“I want to know everything about the Bible!” These spontaneous words pronounced by one of the participants at the Research Approaches in Hebrew Bible Manuscript Studies colloquium held in Aix-en-Provence in 2016 was very revealing in terms of the practical situation we found ourselves in. As organisers of a morning of experimenting with co-writing articles, we were trying (again!) to split into small groups all the participants who belonged to different disciplinary fields.1 Hence the questions: How can the study of the Hebrew Bible and its sources be approached in a holistic way without immediately compartmentalising knowledge according to the disciplines that have crystallised over the course of decades and centuries and which, in fact, can prevent awareness of common issues by referring only to one’s own discipline? Conversely, how can knowledge on this subject be decompartmentalised while respecting each one’s specialties, since no one can know everything about a subject as vast as the Hebrew Bible? Humbly and without claiming complete success, the present volume can advance this type of collective reflections and help us understand the cultural monument that is the “Hebrew Bible” from antiquity to the present day, using approaches that are as much archaeological and material as they are historical, philological, exegetical, or theological. For one could say that there are as many approaches as there are researchers, disciplinary fields, and Bibles.
Hence the title of the volume, The Hebrew Bible Manuscripts: A Millennium, reflects a certain interdisciplinary perspective shared between a priori three disconnected fields: 1. the now famous Dead Sea Scrolls Studies which appeared in 1947 and are so active and brilliant nowadays; 2. the Cairo Genizah Fragments Studies which arose at the end of the nineteenth century with the discovery made by Solomon Shechter, which still remains important as the fragment sources are far from having given up all their secrets; and 3. a Late Medieval Biblical Manuscript Studies field which has been relatively neglected but is the most ancient, existing since (at least?) the sixteenth century when scholarly editors became interested in editing the Hebrew biblical text based on different medieval manuscripts that were at their disposal.2 While we can observe that the last subdiscipline seems today less famous than the first two probably because 1. the DSS and Cairo Genizah discoveries challenged scholars and changed radically the focus of research, and every discovery seems spectacular,3 and 2. as has been the case with Latin Bibles, the oldest and older historical sources became more valuable to scholarly interests, while more recent ones became superfetate becoming superfetate and uninteresting materials (“again a Bible,” one may say). Nevertheless and in theoria, each of these fields should be equally explored: each biblical text produced anytime and anywhere was endowed with “a specific value” by its producer, owners, and users of each time and place. The precise reason for a need for vibrant Late Medieval Biblical Manuscript Studies has long been spelled out4 but this would require—as far as Hebrew studies are concerned—co-operation among all the research disciplinary fields. Nowadays many scholars deal at the same time with complete/fragmentary biblical codices or scrolls and may have cross-interests in Masoretic Studies, Philological, Philosophical or Theological Studies, editorial projects, Codicological and Palaeographical Studies, Art Historical Studies, and Material Culture Studies. From this perspective, several research projects and the tremendous editorial projects such as the Textual History of the Bible (ed. Armin Lange) confirm the renewal of interest in all kinds of biblical material and even of editorial perspectives.5 The contents of this edited volume come from all these various fields but are organised by the chronological order of the sources studied; they all deal with all kinds of Bibles (or biblical text) produced in Hebrew characters or letters.
