 193,000 fragments in its Taylor-Schechter Collection from the Cairo Genizah, a storeroom for worn-out holy writings (no year given).1819

The ten entries are two scrolls, an inscription, a papyrus, five codices (the Samaritan copy included), and the Genizah, shown by one leaf. Six carry Hebrew passages found in the Tanakh (the Ketef Hinnom amulets are disputed as Bible text, and the Nash Papyrus mixes Exodus and Deuteronomy). Two are rabbinic, one is Samaritan, and one holds Psalm 22 in Greek.20212223242526272829

The Samaritans are a community native to Samaria, about 900 by the John Rylands Library's count of January 2025. Its blog calls their Pentateuch and the Jewish one almost identical, but not quite.30

  • The Torah. The Orthodox Union teaches that God gave the Torah at Sinai some 3,300 years before its glossary page, stamped June 21, 2006 (possibly the date it was put online): about 1300 BCE, computed here. Emet Ve-Emunah and the CCAR statements give no year.8131415 Christine Hayes says in a lecture that most biblical scholars accept some version of the documentary hypothesis (that sources called J, E, D, and P make up the Torah), though it is not without criticism. She says the sources have relative, not absolute, dates. She reports J, the earliest, in the tenth century BCE, while others date all of it to the fourth or third century BCE: about 1000 to 200 BCE (computed here). The two dates mark different things, the Torah's giving and the writing of its sources.31
  • Ketef Hinnom, En-Gedi, Aleppo, and Leningrad. Ketef Hinnom's silver amulets carry a version of the priestly blessing in Numbers 6:24-26. Gabriel Barkay, who excavated the cave, dates them to the late seventh century BCE and Ada Yardeni to the early sixth (about 650 to 575 BCE, computed here), which Erik Waaler reported in 2002 as most scholars' dating. Waaler, who argues one thesis, dates them to 725 to 650 BCE. Barkay and his co-editors write in 2004, as Christopher Eames quotes them, that a minority advocates a later date. Angelika Berlejung dates them to the Persian period and Nadav Na'aman to the early Second Temple period, possibly not many years after the Temple was built.213233343536 The En-Gedi scroll of Leviticus is third or fourth century CE by radiocarbon on its parchment. Yardeni dated its handwriting to the second half of the first or early second century CE, and Drew Longacre argues for the third or fourth.2337 The Aleppo Codex is about 930 CE, from a dedication note written about a century later (the sources used report no laboratory test). The Leningrad Codex is 1008 to 1009 CE on Ben Outhwaite's reading of the scribe's dating note.383925
  • The gap, computed here. From the Union's year, Ketef Hinnom is about 650 to 725 years later, the Nash Papyrus (second century BCE by handwriting) 1,100 to 1,200, En-Gedi 1,500 to 1,700, Aleppo 2,200, and Leningrad 2,300. Hayes's span is for the Torah's sources, not the blessing, so Ketef Hinnom has no scholars' gap. Nash begins where her span ends; En-Gedi is about 400 to 1,400 years after it, Aleppo and Leningrad 1,100 to 2,000. The Samaritan copy (1211 CE) has no gap to the Torah's giving, since no Samaritan source used gives a year for it. Its entry counts at most about 1,500 years, from 300 BCE, the start of the third- to first-century BCE manuscripts of the text type it extends. No source used dates Psalm 22, so the Genizah leaf has none.4028414243
  • Isaiah. The Talmud (Bava Batra 15a) says Hezekiah and his colleagues "wrote" Isaiah, and Rashi explains that Manasseh killed the prophet, so he did not write his own book.244 Theodore Friedman writes in the Encyclopaedia Judaica that the rabbis generally treated the book as one prophet's work, and quotes J. H. Hertz, in The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (1956), as putting the traditional Jewish viewpoint that the question of authorship touches no dogma or religious principle.45 Friedman also writes that the prophet's career ran about 740 to 700 BCE, and that the virtually unanimous modern opinion is that an unknown prophet of the exile wrote chapters 40 to 66, about 540 BCE.45 The Great Isaiah Scroll is about 150 to 100 BCE by handwriting, and its parchment gave 250 to 103 BCE (76 percent) or 356 to 291 BCE (24 percent) by radiocarbon. On the handwriting date it is about 390 to 640 years after Friedman's span (computed here).4620 No statement consulted gives a year for the tradition's side.47131415
  • The Mishnah and the Talmud. The Union holds that Judah ha-Nasi compiled the Mishnah about 200 CE and Rav Ashi and his colleagues the Talmud about 500 CE.1112 Stephen Wald and Schiffman date the Mishnah's editing to about 200 CE. Jeffrey Rubenstein's volume dates the Talmud's sages to about 200 to 450 CE, and its publisher's page the editors to about 450 to 700 CE, a span that includes the Union's 500 CE.48164950 The Kaufmann Mishnah (tenth to twelfth century CE) is 700 to 1,000 years after the editing on both views. The Munich Talmud (1342 CE) is 840 years after the Union's date and about 640 after the end of the editors' span, fewer if it ended later.51265227 From Sinai, where the Union places the Oral Torah's giving, they are 2,200 to 2,600 years later. The scholars cited give no year for the older material, so those counts do not measure the same thing.

