125 years ago today, Solomon Schechter sat down to write to Agnes Lewis. His quick note dashed off ‘in haste and great excitement’ told her that he’d managed to identify one of her recently purchased manuscripts as the original Hebrew text of the book of Ecclesiasticus (Ben Sira or Sirach). It had been preserved in Greek, Syriac and other translations, but the Hebrew original was lost and its very existence was doubted by many scholars who thought the book had originally... Read More
Agnes Lewis
Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 13 May 2021
Has tags: Adolf Neubauer, Agnes Lewis, Arthur Cowley, Ben Sira, Bodleian, Ecclesiasticus, Genizah Fragments, Jerusalem Talmud, Lewis-Gibson, Margaret Gibson, Solomon Schechter
Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Nick Posegay
on Wed 12 May 2021
Q&A Wednesday gives a short interview with a Genizah researcher: what are they working on today? And why?
Nick, what are you working on this week?
Lately I’ve been working on late-dated manuscripts in Genizah collections. Looking at fragments dated after 1864, trying to work out how they ended up in genizot, and thinking about what that means for “Cairo Genizah” collections as we typically understand them.
Have you found many fragments that are dated that late?
I’ve found about 25 that are explicitly dated, but I suspect... Read More
Has tags: Agnes Lewis, Genizah Fragments, Greville Chester, ketubba, Margaret Gibson, printed, Q&A, Solomon Schechter, Yemen