The article by Antony Perrot and Matthieu Richelle entitled “The Dead Sea Scrolls’ Paleo-Hebrew Script: Its Roots in Hebrew Scribal Tradition” deals with the Paleo-Hebrew script attested on some Dead Sea scrolls. After a brief status quaestionis it reviews the Paleo-Hebrew inscriptions dating from the Persian to the Roman periods, providing a background based on safely dated documents and making it possible to point out typological developments empirically attested during the Second Temple period. It then examines the palaeography of the Paleo-Hebrew scrolls and reassesses Mark D. McLean’s influential chronology. Finally, it addresses the question of the use of the Paleo-Hebrew script in the Second Temple period, seeking to decide whether it was abandoned and then “resuscitated,” or rather continuously employed by scribes, albeit in limited contexts. It further discusses the shift from the Paleo-Hebrew to the square script, especially in books that would later be called biblical. Palaeographical charts compiled as a companion to this article are available at
According to Matthew Monger’s paper “4Q216 and the Jubilees Creation Account: A Material Philological Analysis,” the Jubilees deserves a place in any discussion of Hebrew Bible manuscripts as the text shows how Genesis was read and used during the Late Second Temple period. In particular, the creation account in Jubilees shows a mix of reliance on the text of Genesis and exegetical and cultural adaptation that shows how the Genesis story was contextualised. This chapter provides an analysis of the oldest attested manuscript of the Jubilees Creation Account, 4Q216 (4QJubileesa), from a material philological perspective. It argues that a material philological reading of the manuscript shows that the Jubilees Creation Account was in some cases transmitted separately from the rest of Jubilees, and without the setting out of the sabbath instructions found in Ethiopic Jubilees 2:25–31. Further, it argues that this creation account fits neatly in with other texts found at Qumran and is thus at home within the context represented by the Dead Sea Scrolls.
When working with the Dead Sea Scrolls scholars are confronted with a complex data set that is materially fragmentary, textually pluriform, and generally lacking in uniform scribal conventions. In such scholarly environments material reconstructions of scrolls play an especially important role and many recent studies of the DSS and the Herculaneum papyri have attempted such reconstructions with great effect. In his inspiring paper “Methods for the Reconstruction of Large Literary (Sc)rolls from Fragmentary Remains” Drew Longacre surveys the methods utilised by scholars for reconstructing ancient literary (sc)rolls, focusing on the possibilities and limitations of using deterioration patterns evident on the material remains in order to reconstruct the sizes, contents, and sequences of scrolls. He further proposes several methodological refinements necessary for reconstructing large literary scrolls such as “biblical” manuscripts. Such methods also have great potential for understanding the important fragmentary evidence from the so-called “silent period” between the DSS and the well-preserved manuscripts of the tenth century and later, or they can even help reconstruct medieval scrolls of which only fragments remain today.
In her article “Rethinking Methodological Approaches: The Phylactery Corpus from the Judean Desert as a Test Case” Anna Busa scrutinises the phylactery finds among the Dead Sea Scrolls and calls for a revision of Emanuel Tov’s hypothesis of a Qumran scribal practice. Drawing on the phylactery fragments held at the papyrology collection of the University of Heidelberg, the article discusses their palaeography, their linguistic features, and the scribal practices applied to them in an attempt order to contribute to the debate on the putative existence of a scribal practice unique to Qumran.
Gilles Dorival’s “The Septuagint between Textual Criticism and Redactional Criticism” reassesses important questions on the differences between the MT and LXX. Could these be explained in terms of a Vorlage, i.e. textual criticism, or of interpretation, i.e. redactional criticism? As for the LXX, a specific Vorlage could have existed in the case of the Pentateuch but the issue is still being debated. As for the Prophets and Writings, there were two textual forms of Joshua 21–22, 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, Jeremiah, Daniel, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, Job, and Proverbs. There are hesitations about 1–2 Chronicles and Psalms as it is not easy to decide whether the MT or the LXX is the oldest form. Maybe the LXX form is the oldest one in the case of Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, and Daniel. In any event, each textual form has its own legitimacy.
In her paper “A New Proposal for the Identification and Interpretation of the Genizah Fragment T-S D 1. 61” Elvira Martín-Contreras offers a new identification and interpretation of the Genizah fragment T-S D 1. 61 which is made up of two lists. Previous studies have identified this fragment as an original Masoretic material made up of Masoretic notes, listed without any systematisation and accompanied by their exegetical explanations. From the new detailed study of both lists it is possible to affirm that despite the similarities between the first list and the Midrash Haserot vi-yterot, the T-S D1.61 fragment cannot be identified as part of a manuscript reflecting that Midrash. Moreover, the fact that this list appears in the fragment together with another list similar to one found in the Masoretic compendium ʾOkla weʾOklah confirms that the fragment contains a work with its own identity and is not a part of that Midrash. The two lists in the fragment exhibit traditions which, although they were originally transmitted independently or separately, appear also combined in the appendices in two biblical codices, which suggests that this fragment might also have formed part of a biblical codex. Finally, the new identification of the first list helps to explain the way in which textual information was set out and the mechanisms behind its interpretation.
