<p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>(BIBLE).</strong></span></p>
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<p><b>Single Manuscript Leaf.</b> Exodus (Shemoth) Chap. 22, verses 4-29. Written in Hebrew on vellum. Large and fine square script with Nikkud, small Masorah inserted between the columns. <span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Formerly in the Cairo Genizah.</strong></span></p>
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<p> Remains of three columns, 17 lines in each. </p>
<p>Stains, scuffs and folds, with damage to all outer edges, else good and sound condition. Early 20th-century conservation including infilling with paper and setting within silk. </p>
<p>335 x 377 mm.</p>
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<p>Oriental (Persia?), 9th / 10th century.</p>
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<p><b> A relic of a monumental early medieval manuscript of the Hebrew Bible; </b>and, with the exception of the Dead Sea Scrolls - <span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>One of the Oldest Extant Witnesses to the Text.</strong></span></p>
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<p><b>Exhibited: </b></p>
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<p>XVI Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament. Faculty of Law Library, University of Oslo, 29 July - 7 August 1998. </p>
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<p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Provenance:</strong></span></p>
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<p>i. The Cairo Genizah. </p>
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<p>Repository of the Jewish community located in the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Fustat, was established in 882 AD. In the 12th century the synagogue was the place of worship of Moses Maimonides. The synagogue’s storehouse of obsolete texts fell into disuse and was forgotten until renovations to the building in 1891 opened the hoard and released some leaves onto the antiquities market. </p>
<p> In 1896 the British collector E.N. Adler visited the community and acquired some fragments. In the meantime a leaf from the long-lost Hebrew version of Ecclesiasticus had found its way via the early Bible hunters, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, to the Cambridge scholar Solomon Schechter. He mounted a rescue mission later the same year and obtained the remaining 140,000 fragments for Cambridge University. “The discovery captivated public imagination in Europe in a way comparable only to the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922.”</p>
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<p>ii. David Solomon Sassoon (1915-85); acquired in December 1922 (doubtless in the markets of Cairo). </p>
<p>See D.S. Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library (1932) Vol. I, pp. 27-8.</p>
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<p>iii. Sotheby's London, Seventy-Six Important Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts from the Library of the late David Solomon Sassoon, 21st June, 1994, Lot 1. </p>
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<p>iv. The Schøyen Collection, MS 1858/3. </p>
<p>See <a href="https://www.schoyencollection.com/palaeography-collection-introduction/aramaic-hebrew-syriac/4-6-6-hebrew-square/ms-1858-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: sans-serif;">https://www.schoyencollection.com/palaeography-collection-introduction/aramaic-hebrew-syriac/4-6-6-hebrew-square/ms-1858-3</a></p>
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<p>v. Sotheby’s London, The History of Script: Sixty Important Manuscript Leaves from the Schoyen Collection, 10th July 2012, Lot 11 (Lot sold: £43,250). </p>
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<p><span style="color:#9C0000"><strong>Text:</strong></span></p>
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<p>The leaf rivals in date, or even predates, the earliest Hebrew biblical codices of the 9th or 10th century, such as the surviving parts of the Aleppo Codex (c. 920, now Jerusalem, Shrine of the Book), the Damascus Pentateuch (c. 1000, also Jerusalem, Hebrew University), the St. Petersberg Codex (dated 1008/09, now National Library of Russia, MS. B19a), British Library (Or. 4445, Pentateuch only, 10th-century), and the near complete 9th- or 10th-century codex, also ex-Sassoon, sold Sotheby’s, 5th December 1989, lot 69, (for £2,035,000). </p>
<p>These are the earliest witnesses to the format of the text as selected by Aaron Ben-Asher (d. c. 960) in Tiberias, modern Palestine. The resulting text was accepted by Maimonides as the most accurate, and remains in use until today.</p>
