The importance of the Braginsky Pentateuch for the textual
criticism of the Hebrew Bible is comparable to that of MS L44a of
the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, copied
in Toledo in 1241. The Braginsky manuscript was copied in Spain,
most likely in the second half of the fourteenth century, based on
what was considered the original Hillel Codex. No trace of an
original Hillel Codex has survived; it may have been used for the
last time for a Pentateuch edition of Guadalajara, Spain, shortly
before 1492. In truth, it is not clear whether the Hillel Codex
ever existed, or whether it was a legend known from secondary
sources. The manuscript is still bound in an old blind-tooled
leather binding with (later?) brass ornamentation and clasps.
