Scientific Evaluation
Although according to its colophon the codex was written by a member of the Ben Asher family, Lazar Lipschütz and others observed that, within the masoretic tradition, Codex Cairensis seems to be closer to Ben Naphtali than to Ben Asher.
While some scholars consider this to be an argument against its authenticity, Moshe Goshen-Gottstein assumed that Ben Naphtali stuck more faithfully to the system of Moses ben Asher than the latter's own son Aaron ben Moses ben Asher who corrected the Aleppo Codex and added its punctuation.
More recently, further doubts on its authenticity have been cast by radio-carbon dating and other scientific techniques.
Umberto Cassuto relied heavily on this codex when producing his edition of the Masoretic Text, which means that in the prophets his edition is closer to the ben Naphtali tradition than in the Torah or Writings.
The codex itself - all 575 pages, including the 13 carpet pages which are not part of the online version - are kept in a secure room on the floor below the Hebrew Manuscript collection at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Read more about this topic: Codex Cairensis
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