The Damascus Pentateuch or Codex Sassoon 507 is a 10th-century

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

, consisting of the almost complete

Pentateuch The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () o ...

, the

Five Books of Moses The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Book of Genesis, Genesis, Book of Exodus, Exodus, Leviticus, Book of Numbers, Numbers and Deuteronomy. ...

. The codex was copied by an unknown

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of Printing press, automatic printing. The work of scribes can involve copying manuscripts and other texts as well as ...

, replete with

Masoretic The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

annotations. The beginning of the manuscript is damaged: it starts with , and is also missing. In 1975 it was acquired by the

Jewish National and University Library The National Library of Israel (NLI; ; ), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; ), is the library dedicated to collecting the cultural treasures of Israel and of Jewish heritage. The library holds more than 5 million books, and i ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

(from 2008 "National Library of Israel"). The codex was published in a large, two-volume facsimile edition in 1978. It is distinct from the 13th-century Damascus Crown (''Keter Damascus'') of Spanish origin, a manuscript containing 24 canonical books. It is also distinct from the privately-owned

Codex Sassoon 1053 Codex S1 (or MS1; formerly Codex Sassoon 1053 and also Safra, JUD 002) is a Masoretic codex comprising all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, dated to the 10th century CE. It is considered as old as the Aleppo Codex and a century older than the Leningr ...

History

The Damascus Pentateuch came to renown owing largely to the works of the bibliophile,

David Solomon Sassoon David Solomon Sassoon (; 8 December 1880 – 10 August 1942) (also known as "David Suleiman Sassoon"), was a bibliophile and grandson of 19th century Baghdadi Jewish community leader David Sassoon. Family Sassoon was born in Bombay to Solom ...

, who bought the codex in Damascus in the early 20th century. It is one of the oldest extant Bible codices, ranking along with the

Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex () is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, and was endorsed for its accuracy by Maimonides. ...

and

Leningrad Codex The Leningrad Codex ( [Leningrad Book]; ) is the oldest known complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colophon (publishing), colophon, it was made in Cairo in AD ...

. In many places, the Damascus Pentateuch follows the traditions of the

masorete The Masoretes (, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily in the Jewish centers of the Levant (e.g., Tiberias and Jerusalem) and M ...

, Aaron ben Asher, in ''

plene scriptum In orthography, a is a word containing an additional letter, usually one which is superfluous – not normally written in that word – nor needed for the proper comprehension of the word. Today, the term applies mostly to sacred scripture. Ex ...

'' and ''

defective script In graphemics, a defective script is a writing system that does not represent all the phonemic distinctions of a language. This means that the concept is always relative to a given language. Taking the Latin alphabet used in Italian orthography a ...

um'', as well as in most large and small letters, being harmonious with the Masoretic variants prescribed by Ben-Asher up to 52% of the time. Like the Masoretic tradition of Ben Asher, the copyist of the Damascus Pentateuch also writes in Deut. 23:2 with an ''aleph'', and writes in Exo. 25:31 in ''defective scriptum'', without a ''yod'', as also the word in Exo. 28:26 is written by him in ''defective scriptum'', without a ''waw''. Such practices are also common with Aaron Ben Asher. The Codex is written on parchment, in three columns to the page, in large oriental square script typical of writing scripts used in the 9th century. Like other codices of its era, it bears

micrography Micrography (from Greek language, Greek, literally small-writing – "Μικρογραφία"), also called microcalligraphy, is a Jewish form of calligrams developed in the 9th century, with parallels in Christianity and Islam,minutiæ of the text-tradition written as a gloss on the top and bottom of each page, as well as the ''Masora Parva'' (small ''Masora'') written in between the columns. According to Sassoon, the writer of the '' Masora'' (critical notes of the Masoretic annotations) was a follower of Ben Asher, yet the Bible text (orthography and vocalization) follows that of

Ben Naphtali Ben Naphtali () was a rabbi and Masoretes, Masorete who flourished around 890-940 CE, probably in Tiberias. Of his life little is known. His first name is in dispute. Some medieval authorities called him "Jacob"; two Chufut-Kale manuscripts have " ...

and his school.

