An Early Hebrew Manuscript from Byzantium

Abstract

Very little is known about Hebrew book-making techniques and scripts in the Byzantine world before the thirteenth century. This is due principally to the lack of early dated Hebrew books and the paucity of datable ones from this area. The earliest dated and explicitly localised Byzantine manuscript known to us is a marriage contract (ketubbah), written in Mastaura, Asia Minor, on ninth March 1022.1 As for codices, the earliest known Hebrew manuscript which is probably Byzantine is a leaf from a Mishnaic Hebrew-Greek glossary dated to the tenth century on the grounds of Greek palaeography.2 Other early manuscripts include a Pentateuch with Hagiographa, Ms. Bodl. Heb. d. 3, whose Byzantine origin might be suggested by some codicological features and by the presence of unusual Haftarot which have been ascribed by Neubauer to the Greek rite,3 and the final page from a Pentateuch with a colophon and massoretic notes, Ms. Bodl. Heb. c. 6, fols 5r:-v. This manuscript is explicitly dated to 1192 AD, but it does not contain any mention of locality, and its Byzantine attribution is suggested only by its techniques.4