How should the entries be read?

Equal slots do not mean equal evidence. Every year this page gives for the tradition comes from the Orthodox Union's pages; two entries add a Samaritan reckoning of the entry into Canaan (about 1639 BCE) and a Maimonides-based year for the Talmud (about 470 CE).82853 No classical rabbinic chronology of the giving at Sinai was consulted, and no Reconstructionist or Haredi (strictly Orthodox) statement. In the entries, the Karaites, who reject the Rabbinic Oral Law (the Oral Torah), and the Samaritans are each heard through one website.5442 No source used here counts how many Jews hold each movement's view, though sources say how widely scholars hold theirs. The scholars' range for the Torah rests on one Hayes lecture, and Isaiah's on one Encyclopaedia Judaica article.3145

The list holds no Jerusalem Talmud, Midrash, Kabbalah, prayer book, or law code. The Israel Museum calls the Ketef Hinnom amulets the oldest known copies of biblical text, while Jeremy Smoak holds they are not a fragment of a biblical manuscript.2136 See Jewish sacred texts and how ancient texts are dated.

Sources

  1. Marc B. Shapiro (Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies, University of Scranton). That in Aleppo Once (review of Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider, Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex, Jewish Publication Society, 2010). Jewish Review of Books, Spring 2011, 2011, the whole review. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  2. Babylonian Talmud (William Davidson Edition). Bava Batra 15a. Sefaria, Bava Batra 15a. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  3. Moshe David Herr; Theodore Friedman. Oral Law. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com, opening section (Herr). Accessed 2026-10-29.
  4. Orthodox Union. Oral Law (Judaism 101 glossary). Orthodox Union, glossary entry. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  5. Tanakh. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  6. Christine Hayes. Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) (RLST 145), Lecture 1: The Parts of the Whole. Open Yale Courses, Yale University, transcript. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  7. Orthodox Union. Tanakh (Judaism 101 glossary). Orthodox Union, glossary entry. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  8. OU Staff. Torah. Orthodox Union, 2006. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  9. Center for Online Judaic Studies (COJS), text drawn from Adolfo Roitman, The Bible in the Shrine of the Book (Israel Museum, 2006), pp. 62 to 64, and the Israel Museum exhibition 'Blue and White Pages'. Aleppo Codex, c. 930. Center for Online Judaic Studies, the whole page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  10. Zeev Ben-Hayyim. Ben-Asher, Aaron ben Moses. Encyclopaedia Judaica (2nd ed., Gale), via Encyclopedia.com, the whole entry. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  11. Orthodox Union. Mishnah (Judaism 101 glossary). Orthodox Union, glossary entry. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  12. Orthodox Union. Talmud (Judaism 101 glossary). Orthodox Union, glossary entry. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  13. Commission on the Philosophy of Conservative Judaism. Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism. The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, The Rabbinical Assembly, and The United Synagogue of America, 1988, printed pages 18 to 26. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  14. Central Conference of American Rabbis. Reform Judaism: A Centenary Perspective. Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1976, section 3, Torah. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  15. Central Conference of American Rabbis. A Statement of Principles for Reform Judaism. Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1999, Torah. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  16. Lawrence H. Schiffman. The Redaction of the Mishnah (an excerpt from From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, Ktav, Hoboken, 1991). Center for Online Judaic Studies (cojs.org), 1991, the whole excerpt. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  17. Yaakov Elman. Orality and the Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud. Oral Tradition 14, no. 1 (1999), pp. 52 to 99, 1999, pp. 52 to 53, 58, 72 to 73, 79 to 81. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  18. Cambridge University Library. Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. Cambridge University Library, the page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  19. Cambridge University Library. Taylor-Schechter Genizah: A Priceless Collection. Cambridge University Library, the page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  20. Israel Museum, Jerusalem (text signed by Adolfo Roitman, curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and head of the Shrine of the Book). The Great Isaiah Scroll (Digital Dead Sea Scrolls). The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and Google, the whole page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  21. Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 'Priestly Benediction' on amulets (collection record). Israel Museum, Jerusalem, the collection record. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  22. Cambridge University Library (Cambridge Digital Library record). Hebrew Manuscripts: Nash Papyrus (MS Or.233). Cambridge University Library, the record's description. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  23. William Brent Seales, Clifford Seth Parker, Michael Segal, Emanuel Tov, Pnina Shor, and Yosef Porath. From damage to discovery via virtual unwrapping: Reading the scroll from En-Gedi. Science Advances 2, no. 9 (2016), e1601247 (open access; read on PubMed Central), 2016, the introduction, the section on the recovered text, and the dating paragraph; the supplementary table S1 of radiocarbon results was not available; the author contributions and acknowledgments were also read. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  24. The Hebrew University Magnes Press. The Aleppo Codex (facsimile edition; publisher's description and preview). The Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem, page 2 of the preview (English) and page 6 (Hebrew). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  25. Benjamin M. Outhwaite (University of Cambridge). Beyond the Leningrad Codex: Samuel b. Jacob in the Cairo Genizah. University of Cambridge repository (author's PDF; the PDF names no journal; a footnote's access date of 13 December 2017 shows it was written in or after 2017), p. 1, pp. 3 to 4 (the colophon and its translation), n. 10, pp. 8 to 9 (the dating), and n. 92 on p. 19. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  26. Mark Farnadi-Jerusalmi (entry author), in the Hebrew Palaeography Album, general editor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. Budapest, MTA MS. A50 (Name: Kaufmann Mishna). Hebrew Palaeography Album, 2024, the Details record (updated 30 July 2025). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  27. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library), press office. Babylonischer Talmud der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in das UNESCO-Weltdokumentenerbe aufgenommen (press release of 11 April 2025, with an update of 26 November 2025). Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, 2025, the whole release (in German; paraphrased here). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  28. John Rylands Library, University of Manchester (blog, 'The Samaritans and their books II'). The Samaritans and their books II. Rylands Blog, John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester, 12 January 2025, 2025, the section 'The Pentateuch of the Samaritans' and the section 'Counting time'. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  29. Cambridge University Library. Palimpsest; piyyut; Bible (T-S 12.182) (Cambridge Digital Library record). Cambridge University Library, Cambridge Digital Library, the catalog metadata. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  30. John Rylands Library, University of Manchester (blog, 'The Samaritans and their books'). The Samaritans and their books. Rylands Blog, John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester, 5 January 2025, 2025, the whole post. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  31. Christine Hayes. Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) (RLST 145), Lecture 5: Critical Approaches to the Bible: Introduction to Genesis 12-50. Open Yale Courses, Yale University, transcript, first chapter (Wellhausen's Documentary Hypothesis). Accessed 2026-10-29.
  32. Erik Waaler. A Revised Date for Pentateuchal Texts? Evidence from Ketef Hinnom. Tyndale Bulletin 53.1 (2002), pp. 29 to 55, 2002, pp. 29 to 55; the pages cited are pp. 30 to 33 (find, pottery, Barkay's, Yardeni's and Renz's dates) and pp. 43 to 47 (the blessing and the Masoretic Text). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  33. Christopher Eames. The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls: Earliest Biblical Text Ever Discovered!. Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology, Let the Stones Speak, September-October 2024, 2024, the article. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  34. Angelika Berlejung. Ein Programm fuers Leben. Theologisches Wort und anthropologischer Ort der Silberamulette von Ketef Hinnom. Zeitschrift fuer die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 120, no. 2 (2008), pp. 204 to 230 (abstract on the publisher's page), 2008, abstract only (English, French, and German versions). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  35. Nadav Na'aman. A new appraisal of the silver amulets from Ketef Hinnom. Israel Exploration Journal 61, no. 2 (2011), pp. 184 to 195 (abstract on Tel Aviv University's research portal), 2011, abstract only. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  36. Jeremy D. Smoak. The Ketef Hinnom Amulets: Wearing the Priestly Blessing for Protection. TheTorah.com (published June 4, 2026; last updated October 28, 2026), 2026, the article and its footnotes. