Thanks, CK and cm!
The August 2000 issue of BIBLE REVIEW has a fascinating debate over the search for the “authentic” text. And you’re right, CM, the Masoretic text “is the result of a stabilization process that began in the first century CE and culminated, centuries later, in such Tiberian manuscripts as the Aleppo Codex and Leningrad Codex.”
The Aleppo Codes dated from about 900 AD, and was the oldest existing copy, and the Leningrad Codex from about 1010 AD.
The Ben Asher family of Masoretes worked on preserving and copying the text over five generations, “from the sixth century to the early 10th century.” (That’s where I misremember the 600s… twas actually a century earlier.)