The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-06-27
FRAGMENTS OF THE BIBLE
IMPORTANCE and INTEREST OF
ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS.
The Cambridge-Cairo Genizah is SUPP
posed to Furnish the Oldest known
Manuscripts of Amy Part of the Bible.

Manuscripts of Amy Part of the Bible.
DIR. Schechter contributed an article
to 1.-THE Jewish Chronicle" on the Cam
bridget Cairo Genizah. He says the COL
lections consist, not of volumes, but of
separate loose sheets, each of them
with a history of its own, which one
can only learn by subjecting it to ex-
animation by itself. The identification
of Biblical fragments gives the least
trouble, as they are mostly written in
large, square characters. These frag
ments are written in different hands,
testifying to various photographic ages
and many of them are also provided
with Massoretic notes, or with an I'M
familiar system of punctuation. Others
are interpersed with portions of the
Chaldaic or Arabic version. They all
! have to be arranged latter their kind"
while as specimens of writing they
have to be sorted into some kind Of
chronological order.
To judge by the writing, the Gent
zah furnishes us with the oldest known
manuscripts Of any part of the Bible,
older even than the Pentateuch manu-
scripts of the British museum (Oriental
4445), described as dating probably
from the ninth century. On one Bibli-
cal fragment Dr. Schechter continiues,I
found some gilt letters Gold ink was
| well known to the Jews Of antiquity.
But it's use in the writing of the Scrip
orIx, XIV 1a
bies. The prohibition was meant only
| to apply to copies intended for public
| reading in the synagogue. But, as a
! fact. all manuscripts of the Bible are
| singularly free from such ornamental
aids" The fragment in question forms
rare exception, and must therefore
| date from an age when simplicity and
| uniformity in the materials used for
| writing the Bible had not yet become
| the rule.
| OF great rarity, again, are the frag-
ments mi which all the words Except
| those at the beginning Of the verses)
are represented by initials only, as for
instance, In the beginning g, e. the h.
a. the e.' Genesis |, y. That such alb
breviations should be employed even in
copies of Holy Writ was only natural
| in an age when the chisel and the pen
were the only means of making
thought visible. On the strength Of
the few authorizations they met with in
Bible manuscripts, Kennicott and other
scholars tried to account for certain
misreadings in the Septuagint. The
! Genizah has for the first time supplied
| us with samples proving that the alb
| breviation system was not limited to
certain isolated works, but extended to
the whole contents of the Bible.
The particular system represented in,
| the Genizah seems to have been known
| to the old rabies under the name of
| Trells- writing. DR.. Felix Perles, from
| his acquaintance with the few speci-
mems acquired by the Bodleian library,
at once recognized their significance
| for the verbal criticism of the Bible,
| and made them the subject of some apt
remarks in a recent essay. The Cam
| bridge collections include such exam
| Piles in far greater number, and many
| more may still be found. They will
| probably be edited in volume by
themselves, and will, / have no doubt,
| after careful study, throw fresh light
on many an obscure passage in the diff
| ferent versions.
And, after you have taken in the text,
| marginal notes, versions, curses, and
| all. there flashes upon you from be-
| tween the lines or the words a faint
| yellow mark differently shaped from
those In the rest of the fragment, and
you discover that lit palimpest you
have in hand. Your purely Hebrew
studies are then at an end, and you find
yourself drifting suddenly into Greek,
Palestinian Syriac, Coptic or Georgian,
just as the case may be. Only In two
| cases have tibet palimpest turned out
to be Hebrew upon Hebrew A new
examination then begins, and to this
you have to apply yourself the more
strenuously, inasmuch as the under
writing Is usually of more Importance
than the later surface writing. This
has proved to be especially the case
with the liturgical fragments, among
which the earliest, and perhaps the
most important, palimpests have been
found Personally, am quite satisfied
with their appearance If they restore
to us the older forms of the Original
prayers" as some of them indeed do,
they need, of course, no further "raison
d'etre" for the Jewish student, this be-
ing the only means of supplying us
with that history of our ancient liturgy
which is still deslderatum. But even
If they represent only some hymn Of
the later Psalmists of the synagogue, I
am not on a closer acquaintance, par
ticularly anxious to see them improved
upon. The majority Of students would
look rather askance upon the contents
of the Sabbatical hymn under which
the remains of AquiIla were buried for
nearly nine centuries.
The story of Aquila Cor Akylas) is a
familiar one. He flourished in the first
decades of the second century after
Christ, was a Greco-Roman by birth,
and was brought up in the Pagan re-
ligion of his native place-Sinope in
Asia Minor Sent by Hadrian to Jeru-
salem to superintend the rebuilding Of
the city which the Emperor purposed
at that time, he there made, according
to a church tradition, the acquaintance
of the disciples Of the Apostles, and
was converted to the Christian faith;
this, however, he soon left to join the
synagogue. Finding the text of the
Septuagint greatly disfigured both by
!, wilful interpretations and by blunder-
ing ignorance, he understood the prep
aration of a new Greek version of the
Old Testament, which was executed
with the approval of certain famous
! rabies. It's main characteristic is its
| ~ t. oh, a,.1 Graa lr