Summary: A recent publication on the 2017 rediscovery of a Hebrew manuscript from Cairo, Egypt of a large portion of the Bible has generated excitement over recent months. Here, we look at Part 1 of a 2-part installment on its discovery, subsequent loss, and rediscovery 112 years later.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. – Psalm 1:1, 2 (ESV)
A Crown Rediscovered in Egypt
In 2017, an Israeli historian and University Professor named Yoram Meital was in Cairo as part of a project to survey and document the city’s numerous synagogues. While in the monumental Moussa Der’i Synagogue, he observed several packages wrapped in white paper and lying on the lower shelves of a bookcase. Written on the cover of one of these in Hebrew lettering, was the phrase, “Gottheil 22.”
The historian had somehow managed to stumble upon a package bearing the name of a famous scholar who had examined and documented dozens of manuscripts in Cairo in 1905. Meital described the experience of the discovery in a recently published article. He stated:
“While trying to locate the book [The Jewess, by Murad Farag], I came upon a bookcase that was facing the right entrance door. I noticed several packages on one of its lower shelves, wrapped in white paper, the type that is sometimes used as a table covering at inexpensive restaurants. On the back cover of the first wrapping someone had written in Hebrew ‘Gottheil 22.’ I was utterly overwhelmed when, as I unwrapped the dusty cover, hundreds of parchments were exposed.” [1]
What Meital had discovered, or rediscovered, was the “crown” of Zechariah Ben Anan written almost a thousand years earlier. It was one of the oldest and best-preserved copies of the Hebrew Bible’s third division, known as “The Writings.” Bibles of the class encountered by Meital were the actual reference works, or guidebooks for professional copyists of the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament, in its original language during the late classical through medieval era.
These complex tools give us a glimpse into the process of how the text of Genesis-Malachi was preserved and transmitted from antiquity, and the mechanics of how accuracy was maintained. By comparing these to more ancient manuscripts, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, we are able to observe the checks and controls that were utilized to ensure the fidelity of text during the pre-modern era.
The manuscript discovered by Meital was one of those reference books. It had originally been documented in the early 20th century, but had gone missing decades earlier. This is its story.
An Unknown Crown in Cairo
In 1905, Semitic language specialist Richard Gottheil published an article in the Jewish Quarterly Review entitled, “Some Hebrew Manuscripts in Cairo,” in which he described dozens of previously unknown “ancient” manuscripts and books. [2] Some of these had been referenced by travelers who had visited the city’s synagogues, but no one had made the effort to document them. It seems that the hugely important and massively sized Cairo Genizah discovered just a few years before had monopolized the interests of traveling scholars.
In the article, Gottheil undertook documenting dozens of manuscripts housed in the historic Dar Simḥah and other local synagogues for the stated purpose of bringing these treasures to the attention of the scholarly community. The manuscripts were of varied quality and condition, but some of them were clearly of great importance. He had discovered a previously unknown manuscript in the special variety referred to as a “crown.” He wrote,
“The Jews call them תורה כתר “Keter Torah,” or “Crown of the Law” in Hebrew; מצחף in Arabic…. In Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia, where a similar custom
prevails, the name given is תאג [taj] (a “crown”).”
His work was hampered, though, because of the difficulty of access and uncomfortable conditions that he encountered. In a tone characteristic of the era, he complained that to do his work accurately would have been met with “insurmountable difficulties” peculiar to such an effort in Egypt. He further lamented that although some of these manuscripts were clearly of great value, they were stored “in the worst possible state.”
Some of them were even falling into dilapidation. He wrote,
“The only one that is preserved with a little care is the Codex of Moses ben Asher. A wooden box with a glass cover has been provided; into this the pages of the [manuscript] have been stuffed: the word is no exaggeration; the box is not large enough, and the pages must be fitted to its size! The others are tied up in handkerchiefs, or rags of equal cleanliness, and stuffed into the cupboards. Their resting-place touches a wall, through which water seems to percolate, in such manner that damp and mould are gradually eating their way into the parchments.”
Value of the Crowns
Though not fully appreciated by their custodians, some of these manuscripts were priceless treasures. At least one was in the style of a keter (“crown”) like that of the Aleppo Codex and Codex Leningradensis – arguably the two most important texts for the study of the Hebrew Bible.
A keter or taj (depending on geographic origin and custom) constitutes the ultimate form of the Hebrew Bible. They include not only the text of Scripture, but the most authoritative notations of the scholar-scribes known as the Masoretes and are a veritable encyclopedia of information. Even today, these texts are marvels of scholarship that represent the pinnacle of manuscript production. (See the Thinker Update on the process from ancient scrolls to modern Bibles.)
