E. Lipiński et al. on the Use of a Treasuary (Genizah) to Store Sacred Objects and Texts

  

II. Verb gnz and Geniza. In addition to the biblical use of bēṯ ginzayyā (Ezr. 5:17; 6:1), “treasury,” or “storehouse,” but also “archive,” bēṯ ginzē malkā (Ezr. 7:20), “royal treasury,” and gizzaḇrayyā (Ezr. 7:21 → I) or g^eḏāb^erayyā (Dnl. 3:2, 3), “treasurer” or “keeper of the storehouse,” the verb gnz “to store,” thus also “to hide,” occur in Jewish Aramaic dialects, Mishnaic Hebrew, and in Syriac. This verb derives from *ganzā and is already attested in the Mishnah and in the Tosefta.

 

Furthermore, a verbal noun g^enīzā “store room, depot (of decommissioned sacral objects)” derives from the passive participle of the Aramaic form g^enīz “stored.” The same noun also occurs in the Mishnah, which says that Holy Scriptures no longer suited for use ṭʿwnym gnyzh “require storage.” The Babylonian Talmud then employs the expression bēṯ g^enīzā for precisely this purpose. (E. Lipiński, “גנז,” TDOT 16:176)

 

 

genizah—A repository for obsolete documents and worn-out books, usually sacred Hebrew texts. Jewish law says that objects containing the word of God should be properly interred when they are no longer able to be used. This tradition has existed since ancient times. The most notable genizah is the Cairo Genizah in Egypt. (JPS Guide: The Jewish Bible [Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2008], 22)

 

 

Genizah (Heb. gĕnɩ̂zâ)

The chamber of a synagogue which stores wornout copies of the Torah and other sacred writings no longer fit for use in worship as well as heretical works (from Heb. gānaz, “cover, hide”). Such a chamber, dating to 886 c.e., was discovered at Cairo in 1896. In addition to important biblical and apocryphal manuscripts it contained the Zadokite (or Damascus) Document (CD). (David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, and Astrid B. Beck, “Genizah,” in Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, ed. David Noel Freedman, Allen C. Myers, and Astrid B. Beck [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000], 493)

 

Further Reading:

 

John A. Tvedtnes, “Books in the Treasury,” in The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books: “Out of Darkness Unto Light” (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2000), 155-66