This Hebrew manuscript was preserved for centuries by the Jewish community in Aleppo, Syria, but is now housed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It was produced in Tiberias, located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and dates to about 930 C.E.​—See App. A3.

This codex is considered to be the very best manuscript of the Hebrew Scriptures produced by Masoretic scholars. (See MASORETIC TEXT.) The manuscript was copied by the scribe Shlomo ben Buya’a. It was completed by the renowned Jewish scholar Aaron Ben Asher, who examined all the Hebrew Scripture manuscripts available to him so that he could establish a text that would be as accurate as possible. He added vowel signs and accent marks as well as notes regarding the text. It is believed that the highly respected 12th-century Jewish scholar Maimonides declared this manuscript to be the most authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible. It was thereafter accepted as such by many Jews.

The Aleppo Codex originally contained the entire Hebrew Scriptures written in Hebrew on approximately 490 parchment leaves, generally in three columns. (See PARCHMENT.) About one third of the leaves have been lost. For example, the beginning of the codex now lacks most of the Pentateuch, and the section at the end of the codex​—Song of Solomon (last part of the book), Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah​—is also missing. However, the Leningrad Codex, a Masoretic manuscript dated 1008/1009 C.E., contains the entire Hebrew Scriptures.​—See LENINGRAD CODEX.