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Add MS 21581

Record Id:
032-003345848
Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
032-003345848
MDARK:
ark:/81055/vdc_100035503648.0x000001
LARK:
SLARK:
Format:
TEI
Reference (shelfmark):
Add MS 21581
Title:
Samaritan Pentateuch
Collection Area:
Oriental Manuscripts
Project / Collection:
Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project
Hierarchy Tree:
[{ "id" : "032-003345848", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 21581: Samaritan Pentateuch" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
Hierarchy Record Ids:
032-003345848
Is part of:
not applicable
Hierarchy:
032-003345848
Container:
not applicable
Record Type (Level):
Fonds
Extent:
97 folios (ii+97+ii)
Digitised Content:
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_21581 (digital images currently unavailable)
Thumbnail:
Languages:
Samaritan
Scripts:
Samaritan
Start Date:
1484
End Date:
1484
Date Range:
1484
Era:
CE
Access:

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User Conditions:
Material Type:
Archives and Manuscripts
Legal Status:
Not Public Record(s)
Names:
Rev. John Bowen
TEI:

Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project

Add MS 21581

Samaritan Pentateuch

Contents

Samaritan Pentateuch

Language(s): Samaritan

ff. 1v-97r
Author:
Author:
Title: Torah Shomronit
Title: תורה שומרונית

A complete Pentateuch, which may have been put together from two separate texts, as ff. 1-11 that are in the same hand as the rest of the MS, are not on the same parchment.

The text was provided with a masorah which indicates that Genesis had 250 ḳitsim (paragraphs), Exodus had 200 ḳitsim, Leviticus had 135 ḳitsim, Numbers had 220 ḳitsim and Deuteronomy had 160 ḳitsim. This is a total of 965 ḳitsim, slightly discrepant from Or 6461.

Colophon: The main tashḳil (colophon which is created by isolating letters from words in the text that form a vertical column to be read from top to bottom) on ff. 78r-81v. A minor tashḳil on fol. 38v presents the scribe's name in the words מכתב מתנה הלוי.

Physical Description

Parchment codex of the 15th century.
Form: codex
Material: parchment
Support:
Extent: 97 folios (ii+97+ii)
Dimensions (leaf): 385 × 325 mm.
Dimensions (written): 285 × 235 mm.
Foliation:

Foliation in Arabic numerals.

Collation

Quires of mostly 10 leaves.

No catchwords, no signatures.

Condition

Parchment is worn out in places.

Usage stains.

Previously repaired. Some of the patches on the parchment were done before the scribal work: some of them are overwritten, others were avoided by the scribe.

Layout

Columns:1

Number of written lines per folio varies: 45-52.

The MS is written on very fine parchment with traces of shaving.

Hair and flesh sides are distinguishable.

Ruling is with dry point, no traces of pricking.

Deletion by scraping.

Hand(s)

Samaritan majuscule script of the 18th century.

The scribe was Natanel b. Ishmael b. Natanel b. Isaac b. Natanel, Levitical family. This was the scribe's first Torah MS; his second was St Petersburg T1.14. See also London, BL, Or 1443: the scribe witnesses the sale of this MS.

Decoration

A few simple, geometrical decoration at the end of certain sections (see e.g. ff. 41r, 97r.

Additions:

Binding

BM in-house binding, half-bound.

Spine: 'Pentateuchus. (Samaritan). Brit. Mus. Jure Empt. Additional MS. 21,581.'

History

Origin: 1484 Damascus?

Provenance and Acquisition

A deed of sale at the end of Exodus (41r): it records the purchase of the MS from the scribe by Nefush Allah b. Ab Yetrana b. Nefush Allah, of the Kapit family, in 845 AH (1441 CE) for 335 silver pieces (dirhems?). It was witnessed by the Priest (in Damascus?) Abi Ozzi b. Abd Allah, and certified by Pinhas b. Eleazar.

Deed of sale at the end of Numbers (ff. 77v): now almost illegible and was read with UV light (see, Crown, Catalogue of Samaritan Manuscripts, p. 168). It records the purchase of the MS by Ab Ikkar b. Matanah from his brother-in-law, Nefush Allah b. Ab Yetrana b. Nefush Allah, of the Kapit family, in the month Jummada I 850 AH (1446 CE), folr 320 silver pieces (dirhems?). It was witnessed by the Damascene Priest, Seth Aaron b. Isaac b. Seth Aaron.

1856-10-11

Rev. John Bowen: inscribed on back flyleaf (i)v: 'Purchased of the Rev. John Bowen 11th Oct. 1856'.

Record Sources

Manuscript description based on the online catalogue of the National Library of Israel and Crown, Alan David: A Catalogue of the Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Library (London: The British Library, 1998).

Availability

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Surrogates

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_21581 (digital images currently unavailable)

Bibliography

    Margilouth, George, ed., Descriptive List of the Hebrew and Samaritan MSS. in the British Museum (London, 1893), p. 92.
    Von Gall, A. F. Der herbaische Pentateuch der Samaritaner (Giessen: Töppelmann, 1914-1918), p. xix, lxxxiii-lxxxiv, MS P.
    Anderson, Robert T., 'Clustering Samaritan Hebrew Pentateuchal Manuscripts', in J-P. Rothschild and G.D. Sixdenier, Études samaritaines: Pentateuque et Targum, exégese et philologie, chroniques, Les manuscrits samaritains. Problemes et methodes, Acte de la table ronde (Louvain-Paris: Peeters, 1988), pp. 57-66.
    Crown, Alan David, A Catalogue of the Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Library (London: The British Library, 1998), no. 126.

Bibliography

Funding of Cataloguing

BL