A Chance Discovery: Christian David Ginsburg’s Notes and Two Historic Codices
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.025.1261Keywords:
Masorah, Toledo, Catalonia, Hilleli, Muggah, HandwritingAbstract
The author purchased a copy of Christian David Ginsburg’s The Massorah (1880-1905) and it contained thousands of mysterious handwritten numbers. It was determined by a handwriting analysis that these notes belonged to Ginsburg himself, and that he was analyzing the Masoretic material of two privately-owned codices. The first, MS Holkham 2, has been attributed to the scribe Yisrael Hasofer from Toledo, ca. 1200-1250. The second, the Schottenstein Spanish Bible, is of Sephardic origin from ca. 1300s. Both of these codices reference the now-lost Masoretic Bibles known as the Muggah and Hilleli codices.
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References
Breuer, Mordechai. 1976. The Aleppo Codex and the Accepted Text of the Bible. Hebrew. Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook.
Hayut, Anat. 2019. C. D. Ginsburg's Unfinished Work "THE MASSORAH": Description of its History and an Attempt to Complete it. 2 vols. PhD dissertation. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University.
Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith. 2024. Holkham 2 Schoyen collection 5070: Palaeographical Assessment. Unpublished report for Christie's Auction 23056, Lot 14, 11 June 2024.
Penkower, Jordan. 2024. MS Oslo Schøyen 5070. Unpublished report for Christie's Auction 23056, Lot 14, 11 June 2024.
Sarna, Nahum M. 2000. "Introduction to the Hilleli Manuscript." Studies in Biblical Interpretation. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
Weiss, Yuval. 2024. "The Masoretic note ' חזינא ': Its Creation and Chronicles from the Special Accentuation in Medieval Manuscripts until Minchat Shay." Hebrew. Moreshet Yisrael 22, 1. Ariel University. 87-113. https://doi.org/10.26351/MI/22-1/4
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