The earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible is the Old Greek (OG), the translation made in Alexandria, Egypt, for the use of the Greek-speaking Jewish community there. The Catholic Church since the time of Jerome (fourth century C.E.) and most Protestant Christian churches use this version as their source text for modern translations. The Masoretic Text is the version held as authoritative and used liturgically in most synagogues today. The most important Masoretic medieval manuscripts are the Aleppo Codex, which dates to the 10th century C.E., and the Leningrad Codex, which dates to 1009 C.E. Soon after, the Tiberian Masoretic text and its particular version of vowels and annotations became the standard, authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible for rabbinic Judaism. In the 10th century C.E., the ben Asher scribal family of Tiberias produced a manuscript of the Hebrew Bible that Maimonides, a famous Jewish scholar, declared to be the best known version of the sacred text. Others are preserved in versions such as the Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation. One of these groups preserved the texts that would later become the Masoretic Text. After the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Romans in 70 C.E., Jewish groups dispersed across the ancient world, preserving these versions of the Hebrew Scriptures in their communities. Some of these versions differed only slightly from each other, but some versions were very different. Recent discoveries from the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, suggest that there were several different versions of many biblical books in the Second Temple period. Until the last few decades, most biblical scholars believed that the Masoretic biblical texts were, with some exceptions, the best witnesses to the most ancient Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible (what Christians sometimes call the Old Testament). The Masoretes produced several different systems of vocalization (writing in vowels) between 500 and 700 C.E. Though the Masoretic scribes added these vowels to the ancient text long after it had been written, they were likely preserving traditional vocalizations that dated to much earlier times. To preserve traditional spoken readings, starting in the fifth century C.E., a group of Jewish scribes known as the Masoretes carefully selected, copied, and annotated biblical scrolls, adding vowels and accents to the ancient Hebrew consonants in the process. The earliest copies of the Hebrew Bible were written without vowels or accents, as written Hebrew did not represent vowels until the Middle Ages. Other versions and translations exist, but the ones discussed below are important both historically and for their continuing use by various contemporary communities of faith. What follows is an overview of the major versions and translations of the biblical text.
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