The Hebrew Bible, or “Tanakh” (for “Torah,” “Nevi’im” = Prophets, and KHetuvim = Writings), is the sacred foundation of all subsequent Jewish traditions, understood to be divinely revealed or inspired. As an expression of  God’s will, it was an essential part of every Jewish community’s library. As an expression of God’s will, it was also essential that its precise form was carefully preserved. 

To protect the biblical text against corruption, scholars created a system, called the Masorah (“tradition”), which identified relatively rare forms of words in the Tanakh and drew attention to them in marginal notes. By forcing attention to the minute details of the biblical text, the Masorah (nearly) froze the text into a single, canonical form. 

This beautiful Yemenite Tanakh is written in a typical Yemenite hand and surrounded by Masoretic notes. It contains various decorative markers, including decorative frames containing notes between biblical books. Appended to the biblical manuscript, in the front, is a manuscript of a Hebrew grammatical work by a nineteenth century scholar. In between the two works are several elaborately decorated pages and a diagram of the Jerusalem Temple, seen here.