For a time, the ultimate crown was the Aleppo Codex, known as the Keter Aram Tzova, or Crown of Aleppo. This monumental work is quite possibly the most extraordinary book ever produced. It was famously endorsed by the great medieval scholar Maimonides due to its remarkable accuracy.
It dates to AD 960 and was the oldest known complete ancient Hebrew Bible until its partial loss in the events connected to the burning of the great Aleppo synagogue. The fascinating story of this Bible is told by Matti Friedman in his book, Aleppo Codex: In Pursuit of One of the World’s Most Coveted, Sacred, and Mysterious Books.
Currently, the Codex Leningradensis (Leningrad Codex, or Codex L) is the oldest known complete Hebrew Bible dating to AD 1008. Like the Aleppo Codex, it represents the Ben-Asher Masoretic tradition. In addition to the most precise textual base, they contain the full Masorah, which includes the Tiberian system of vocalization (sophisticated system of vowels), accents preserving exact and uniform pronunciation (used for intonation and even for singing), and Masoretic notes (massive and complex analysis of the text written in shorthand).
For example, the scribes counted letters and words, knew the midpoint of a biblical book, and recorded this and other statistical data in the margins and at the end of each book. The goal was not convenience, but absolute fidelity in view of the biblical command to transmit the text unaltered.
You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.– Deut. 4:2 (ESV)
The Neglect of Cairo’s Crown
This was the sort of crown that had been discovered in 1905 by Richard Gottheil. However, he observed that the worshipers at the Dar Simḥah synagogue attended their biblical manuscripts with “superstitious awe” and as amulets as opposed to the real treasures that they were. For them, these priceless biblical texts were relics to be tucked away until occasion called for use in public worship.
On Saturday mornings, he observed, or when the annual Torah holiday arrived, the old books were removed from their various places of repose, adorned with celebratory coverings, venerated, and kissed by the worshipers. Afterwards, however, they were stuffed back into their miserable nooks, sometimes wrapped in cheap paper, until their participation was once again required.
This haphazard custodianship was, as lamented by Gottheil, having a highly deleterious effect on their preservation. The scholar wrote that he “made very strong remonstrances” to the Grand Rabbi about the manner of their treatment. For, he writes, “Pages that fifteen or twenty years ago must have been quite legible are becoming a mass of pulp.” [4]
A Lost Crown
Little is known about the treatment and welfare of Gottheil’s crown over the next 60 years, although it was apparently studied. Notes made on small pages attached to the manuscripts indicate analysis by at least one scholar in the intervening decades. Then, in 1967, a fire in the Dar Simḥah synagogue necessitated the relocation of its manuscripts and scrolls to more secure locations.
Perhaps it was this event combined with haunting memories of the Aleppo incident that served to stir researchers into action. However, it took some time. In 1981, fourteen years after the fire, a team of Israeli specialists from the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts traveled to Cairo where they documented the crown discovered by Gottheil. By this time, like other Jewish communities in the Muslim world, Cairo’s Jewish population was in decline. And as the Jewish population dwindled, new threats that challenged the security of the manuscripts emerged. (See a report on the Inspired Exhibit of biblical artifacts that visited Hong Kong in 2017)
Thankfully the team arrived when it did, because the codex was moved again, and this time the whereabouts of the crown were unknown to the outside world. In fact, for over four decades, the manuscript was ostensibly lost. As the Jewish community in Cairo continued to decline over the following decades, if anyone had kept track of the manuscript, they must have disappeared too.
Fortunately, the manuscript was not permanently lost. The visit by Dr. Meital not only occasioned the rediscovery of the manuscript, it has occasioned a fuller understanding of its history, as well as a new name. This was not the first time a valuable Hebrew manuscript was lost and recovered. Those details, however, will have to wait until Part 2 of the story. Until next week, KEEP THINKING!
TOP PHOTO: Timothy Mahoney and the crew filming on the Giza Plateau near Cairo, Egypt. (© 2002 Patterns of Evidence, LLC.)
NOTE: Not every view expressed by scholars contributing Thinker articles necessarily reflects the views of Patterns of Evidence. We include perspectives from various sides of debates on biblical matters so that readers can become familiar with the different arguments involved. – Keep Thinking!
REFERENCES
[1] Meital, Yoram. “A Thousand-Year-Old Biblical Manuscript Rediscovered in Cairo: The Future of the Egyptian Jewish Past.” Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 110 no. 1, 2020, pp. 194-219. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/jqr.2020.0006. P.199. Accessed 9 Mar. 2020.
[2] Gottheil, Richard. “Some Hebrew Manuscripts in Cairo.” The Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. 17, no. 4, 1905, pp. 609–655. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1451043. Accessed 9 Mar. 2020.
[3] Ibid, 610.
[4] Ibid, 611.
