Mishneh Torah - Printed Editions and Textual Accuracy

Printed Editions and Textual Accuracy

Over time many textual errors and distortions have appeared in the various editions of Maimonides' "Mishneh Torah". These inaccuracies are in the text of rulings, in the drawings made by the Rambam, as well as in the division (and thus the numbering) of rulings.

There are various reasons for these inaccuracies. Some are due to errors in the copying of manuscripts (before the age of printing) or mistakes by typesetters of later editions. Others are due to conscious attempts to "correct" the text, and yet others to Christian censorship (in countries under its control). In addition, Maimonides himself frequently edited the text of his own autograph copy, such that manuscripts copied from his own book did not preserve his later corrections. Thus the received version may not be the text that Maimonides intended us to read.

Often the distortions in existing versions prompted questions on the "Mishne Torah" which were solved in many creative and different ways by the scholars throughout the generations; many of these questions don’t arise in the first place if the version is corrected based upon reliable manuscripts.

In order to determine the exact version, scholars use reliable early manuscripts (some of them containing Maimonides' own signature), which are free of both Christian censorship and the changes of later readers who tried to "correct" the text on their own, without manuscript evidence. Since the middle of the 20th century there have been five scientific printings of the book:

• Rabbi Shabsai Frankel's edition includes critical editions of the "classical" commentators on Mishneh Torah as well as the book itself. However, the actual text of Mishneh Torah in this edition is based heavily on the printed editions, rather than the early manuscripts, whose variant readings are relegated to marginal notes and an apparatus at the end of each volume. All the volumes have been published.
• Rabbi Yosef Qafih's edition is based mainly on Yemenite manuscripts, and includes an extensive commentary by Rabbi Qafih that surveys the discussions of the classical commentaries on Mishneh Torah and includes verbatim citation of previous commentaries in their entirety.
• The Yad Peshutah edition by Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch, Rosh Yeshivat Yeshivat Birkat Moshe in Ma'ale Adumim. This edition is based on a number of manuscripts (different ones are used for the different books, according to their reliability) and includes an original commentary on the Mishneh Torah. About half the volumes have been printed at this point.
• "The Exact Mishneh Torah" edition by Rabbi Yitzchak Shelat, also of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe has no commentary. It compares the printed versions to the fixed version. So far, four volumes have been printed; the publisher expects to print two new volumes each year.
• A one-volume edition (1000 pages), published by Yeshivat Or Vishua and now in its third edition, reflects all the editions based on reliable manuscripts, accompanied by surrounding indexes but with no commentary. The text was checked again, based mainly on Rabbi Yosef Qafih's edition. It gives variant readings from the other leading editions only in cases where the changes are meaningful. "The Mishne Torah Project" of the yeshiva also plans to publish a multi-volume pocket edition including vowel diacritics and cross-references to other passages and to Maimonides' other works. The pocket version of Sefer Ha-Madda (The Book of Knowledge) is already in print.