DEAD SEA SCROLLS — TREVER 431 



dealing with the problem of the relation of medieval manuscripts to 

 the Dead Sea Scrolls, we should limit ourselves to literary documents 

 and their styles of writing as far as possible. 



Scholars have said for many years that the oldest Biblical Hebrew 

 manuscripts date from the ninth and tenth centuries A. D. Dr. Paul 

 Kahle, at whose home in Charlbury, near Oxford, the writer spent 

 several valuable days, some years ago published a statement to the 

 effect that he had found Biblical manuscripts in the Cambridge col- 

 lection of the Cairo Genizah which had indications of being as old 

 as the fifth to seventh centuries A. D. Among these were fragments 

 of scrolls of Ezekiel and the Psalms. His basis of dating was largely 

 on the presence of a type of vowel pointing seldom found on Hebrew 

 manuscripts, but claimed by Kahle to be early Palestinian." 



After checking through the mounted fragments in the Cairo 

 Genizah, the writer found another fragment of the same scroll of 

 Psalms which Dr. Kahle had overlooked, the reason being that there 

 were no vowel points on this part. The script is certainly the same, 

 and comparing it with the ninth- and tenth-century manuscripts of 

 the Bible, it would appear to be older (pi. 5). On the back of this 

 manuscript fragment, hov/ever, there is other writing, a most imusual 

 feature for Hebrew Biblical scrolls, which were considered sacred. 

 The script is a semicursive form of Plebrew, though the language is 

 Arabic, and it has been suggested that the contents indicate that it was 

 probably done in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries A. D. 



A closer examination reveals the fact, however, that tliis fragment 

 is a palimpsest, for there is writing underneath the top writing that 

 had been erased, probably at the time that the top writing was to be 

 done (pi. 6). The fact that this Biblical fragment has been used in 

 this way at all would probably indicate that the Biblical scroll was 

 so old and fragmentary that it would be possible to reuse it in this 

 way, though normally it would be considered a violation of the Jewish 

 law to do so. It would seem, therefore, that we have here an addi- 

 tional argument in support of Dr. Kahle's suggestion that this manu- 

 script dates from an early time. At least it would seem that we 

 probably have here a manuscript from several centuries before the 

 earliest dated Hebrew manuscripts. But the type of script on this 

 old Biblical manuscript is still far removed from that of the early 

 papyri and of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 



While studying in the Cambridge University Library it was the 

 writer's pleasure to participate in the opening of an early papyrus 

 manuscript which has been for some 50 years in the Cambridge Uni- 

 versity Library, probably acquired from the Cairo Genizah. It is a 



3" Kahle, Paul E., Masoreten Jps Westens, vol. 2, pp. 14*-1.'5», Stuttgart, lOSO. 



