Cairo Genizah Autograph and Copy

Dotan Arad and Esther-Miriam Wagner note a letter from the Cairo Genizah by the Rabbi Joshua Maimonides which is extant in both an autograph draft form and a later scribal copy. This intriguing situation gives us an inside peek into the relationship between authorial texts and scribal copies in medieval Egyptian Jewish literature. Most of the differences attested in the two manuscripts include stylistic improvements in line with Classical Arabic norms.



"The two letters, with the final copy above (T-S 12.608) and the draft copy below (Mos.IV.85)"
from http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/fotm/january-2013/index.html.

Another Forgery from Turkey

Image flipped from internet news report.

Jack Sasson points out an article in a Turkish newspaper claiming that a 1900-year-old leather Torah scroll has been confiscated by police. An (upside-down) image of the manuscript from the news report shows that this dating is clearly incorrect. The main hand is clearly not anywhere near 2000 years old, and it is so unbelievably sloppy that there is no way it was copied by a skilled scribe. The "Torah" text appears to be complete nonsense, as far as I can tell, and it is certainly not from the Pentateuch. The image quality is too poor to tell what the rest of the text is surrounding the main text. I suspect it is modelled on medieval rabbinic commentaries, but based on the nonsense "Torah" text, I highly doubt it is any such thing. This manuscript appears simply to be a poor-quality forgery.

DSS Images Online!

I just found out via Jack Sasson that the Israel Antiquities Authority has now put images of all of the DSS up online for publish access here. As far as I can tell, they have most all of the manuscripts online, with each fragment/plate imaged in both visible-light and infrared spectra. The images are of a high quality, and you can easily zoom in to see great detail. I noticed 1QIsa(a) is not given, but this is not a big deal given the Israel Museum images here. Unfortunately the images at the IAA site are not given in position in a scrollable format like the Israel Museum images, but their value is still immeasurable. For the first time ever, scholars now have the complete corpus of DSS in high quality digital images easily available at their fingertips whenever they have internet access. Thank you IAA for all your hard work! It will certainly be worth the effort!

Orthodox Corruption of Scripture in L252

Working through the 11th century Greek Gospels Lectionary 252, I came across an interesting variant in John 3:9-10. In L252, Nicodemus rebukes Jesus for his ignorance of the regenerating work of the Spirit and then proceeds to instruct him with regard to his messianic role. The lectionary lacks πως δυναται ταυτα γενεσθαι; απεκριθη Ιησους και ειπεν αυτω in vv. 9-10, leaving a text that reads:

"Nicodemus answered and said to him, 'Are you the teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you...'"

This shorter, more theologically primitive reading is clearly the initial text of the Gospel, which has been replaced throughout the entire rest of the manuscript tradition. This process of intentional supression of heterodox readings is verified within the manuscript itself by the secondary insertion of the lacking text. The original teaching of the Gospel of John is that Christ was theologically misinformed and needed to be taught by the Jewish religious leaders why he was here...

Alternatively, the text was accidentally dropped out by homoioteleuton (και ειπεν αυτω ∩ και ειπεν αυτω) in this medieval lectionary, but I doubt I could even get a single article out of that... ;)

Electronic Transcription of Greek Gospel Lectionary L252

I recently starting transcribing Lectionary 252 for the International Greek New Testament Project, and it made for an interesting exercise. Someone apparently cut the sole of a shoe out of the first folio, which made transcription quite complicated. :) It was quite helpful to learn and put into practice their transcription guidelines, and I'm sure there will be a future for doing similar things with OT manuscripts. Once full transcriptions are done, data comparison can be done much more quickly and from a much greater variety of angles than normal collation practices.

Hebrew Manuscripts Studies: An Introduction

The Freie Universität Berlin will be hosting a workshop entitled Hebrew Manuscripts Studies: An Introduction from 15-19 July 2013.

"The participants will be introduced to the study of different codicological and paleographical aspects of Hebrew manuscripts, including their periodisation, writing supports, bindings, mise-en-texte, mise-en-page, inks, illuminations, dating systems, scripts, etc. The theoretical part will be supplemented by hands-on sessions, in which the participants will have to opportunity to observe the discussed features themselves in Hebrew manuscripts kept at Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
The worshop will be conducted by:
Prof. Dr. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne, Paris)
Prof. Dr. Malachi Beit-Arie (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
Key-lecture:
Dr. Ben Outhwaite (Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library)
Venue: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Haus 2, Potsdamer Straße 33
The workshop is intended for advanced MA and doctoral students, and other junior researchers in the fields of Judaic Studies, Arabic and Islamic Studies, classic and medieval philology or comparative manuscript studies. Dependent on prior arrangement with the home institution, students of the Freie Universität Berlin, who are currently enrolled in Judaistik, Islamwissenschaft or Arabistik and PhD candidates at the BGSMCS, are entitled to receive credits for their participation. Please refer to your institute for details. The participation fee is 100 Euro. The enrollment in the workshop will only be active after payment. Bank details will be communicated to successful applicants, end of January 2013. The fee cannot be reimbursed in case of cancellation. The workshop will be held in English and is limited to 25 participants! Applications, including a cover letter with a brief description of your motivation, CV, summary of current research project, are to be sent to orientabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de or Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Orientabteilung, Potsdamer Str. 33, 10785 Berlin, until 15 January 2013."

The Textual Criticism of Sumerian Literature

This one looks like an interesting book for comparative studies in textual criticism.

The Textual Criticism of Sumerian Literature

by Paul Delnero

"The occurrence of textual variation is a significant but frequently neglected aspect of the study of Sumerian literary compositions. The correct evaluation of textual variants and the proper understanding of how and why they occur is essential to producing reliable editions of such texts. Such explorations also provide invaluable evidence for the written transmission of Sumerian literary works and a wealth of data for assessing aspects of Sumerian grammar. Drawing from a detailed analysis of the different types of textual variants that occur in the numerous duplicates of a group of ten compositions known collectively as the Decad, this book aims to provide a much needed critical methodology for interpreting textual variation in the Sumerian literary corpus which can be applied to editing and analyzing these compositions with improved accuracy."