Kim Phillips presents “Two New Fragments from the Scribe behind the Leningrad Codex (B19a),” meaning the famous Samuel ben Jacob. This article is of great interest for the de facto significance of this scribe but also suggests a new approach that could and should be generalisable to the study of other scribes: the combination of paratextual and textual considerations (alongside codicological and, where possible, palaeographic considerations) is a powerful tool for reuniting disparate fragments of biblical codices, shedding light on the development and consolidation of the Tiberian Masoretic Bible.
In his “Biblical Manuscripts from the Collections of the National Library of Russia, and Their Use in the Textual Research of the Hebrew Bible” Viktor Golinets offers a rare and important contribution to clarifying how the biblical manuscripts kept in Russian libraries have been handled in the academic works published so far. It aims to overview the study of these manuscripts, indicate literature dealing with different aspects of this study, and suggest new research perspectives.
Javier del Barco’s “Catalogues of Hebrew Manuscripts and the Cataloguing of Hebrew Fragments” explores methodological questions arising from the experience of compiling catalogues that deal with entire Hebrew codices or Hebrew fragments that are generally considered to be the same. Taking into account the different approaches to manuscripts reflected in the history of catalogues of Hebrew codices, the author underlines that these procedures should not be applied automatically to fragments, for instance in terms of classification.
In “Identifying the Model of a Copy: The Case of Colmar’s Biblical Fragments” Judith Kogel deals with the interesting question of medieval codices serving as models (exemplars) for copies. She takes the example of a fourteenth-century reconstituted Bible (the Colmar Bible) containing Torah and Haftaroth, from which a lot of the last ones were reused as cover for book bindings. She compares textual elements with the variants already identified by B. Kennicott in his famous Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum (1776). One cannot come up with a clear picture but can at least fuel the questions on exemplars in Medieval Ashkenaz.
Mauro Perani’s “The Tagin: Their Origin, Use, and Oscillating Evolution between Embellishment and Mystical Signifier. New Light from the Ancient Bologna Sefer Torah” underlines some important issues related to the new discovery of the Bologna Scroll and of Tagin in the Torah Scroll (Pentateuch liturgical scroll). The finds in the Bologna Torah scroll are presented in light of ancient, medieval, and edited sources, discussing the scroll’s place in the historical continuum. This study encourages further research on scroll fragments or scroll collections about which still little is known.
The article written by Élodie Attia with the assistance of Léo Pascal presents the MBH Project which, by describing first a limited corpus of Hebrew biblical manuscripts all produced in Ashkenaz up to 1300 and using renewed quantitative approaches, aims to better grasp and understand the materialisation of the biblical text, i.e. forms and functions of biblical manuscripts, their social and cultural meaning, their Sitz im Leben, as well as to help reassess a typology of medieval “Hebrew Bibles” by examining their different socio-cultural contexts of production. The article also explores some 3D photogrametry experiments conducted at several libraries in France and reassesses the opportunity to shoot some Hebrew and Latin biblical codices in 3D in order to improve our comprehension of manuscripts in the digital age.
The last two articles are intended to cross-compare approaches. In the first one, “Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Cairo Genizah, and Books within Books: Towards a Comparative Study of the Manuscript Fragments of the Hebrew Bible,” Judith Olszowy-Schlanger and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra suggest all the common points and differences between two corpora of fragments: the ancient fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the medieval fragments kept in old book bindings in European libraries. In the final article entitled “Continuities and Parallels in the Transmission of the Hebrew Bible in the Second Temple Period and in the Middle Ages” Geoffrey Khan engages in reflections about the meeting points and echoes in the process of written transmission and homogenisation of the biblical text in Dead Seas Scrolls sources and late medieval sources. He reminds us that a plurally written text in antiquity was replaced by a medieval pluriformity of oral reading traditions, but in both cases the written tradition gained general acceptance.