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  37. Drew Longacre. Reconsidering the Date of the En-Gedi Leviticus Scroll (EGLev): Exploring the Limitations of the Comparative-Typological Paleographic Method. Textus 27 (2018), pp. 44 to 84 (abstract from the publisher's record in the Crossref database), 2018, the abstract only. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  38. Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi (Ben-Zvi Institute), nominator; contact person Moti Ben-Ari. Nomination form, International Memory of the World Register: Aleppo Codex. UNESCO Memory of the World Programme (form filed by Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi; signature block dated 28/11/13), 2013, sections 2.2, 3.1 to 3.4 (pp. 1 to 3), 4.1 to 4.3 (pp. 7 to 8), 5.6, 6.2, and 8.0 (pp. 10 to 11). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  39. Neriah Klein (Head of the Text and Masora sections of the Hebrew University Bible Project), interviewed by the Genizah Research Unit. Q&A Wednesday: The Best Crown in Town? Finding the Aleppo Codex in Fustat, with Neriah Klein. Genizah Fragments blog, Cambridge University Library Genizah Research Unit, 27 April 2022, 2022, the whole interview. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  40. Brent Nongbri. A Cambridge Papyrus of the Odyssey and the Nash Papyrus. Brent Nongbri's blog (August 3, 2026), 2026, the whole post. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  41. Terry Giles (professor of theology, Gannon University). The Samaritan Pentateuch. Bible Odyssey, Society of Biblical Literature, the whole article. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  42. Benyamim Tsedaka (AB Institute of Samaritan Studies, Holon). Principles of Faith. Israelite Samaritan Information Institute (israelite-samaritans.com), AB Institute of Samaritan Studies, the whole page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  43. Benjamin Kantor. The Oldest Fragment of Origen's Hexapla: T-S 12.182. Cambridge University Library, Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, March 2019, 2019, the article and its bibliography. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  44. Rashi (Sefaria Community Translation). Rashi on Bava Batra 15a. Sefaria, Bava Batra 15a. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  45. Theodore Friedman, Harold Louis Ginsberg, Isaac Avishur, and others (Encyclopaedia Judaica). Isaiah. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. (Gale, 2007), via Encyclopedia.com, 2007, the sections 'Introduction', 'Survey of Views of the Authorship of Isaiah' (Friedman), and 'Differentiation between Chapters 1-39 and 40-66'. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  46. A. J. Timothy Jull, Douglas J. Donahue, Magen Broshi, and Emanuel Tov. Radiocarbon dating of scrolls and linen fragments from the Judean Desert. Radiocarbon 37, no. 1 (1995), pp. 11 to 19, 1995, pp. 11 to 19; Table 2 (p. 14) and the text on p. 13 for 1QIsaa; Appendix 1 for the handwriting estimates. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  47. Orthodox Union. Yeshayahu (Judaism 101: leaders in biblical times). Orthodox Union, the whole entry. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  48. Stephen G. Wald. Mishnah. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com, introduction and "The Mishnah as a Literary Work". Accessed 2026-10-29.
  49. Jeffrey L. Rubenstein (editor and author of the introduction). Creation and Composition: The Contribution of the Bavli Redactors (Stammaim) to the Aggada, Introduction (reading sample, pp. 1 to 10, with the table of contents). Mohr Siebeck (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 114), Tubingen, 2005, 2005, the table of contents and the introduction, printed pp. 1 to 10. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  50. Mohr Siebeck (publisher's summary of Jeffrey Rubenstein, ed., Creation and Composition). Creation and Composition: The Contribution of the Bavli Redactors (Stammaim) to the Aggada (catalogue page). Mohr Siebeck, Tubingen, 2005, the Summary. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  51. The Kaufmann Collection website of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (study 4, section 3.2 on the Mishnah codex; the page does not name its author). 3.2. Mishnah (MS A 50), from study04, with footnotes 71 to 74. Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest (ujkaufmann.mtak.hu), the whole section and footnotes 71 to 74. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  52. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. The oldest Hebrew manuscript dated by its colophon: a leaf of a Mishna manuscript with Babylonian vocalization in Toronto. Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, June 2023, 2023, the whole article and footnotes. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  53. Maimonides (trans. Eliyahu Touger). Mishneh Torah, Transmission of the Oral Law (introduction). Sefaria (Moznaim translation), paragraphs 12 to 15, 18, 21, 23, 30, and 34 in the saved text. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  54. Karaite Korner. What is Karaite Judaism. Karaite Korner (a Karaite Jewish website), home page summary. Accessed 2026-10-29.