farfel_n08_064_527

527
Foliophiles
Santa Fe, N.M.
Aug. '00
$25 (10)

Hebrew Pentateuch, with Targum + Saadiah's
See #301 Arabic translation in alternate verses.
Yemen - early 18th C. 9x12 7/8." folio.
Manuscript written in black ink on heavy paper.
31-33 lines. The text is with vowels + accents;
the Arabic unvocalized. The foliaated pages
are written in an 18th C. Yemenite square (semi)
script. The paper has chain + laid lines.
Contains the text of Exodus 25: 33 - 26: 14
from the weekly protion Terumah (headline), including
the masonetic texts with vocalization + accent signs,
Taryusn Onkelos (the standard Aramic
translation) with Babylonian superlinear
vocalization, + Saadia Gaon's Judeo-
Arabic paraphrase, alternating. The very
beginning contains the final portion of
the Judeo-Arabic version of Exodus 25: 32.
The use of Babylonian superlinear vocalization,
evidently 1st noted in the 12th C, continued
in Yemen for centuries after other communities
that employed it had abandoned it in favor
of the predominant system used in my masoratic
text.

- The oldest Yemenite manuscripts are those of the Bible.
The Pentateuch was teh most popular part of
the Yemenite Bible (called the Tadj or "crown"),
and it was often prepared by the scribe in an
independent Bible.

- The Jews of Yemen must have been in close touch
with Babylonia, since they reckoned time according to
the Seleucidan era. All the Hebrew manuscipts of
Yemen, moreover show the superlinear, or Babylonian,
system of punctuation.