Hebrew Bible, Pentateuch with Masorah [Spain; ca.1300]

Estimate

180,000 - 250,000 USD

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Description

149 leaves (11 x 81/2 in.; 280 x 215 mm). [1-18^{8,19^{5] Manuscript on parchment, written in brown ink in Sephardic Hebrew square script in two columns, with micrographic masoretic notes, ff. 108-9, 149 in a later hand; blind-ruled in hardpoint, two columns (excepting the Song at the Sea and the Song of Moses), 26 lines to the page; quires signed at head and foot in ink, some lower signatures cropped; modern foliation in pencil. A few leaves lightly soiled; some cockling; final quire strengthened at gutter. Gilt edges. Eighteenth century brown morocco, extensive gold tooling to boards, edges and spine, spine in 10 compartments over raised bands, worn.}}

Catalogue Note

A superb and important biblical codex from Spain with masoretic notes

The unparalleled precision and beauty of Spanish Hebrew bibles have long made them particularly desirable to collectors of Hebrew books. With the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century, Sephardic Jews were dispersed to every corner of the known world. With them they took their most precious possessions, their books. Even so, complete Hebrew bibles written in pre-expulsion Iberia are exceedingly rare.

This manuscript faithfully preserves the masoretic tradition while still serving as an important witness to certain alternative vocalizations and scribal traditions current in fourteenth century Spain, particularly in Navarre (see below).

In addition to the biblical text itself, the manuscript includes the masorah, the system of extra-biblical notations which ensures the correct transmission of the writing and reading of the Hebrew Bible. The masorah was copied into the margins of biblical codices and often fashioned by scribes into the kinds of geometric designs seen here. The manuscript includes both masorah magna and parva (great and small masorah) The notes of the masorah parva are expressed in extreme brevity, generally by abbreviations in the margins of the biblical text. The longer masorah magna, provides a more detailed explanation and expansion of the masorah parva as well as additional notes. Due to its length it was not written at the side of the text but in the upper and lower margins of the page.

While the present manuscript was undoubtedly written on the Iberian Peninsula, scholars, as a result of a thorough codicological analysis have put forward an interesting suggestion in an effort to further localize its geographic area of origin. All medieval Hebrew manuscripts written on parchment follow the rule of facing pages or Gregory's rule, named for the nineteenth century scholar who first observed that the two facing sides of an open manuscript always show the same side of the parchment, either hair-side or flesh-side. The norm for Hebrew manuscripts in Spain was to begin with the hair side for folio 1r. The next opening would have two facing pages (f.1v-2r.) displaying the flesh-side; the opening after that (f.2v-3r.) would naturally display two facing hair-sides, etc. Contrary to expectations, the present manuscript begins on the flesh side. An identical placement of flesh-side occurs in The First Ibn Gaon Bible (MS Paris BN Heb. 20,) written by Joshua Ibn Gaon in Tudela in 1300/01 CE. Furthermore, that bible shares with our manuscript a number of exceptionally rare variants in vocalization. This combination of codicological and masoretic parallels help reinforce the suggested localization and dating of the present manuscript to Tudela, ca. 1300.

For further examples of the variant vocalizations and masoretic readings in this manuscript, please inquire of the Books and Manuscripts department. We would like to thank Dr. Shlomo Zucker for providing information which aided in the cataloging of this lot.