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.