Researchers identify author of tenth-century biblical text
The ancient codex contains Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.
The author of a tenth-century collection of scriptures has been identified as the same scribe who wrote the earliest known complete copy of the Hebrew Bible.
The finding could influence future translations of the Hebrew scriptures, also known as the Old Testament, according to Tyndale House, Cambridge, which published the research.
The ancient text, known to scholars as Codex L17, contains only Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings. Researcher Kim Phillips wrote in an article in the Tyndale Bulletin that he determined that the author was the scribe Samuel ben Jacob, or “Samuel, son of Jacob,” and that it was written around the year 975.