, ''Ohel Dawid – Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London'', vol. 1, London:

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

1932, pp
22–23
/ref> As to the age of the Codex, Sassoon has posited that “the manuscript is probably older than the British Museum MS., No. Oriental 4445, which is supposed to have been written about 820–850 CE., of Babylonian origin. The text is furnished with Tiberian vowel points, accents, and the ''

Rafe In Hebrew orthography the rafe or raphe (, , meaning "weak, limp") is a diacritic (), a subtle horizontal overbar placed above certain letters to indicate that they are to be pronounced as fricatives. It originated with the Tiberian Masoret ...

h'' strokes, e.g. the horizontal line written above the non-accentuated letters of (

Begadkefat Begadkefat (also begedkefet) is the phenomenon of lenition affecting the non-emphatic consonant, emphatic stop consonants of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not gemination, geminated. The name is also given to si ...

), including the in some cases, as on p. 54 in vol. 1 (on Genesis 32:28), . The smaller divisions for the weekly biblical lections, otherwise known as ''Sedarim'', are marked throughout the codex by the writer of the ''Masora'' by a large ''samekh'' () in the margin with the number of the ''Seder'' below. The style of lettering follows an archaic style; the leg of the Hebrew character ''qof'' () is joined to its roof, while the ''he'' () is made like the ''ḥet'' (), with hardly any distinction between the two letters. The ''lamed'' () is written exceptionally long, and hooked towards the outside. The final ''nun'' () is written almost the same as the letter ''zayn''. All the '' qərē'' and '' kətiv''That this, what is actually written in the text, but is not read in the text. Instead, the word is replaced by a different reading. are marked by the writer of the text with a final ''nun'' in the margin without any further direction as to what the reading should be. A summary of the Damascus Pentateuch was made by

Israel Yeivin Israel Yeivin (; January 7, 1923, in Berlin – December 19, 2008) was an Israeli linguist, scholar of Masorah and the Hebrew language. Biography Israel Yeivin was born in Berlin. His family immigrated to Mandatory Palestine when he was seven, ...

, in connection with the problems of the Aleppo Codex.

, ''The Aleppo Codex of the Bible (A study of its vocalization and accentuation)'', Jerusalem 1968, pp. 361-362 (Hebrew: כתר ארם צובה : ניקודו וטעמיו). According to Yeivin, the ''

textus receptus The (Latin for 'received text') is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts starting with Erasmus' ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) and including the editions of Robert Estienne, Stephanus, Theodore Beza, Beza, the House of Elzevir ...

'' of the Damascus Pentateuch is mostly harmonious with the Leningrad Codex. As for the variants in vocalization it follows that of Ben Asher up to 52% of the time, and that of Ben Naphtali up to 46% of the time, for which diversity it has been called by him "a mixed manuscript where one can find in it a few 'improvements,' but which differs in several aspects regarding its vocalization and trope symbols from the Aleppo Codex." A two-volume

facsimile A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of r ...

edition of the manuscript was printed in 1978–1982 in

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, United States, by

Johns Hopkins University Press Johns Hopkins University Press (also referred to as JHU Press or JHUP) is the publishing division of Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and is the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The press publi ...

, and in Copenhagen, Denmark, by Rosenkilde and Bagger.

References

External links

Damascus Pentateuch
A description by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

with a link to a downloadable pdf facsimile and jpeg images
The Damascus Pentateuch
by the

National Library of Israel The National Library of Israel (NLI; ; ), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; ), is the library dedicated to collecting the cultural treasures of Israel and of Judaism, Jewish Cultural heritage, heritage. The library holds more ...

Overview of Damascus Codices
by the

{{DEFAULTSORT:Damascus Pentateuch Biblical manuscripts Hebrew Bible manuscripts Judaism in Syria Jewish medieval literature Jewish manuscripts Jewish prayer and ritual texts Jewish Syrian history History of Damascus Assyrian (Ashuri) script 10th-century biblical manuscripts Jews and Judaism in Damascus Torah

History

See also

References

External links