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

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

, consisting of the almost complete

Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "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. In that sense, Torah means the ...

, the

Five Books of Moses The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "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. In that sense, Torah means the sa ...

. 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 automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

, replete with

Masoretic The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

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; he, הספרייה הלאומית, translit=HaSifria HaLeumit; ar, المكتبة الوطنية في إسرائيل), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; he, בית הספרים הלא� ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

(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.

History

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

David Solomon Sassoon David Solomon Sassoon (1880–1942) (also known as "David Suleiman Sassoon"), was a bibliophile and grandson of 19th Baghdadi Jewish community leader David Sassoon. Sassoon travelled extensively with the sole intent of collecting Hebrew books ...

, 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 ( he, כֶּתֶר אֲרָם צוֹבָא, romanized: , lit. 'Crown of Aleppo') 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 ...

and

Leningrad Codex The Leningrad Codex ( la, Codex Leningradensis [Leningrad Book]; he, כתב יד לנינגרד) is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colopho ...

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

Aaron ben Asher Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (Hebrew: ; Tiberian Hebrew: ''ʾAhărōn ben Mōše ben ʾĀšēr''; 10th century, died c.960) was a Jewish scribe who lived in Tiberias in northern Israel and refined the Tiberian system of writing vowel sounds in Hebr ...

, in ''

plene scriptum In orthography, a ''plene scriptum'' (; Latin , "fully" and ''scriptum'', plural ''scripta'', " omethingwritten") is a word containing an additional letter, usually one which is superfluous, not normally written in such words, nor needed for the ...

'' and ''

defective script 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 as an example, the ...

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 פצוע דכא in Deut. 23:2 with an ''aleph'', and writes תעשה in Exo. 25:31 in ''defective scriptum'', without a ''yod'', as also the word האפד 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, 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 ( Hebrew: אַבּוּ עִמְרָן מֹשֶׁה בֶּן דָּוִד בֶּן נַפְתָּלִי; Tiberian Hebrew: ''ʾAbbū ʿĪmrān, Mōše ben Dāwīḏ ben Nap̄tālī'') was a rabbi and Masorete who flourished around 890- ...

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 university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

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 ( he, רָפֶה, , 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 Ti ...

h'' strokes, e.g. the horizontal line written above the non-accentuated letters of בג"ד כפ"ת (

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

), including the א in some cases, as on p. 54 in vol. 1 (on Genesis 32:28), ישראל. 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'' (ס) 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'' (ק) is joined to its roof, while the ''he'' (ה) is made like the ''ḥet'' (ח), with hardly any distinction between the two letters. The ''lamed'' (ל) is written exceptionally long, and hooked towards the outside. The final ''nun'' (ן) 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, in connection with the problems of the Aleppo Codex. Israel Yeivin, ''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 ''Textus Receptus'' (Latin: "received text") refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus's '' Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant deno ...

'' 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 ...

edition of the manuscript was printed in 1978–1982 in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, United States, by Johns Hopkins University Press, 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 the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The librar ...

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; he, הספרייה הלאומית, translit=HaSifria HaLeumit; ar, المكتبة الوطنية في إسرائيل), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; he, בית הספרים הלא� ...

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