The hebrew Bible has come down to us through the scrupulous care of ancient scribes who copied the original text in successive generations.  By the sixth century A.D. the scribes were succeeded by a group known as the Masoretes, who continues to preserve the sacred Scriptures for another five hundred years in a form known as the Masoretic Text. 

Babylonia, Palestine, and Tiberias were the main centers of Masoretic activity;  but by the tenth century A.D. the Masoretes of Tiberias, led by the family of ben Asher, fained the ascendancy.  Through subsequent editions, the ben Asher text  became in the twelfth century the only recognized form of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Daniel Bombert printed the first Rabbinic Bible in 1516-17; that work was followed in 1524-25 by a second edition prepared by jacob ben Chayyim and also published by Bomberg.