Manuscript
The Cairo Geniza Fragments
Also known as Cairo Genizah · Taylor-Schechter Collection · the Ben Ezra Geniza
A synagogue storeroom in Old Cairo that nobody emptied for nine hundred years — and roughly 200,000 pieces of writing came out of it.
hebrew-bibleold-testamentmasoretic-textdiscovery
Overview
The Cairo Geniza Fragments(Roughly AD 800–1900; the biblical material is largely ninth to thirteenth century)— The Ben Ezra Synagogue, Fustat (Old Cairo)
Jewish practice forbids throwing away a text containing the name of God, so worn-out books went into a geniza, a storeroom, to wait. The one in the Ben Ezra synagogue in Fustat was never cleared.
Solomon Schechter brought the bulk of it to Cambridge in 1896–97. The Taylor-Schechter collection there holds around 193,000 fragments; more are scattered across other libraries.
What came out changed several fields at once: Hebrew Bible manuscripts older than any complete codex, systems of vowel marking that had been lost, the Hebrew original of the book of Ben Sira, a leaf of Origen's six-column Hexapla, and the ordinary letters and shopping lists of a medieval community.
Manuscript Details
- Date
- Roughly AD 800–1900; the biblical material is largely ninth to thirteenth century
- Language
- Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Greek
- Script
- Various Hebrew hands, plus Greek
- Material
- Parchment and paper
- Current location
- Cambridge University Library (Taylor-Schechter Collection, c. 193,000 fragments); further holdings in Oxford, Manchester, New York, St Petersburg and elsewhere
- Discovery year
- 1896
- Discovery location
- The Ben Ezra Synagogue, Fustat (Old Cairo)
- Contains books
- Hebrew Bible fragments (many books) · Ben Sira (Hebrew) · Origen's Hexapla (a palimpsest leaf) · liturgy, letters and legal documents
- Tags
- hebrew-bible · old-testament · masoretic-text · discovery
Significance
It is the largest single source of Hebrew Bible manuscripts between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the great medieval codices — the thousand-year gap that used to be empty. It also preserved Hebrew vowel systems, and the Hebrew of Ben Sira, that had otherwise vanished entirely.
The passages the manuscripts argue over
The places where the manuscripts differ — the ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery, the three heavenly witnesses — with the case each way.