Karaite Bible Manuscripts From The Cairo Genizah

This volume analyses the Karaite Hebrew Bible and shows how the pronunciation of the Hebrew language developed.

The edition and linguistic, palaeographic and legal analysis of 65 marriage documents preserved in the Cairo Geniza shed a unique light on the socio-economic and intellectual history of the mediaeval Karaite Jews who wrote them.

This book is the first comprehensive study of legal, historical and economic aspects of marriage as practised during the Middle Ages, in Egypt and Palestine, by members of distinct Jewish movement known as Karaism. This study is based on original mediaeval manuscripts written in Hebrew, and recovered from the famous Cairo Geniza. Sixty-five manuscripts, most of them previously unpublished, are edited and translated in the second part of the book. The detailed and accessible analysis of their contents, language, formulation and palaeography sheds a new light on Karaite legal and linguistic tradition, and provides a unique source for our understanding of early Karaism, and of Mediaeval Jewish History in general.

In The Hebrew Bible: A Millennium, manuscripts, texts, and methods applied in Hebrew Bible studies are considered through time. The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Cairo and European Genizot, as well as Late Medieval Biblical Manuscripts are examined.

Biblical manuscripts from the Dead Sea and the Cairo Genizah have added immeasurably to our knowledge of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible. The papers collected in this volume compare the evidence of the biblical DSS with manuscripts from the Vienna Papyrus Collection, connected with the Cairo Genizah, as well as late ancient evidence from diverse contexts. The resulting picture is one of a dialectic between textual plurality and fixity: the eventual dominance of the consonantal Masoretic Text over the textual plurality of the Second Temple period, and the secondary diversification of that standardized text through scribal activity.

The Cairo Genizah is considered one of the world's greatest Hebrew manuscript treasures. Yet the story of how over a quarter of a million fragments hidden in Egypt were discovered and distributed around the world, before becoming collectively known as “The Cairo Genizah,” is far more convoluted and compelling than previously told. The full story involves an international cast of scholars, librarians, archaeologists, excavators, collectors, dealers and agents, operating from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and all acting with varying motivations and intentions in a race for the spoils. Basing her research on a wealth of archival materials, Jefferson reconstructs how these protagonists used their various networks to create key alliances, or to blaze lone trails, each one on a quest to recover ancient manuscripts. Following in their footsteps, she takes the reader on a journey down into ancient caves and tombs, under medieval rubbish mounds, into hidden attic rooms, vaults, basements and wells, along labyrinthine souks, and behind the doors of private clubs and cloistered colleges. Along the way, the reader will also learn about the importance of establishing manuscript provenance and authenticity, and the impact to our understanding of the past when either factor is in doubt.

A collection of essays by international experts summarizing recent developments in Genizah research.