Do We Need A New Bible? 155 making the considerations in this lecture particularly appropriate. It has long been housed in St Petersburg and is known as Leningradensis from the name of that city at the time when it came to be adopted as the text which would serve as the basis for the most widely used scholarly edition of the Hebrew Bible (5). This manuscript, then, is the text used for the edition of the Hebrew Bible known as the Biblia Hebraica. This edition is currently in its fourth edition, and a fifth edition is under preparation (6). These editions differ considerably from one another in some important ways, but their fundamental policy of text presentation is the same. The printed text conforms as closely as possible to the manuscript Leningradensis (7), and matters which the editors consider to be of text- ARIÉ et al. eliminate 1010 and 1013 and prefer 1008; cf. M. BEIT-ARIÉ – C. SIRAT – M. GLATZER (eds.), Codices Hebraicis Litteris Exarati Quo Tempore Scripti Fuerint Exhibetens. Tome I, jusqu’à 1020 (Monumenta Palaeographica Medii Aevi, Series Hebraica; Turnhout 1997) 112-131 (esp. 117-18); this date has therefore been adopted by the editors of BHQ; cf. A. SCHENKER et al. (eds.), Biblia Hebraica, quinta editione cum apparatu critico novis curis elaborato. General Introduction and Megilloth (Stuttgart 2004) xix; their authority in this matter commands respect. Other authorities, however, favour 1009; this is stated without equivocation by A. DOTAN (ed.), Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia, Prepared according to the Vocalization, Accents, and Masora of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher in the Leningrad Codex (Peabody, MA 2001) ix, by M. H. GOSHEN- GOTTSTEIN (ed.), The Book of Isaiah (HUBP; Jerusalem 1995) xlvii, and by E. TOV, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis, MN – Assen 22001) 47. G.E. WEIL expresses uncertainty over the precise date: “dated to 1009 or 1008 A. D.”; cf. K. ELLIGER – W. RUDOLPH (eds.), Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart 1984) xiii; the order here suggests that he also preferred 1009 as the date. Certainty is thus clearly not possible, but the millennial anniversary must be at least close to, if not actually in, the present year. (5) The reasons for accepting it as the earliest and best complete text in the Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (early tenth century) tradition have been frequently rehearsed (see recently DOTAN, Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia, vi-xxiii), even if in some respects it is not as satisfactory as the earlier, but unfortunately not completely preserved, Aleppo Codex. (6) For the principles of this new edition, see the “General Introduction” by the Editorial Committee in the first fascicule to have appeared, SCHENKER et al. (eds.), Biblia Hebraica, quinta editione, vii-xxvi. Three further fascicules have so far appeared since. An excellent illustrative discussion of the characteristics of the project is provided by the editor of Deuteronomy, C. MCCARTHY, “What’s New in BHQ? Reflections on BHQ Deuteronomy”, PIBA 30 (2007) 54-69. (7) For minor exceptions to this rule, see the editorial introductions to the third edition (which was the first to be based on this manuscript), by R. KITTEL, with slight modifications after his death by P. KAHLE. In the fourth (the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), even these modest exceptions were excluded: “We have thought it