6.1.7 Cairo Genizah Manuscripts
The Cairo Genizah is a storage
room found in the 1860s in the Ben-Ezra synagogue, which was built in a.d. 1015
in Fostat or Old Cairo. A genizah
(from the Aramaic word גְּנַז, gĕnaz, “to hide”) was a room used to store manuscripts until they
could be properly disposed of so that they would not be misused or profaned
since they contained the name of God. Apparently the genizah was forgotten and
it was walled over and undisturbed until the 1860s. This hidden storeroom
contained a great variety of materials; it has been estimated that about
200,000 fragments were deposited there (see fig. 6.10). The vast majority come
from about a.d. 1000 to 1400, though some date much earlier (sixth to eighth
centuries). Several dozen manuscripts are palimpsests, about fifteen percent of
which are biblical texts in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. The genizah also housed
materials from the Midrash, Mishnah, Talmud, liturgical texts, lists, letters
and much more. Some of the most important items discovered were:
• An
almost complete copy of the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach in Hebrew (previous to
this discovery the work was known only from Greek texts).
• The
Zadokite Document (a work closely
related to the Manual of Discipline
[1QS] from Qumran and is now generally known as the Damascus Document [CD = Cairo Genizah Document]).
• The
most important documents for the study of textual criticism are the biblical
manuscripts, some of which date back to the sixth century a.d. These show how
more and more vowel pointings were gradually added in the Tiberian pointing
system. At present the earliest completely pointed manuscript is the Cairo
Manuscript of the Prophets from a.d. 895. (Paul D. Wegner, A
Student’s Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible: Its History, Methods &
Results [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006], 155-57)
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
