The siglum AqTaylor (also: Taylor-Schechter 12.186 + AS.78.412; 12.187; 12.188; vh203, TM 62306, LDAB 3469) are fragments of a

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...

containing a portion of the Palestinian Talmud in upper script, and part of the

Book of Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of ...

of Aquila's

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

translation of the Hebrew Bible in lower script. This latter is a Greek biblical manuscript written in codex form. This manuscript has been dated after the middle of the fifth century C.E., but not later than the beginning of the sixth century C.E.

History

A number of manuscripts were found at Geniza, in the

Ben Ezra Synagogue The Ben Ezra Synagogue (; ), sometimes referred to as the El-Geniza Synagogue () or the Synagogue of the Levantines (al-Shamiyin), is a former Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in the Fustat part of Old Cairo, Egypt. According to loca ...

, Egypt, and these palimpsest fragments were brought to Cambridge by

Solomon Schechter Solomon Schechter (‎; 7 December 1847 – 19 November 1915) was a Moldavian-born British-American rabbi, academic scholar and educator, most famous for his roles as founder and President of the United Synagogue of America, President of the ...

. The fragments were published by Charles Taylor in his work ''Hebrew-Greek Cairo Genizah Palimpsests'' in 1900, pp. 54–65.

Description

The manuscript consists of three leaves. The manuscript contains two texts: the text of part of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, and the Palestinian Talmud. The texts have been written 90 degrees apart.

Aquila's translation

Aquila's translation was undertaken around the year c.130 C.E. Aquila's text contains parts of

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...

90-103. The fragments contain Psalms 90:17, 91:1-16, 92:1-10, 93:3, 96:7-13, 97:1-12, 102:16-29, and 103:1-13. According to Taylor, the script of this manuscript is similar to that of the AqBurkitt, in bold uncial letters, without capital letter either at beginnings or paragraphs or as the first letter of the page.

Tetragrammaton

The manuscript is written in koine Greek, but it contains the

tetragrammaton The TetragrammatonPronounced ; ; also known as the Tetragram. is the four-letter Hebrew-language theonym (transliteration, transliterated as YHWH or YHVH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four Hebrew letters, written and read from ...

in archaic Hebrew script characters ( Phoenician he