To conclude, we can only hope that in the age of homo numericus, open data, and collaborative science, scholars from all kinds of field will be able to perform together as a jazz orchestra would—everyone free in one’s own improvisation and instrumental peculiarity while expressing the same score—in order to explain this complex and fascinating phenomenon commonly called the “Hebrew Bible,” in relation to which so many questions are still open, while examining its ancient or medieval remnants.
Élodie Attia & Antony Perrot
Aix-en-Provence, April 2021
Bibliography
Cassuto, Philippe. “La lettre comme forme. Les bases d’ une édition des divergences de la Bible hébraïque.” Henoch 11 (1989): 3–16.
Lange, Armin. “A Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible between the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Masoretic Text.” In The Text of the Hebrew Bible and Its Editions. Studies in Celebration of the Fifth Centennial of the Complutensian Polyglot, edited by Andrés Piquer Otero and Pablo Torijano Morales, 107–142. Supplements to the Textual History of the Bible 1. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Lange, Armin. “History of Research (1.2.1 and 1.2.2).” In Textual History of the Bible, edited by Armin Lange and Emanuel Tov, 1, The Hebrew Bible. Part A: Overview Articles:82–166. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Maniaci, Marilena, Denis Muzerelle, and Ezzio Ornato. “Une Bible … mais encore? Le portrait des manuscrits bibliques dans la catalographie moderne.” In Sources for the History of Medieval Books and Libraries (Fourth International Codicologendagen, University of Groningen, 8–11 October 1996), edited by Rita Schlusemann, Jos. M.M. Hermans, and Margriet Hoogvliet, 291–309. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1999.
Ornato, Ezzio. “Conclusion.” In Comment le Livre s’ est fait livre: La fabrication des manuscrits bibliques (IVe–XVe siècle), bilan, résultats, perspectives de recherche. Actes du colloque international organisé à l’ Université de Namur du 23 au 25 mai 2012, edited by Chiara Ruzzier and Xavier Hermand, 281–286. Bibliologia 40. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015.
See Acknowledgments for the reference to the conference mentioned.
See Armin Lange, “History of Research (1.2.1 and 1.2.2),” in Textual History of the Bible, ed. Armin Lange and Emanuel Tov, vol. 1, The Hebrew Bible. Part A: Overview Articles (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 82–166.
Examining a real codex in a library is becoming a real exploit (and not because of the coronavirus pandemic).
Philippe Cassuto, “La lettre comme forme. Les bases d’ une édition des divergences de la Bible hébraïque,” Henoch 11 (1989): 3–16; Marilena Maniaci, Denis Muzerelle, and Ezzio Ornato, “Une Bible … mais encore? Le portrait des manuscrits bibliques dans la catalographie moderne,” in Sources for the History of Medieval Books and Libraries (Fourth International Codicologendagen, University of Groningen, 8–11 October 1996), ed. Rita Schlusemann, Jos. M.M. Hermans, and Margriet Hoogvliet (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1999), 291–309; Ezzio Ornato, “Conclusion,” in Comment le Livre s’ est fait livre: La fabrication des manuscrits bibliques (IVe–XVe siècle), bilan, résultats, perspectives de recherche. Actes du colloque international organisé à l’ Université de Namur du 23 au 25 mai 2012, ed. Chiara Ruzzier and Xavier Hermand, Bibliologia 40 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2015), 281–286.
Armin Lange, “A Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible between the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Masoretic Text,” in The Text of the Hebrew Bible and Its Editions. Studies in Celebration of the Fifth Centennial of the Complutensian Polyglot, ed. Andrés Piquer Otero and Pablo Torijano Morales, Supplements to the Textual History of the Bible 1 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 107–142, esp. 131 where we quote “how far these medieval variant readings might reflect readings from late antiquity or even antiquity remains an open question and needs to be researched.”