By Drew Longacre and Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Wed 11 Dec 2024
Drew, you visited Cambridge this summer to look at Genizah Psalms fragments – tell us about your project.
I came to examine a dissertation here, and then stayed for an extra week to work on Psalms manuscripts for a critical edition of the Hebrew text of the Psalms for the HBCE (Hebrew Bible: a Critical Edition) series. Brent Strawn and I have funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a three-year project to produce the printed edition, and it will be accompanied by a digital edition too.
Which manuscripts will you include?
Thanks to our... Read More
Has tags: Bible, codex, Dead Sea Scrolls, Genizah Fragments, Psalms, scroll, vocalisation
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Nick Posegay
on Wed 19 Jun 2024
Nick, you’ve recently published an article about a Bible fragment.
That’s right. Two fragments in fact: T-S NS 305.198 and T-S NS 305.210. They join together to make a single bifolium from an Arabic psalter manuscript. So, a book of Psalms and other liturgical songs that would’ve been sung in Arabic church services. This page is the beginning of the ‘canticles’, a selection of songs from other parts of the Bible that Orthodox churches included at the end of their psalters. The first canticle here is from Exodus 15:1–120. It’s known as the ‘Song of the Sea’, the song... Read More
Has tags: Arabic, Bible, Genizah Fragments, Q&A
By Kim Phillips
on Thu 8 Feb 2024
Among the most charming of the dozens of thousands of Bible fragments found in the Cairo Genizah, are the hundred or so in which the biblical text is written in some sort of shorthand, or abbreviated, manner. At least three different methods of abbreviation are found among these manuscripts. Sometimes, only the opening few words of each verse are written (the ‘Lemma Method’). The great pronouncement of comfort in the opening... Read More
Has tags: Bible, FOTM, Genizah Fragments, serugin, Targum, vocalisation
By Sarah Sykes
on Sat 28 Oct 2023
In recent weeks Genizah researchers recorded two radio interviews about the collection and its Bible fragments for the Catholic radio station Radio Maria England. On 24 July 2023, Dr Ben Outhwaite gave an introductory talk on the Cairo Genizah covering its history and importance to our understanding of Jewish medieval life, and on 25 September, Dr Kim Phillips followed up with a talk about early Bible fragments in the Genizah collections, explaining how scribes maintained the accuracy of their holy texts and how that relates to the Bible you read today.
Radio Maria England aims to... Read More
Has tags: audio, Bible, Genizah Fragments
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 23 Jun 2022
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 75 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 2018, by the Genizah Research Unit's very own Kim Phillips.
During the first wave of Caliph al-Hakim’s intolerance towards the People of the Book, a Fustat-based scribe – Samuel ben Jacob – completed his labours on a high quality Bible codex (circa 1008–1009). No doubt he was satisfied with his work: the codex contains all twenty-four biblical books, accurately and ornately... Read More
Has tags: Bible, codex, Genizah Fragments, scribe
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Neriah Klein
on Wed 27 Apr 2022
Neriah, what are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on several projects at the moment. I have a position at the Hebrew University Bible Project (HUBP), where I’m preparing the apparatus of textual variations found in Medieval Hebrew manuscripts of the book of Joshua. I’m also working with Prof. Yosef Ofer on the manuscript Sassoon 1053, making an edition of the Masora magna of the manuscript, as well as working on a book based on my PhD on Chronicles, and an article about leprosy in Leviticus.
You recently published an... Read More
Has tags: Bible, codex, Genizah Fragments, masora, Q&A, vocalisation
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Nehemia Gordon
on Wed 13 Apr 2022
Nehemia, what are you working on today?
I’m a visiting scientist at the BAM Institute in Berlin (the Federal Institute for Research and Testing). One of the techniques they’ve developed is the use of a handheld device to distinguish between carbon and iron gall ink – the Dino-Lite. So, I’ve come to Cambridge University Library to look at a large number of Genizah Bible fragments – Torah scrolls, though not only – and I’m looking to see what the ink is: iron gall or carbon.
Are you hoping to tell from this when or where the manuscripts were written?... Read More
Has tags: Bible, codex, Firkovich, Genizah Fragments, ink, Karaite, Q&A, scribe, scroll, vocalisation
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Estara Arrant
on Wed 16 Feb 2022
Estara, you finished your PhD in 2021 on ‘common’ Bibles in the Cairo Genizah. How did you get interested in this area?
It's a long story but I'll give you the highlights here. I have been interested in Hebrew codicology and palaeography, and Jewish-Muslim relations as seen in the Genizah since my undergraduate studies (in History and Modern Hebrew). I became particularly interested in Hebrew-Arabic-Aramaic language contact during my Master’s degree (in Islamic Studies and History), and in the development and codification of Jewish and Islamic scriptures during the... Read More
Has tags: Bible, Genizah Fragments, palaeography, Q&A
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 13 Jan 2022
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 27 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 1994, by Uwe Glessmer of the University of Hamburg:
With Heinz Fahr, I have published an edition of T-S B13.12, entitled Jordandurchzug und Beschneidung als Zurechtweisung in einem Targum zu Josua 5, which appears as No. 3 in the Orientalia Biblica et Christiana series published by J. J. Augustin (Glückstadt, 1991).
The manuscript T-S B13.... Read More
Has tags: Bible, circumcision, Genizah Fragments, Targum
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Fri 7 Jan 2022
Points of Contact: The Shared Intellectual History of Vocalisation in Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew ● By Nick Posegay ● Open Book Publishers, 2021
This book is the newest entry in the Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures series, and it is authored by the Genizah Research Unit's very own Nick Posegay. It investigates the shared history of ideas behind the vocalisation systems of three medieval Semitic languages, examining the work of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars as they developed ways to... Read More
Has tags: Arabic, Bible, Book, Genizah Fragments, grammar, masora, Qurʾan, Syriac, vocalisation
