432 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



small Hebrew codex (originally about 7i^ inches tall by about 6 inches 

 wide) containing perhaps more Hebrew papyri than all the existing 

 Hebrew papyri otherwise known. The original codex consisted of 

 about 28 folio sheets, making a quire of about 56 leaves. At least 

 14 leaves were missing, except for their center margin strip. The 

 extant codex is broken vertically about in half, and therefore the 

 contents will be very difficult to decipher. Dr. J. L. Teicher, a reader 

 in Talmudic for the University of Cambridge, is preparing the docu- 

 ment for publication, and he says that its contents indicate an eighth 

 century A. D. date, which therefore adds a little more to our knowledge 

 of the form of literary Hebrew script in the early Middle Ages. The 

 Bodleian Library at Oxford also possesses a large number of Hebrew 

 papyri believed to date from the third to the seventh centuries A. D. 

 They were all carefully studied by the writer, and are obviously later 

 than the Dead Sea Scrolls.^^ 



The most important piece of literary papyri in relation to the Dead 

 Sea Scrolls is the little Nash papyrus containing fragments of Deu- 

 teronomy 6 : 4 and the Ten Commandments. Its date, to be sure, is 

 not fixed ; but it has a script that is similar to that of the Dead Sea 

 Scrolls." The writer spent almost 4 full days in the Cambridge Uni- 

 versity Library, analyzing every detail of the script and the structure 

 of this document, and a number of points were discovered which 

 should be published to complete its story. 



The problem of publishing the Nash papyrus has been a difficult one, 

 in view of the dark nature of its material and the very small script. 

 Eeal progress in this, however, has been possible recently through 

 processes of modern photography. After the writer discussed the 

 problem with the Cambridge Library photographer, through the use 

 of contrast infrared film, he produced a result which makes it possible 

 now to publish it clearly and resolve some of the confusion about it. 

 It is now even possible to include the letter forms from this document 

 on a photographically produced chart without retouching (see be- 

 low) . Plate 7 is an unretouched direct photograph of the document 

 in original size. 



This leads to the mention of another aspect of the writer's research 

 which should be reported here. Many Biblical scholars have been 



'«0. H. Lehmann, of the Bodleian Library staff, has attempted to show (Materials con- 

 cerning the dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls — 1. Habakkuk, Palestine Expl. Quart., January- 

 April 1051, pp. 41-47). that some of these papyri are earlier than the Dead Sea Scroll of 

 Htibakkuk (DSH), but his chart, plate 10, is misleading, and his evidence by no means 

 conclusive. The writer will discu-ss this problem more fully elsewhere. 



" W. F. Albright's splendid efforts to date this document are still basic to any analysis 

 of Hebrew paleography : A Biblical fragment from the Maccabaean Age : The Nash 

 papyrus, Journ. Bibl. I-it., vol. 56, pp. 145-176, September 1937. 



