• Ḥumash. Targum (Hebrew Bible codex. Translation)
    חומש. תרגום

Contributor:
  • Princeton University Library. Manuscript. Scheide 136
Publisher:
  • [1313]
Extent:
  • 336 leaves : parchment ; 450 x 320 mm.
Format:
Abstract:
  • Bible, includes includes masorah magna and parva; Pentateuch with interlinear Aramaic Targum; the five scrolls; the Haftorah; Job; and selections from Jeremiah (2:29-11:15). Commissioned by Yakar ben Samson.
Description:
  • Ms. codex.
  • Title devised by cataloger.
  • Collation: Parchment ; fol. 336 ; foliation in ink using Western numerals.
  • Layout: 31 lines per page in three columns.
  • Description: Vowel signs.
  • Decoration: Text written to create full-page geometric design (fol. 1a). Header of alternating red and blue initials containing animals (fol. 1b). Large illuminated headpieces in red, blue, gold and black of arch with two towers, bird, foliage, and geometric designs (fol. 65a and 210a). Illuminated section headers in red and black with gold letters (the final laid out but not completed). Numerous animals and grotesques throughout.
  • Origin: Copy completed in 1313 by Solomon ben Neriyah.
Binding note:
  • Later binding. 16th century (?) in pigskin. Blind-stamped with concentric frames. Two ball-and-loop fasteners (restored and new leather thongs added in 1968 by European Bookbinding Co.).
Subject:
Provenance:
  • Obtained through Bernard Rosenthal, Jan. 6, 1968, by William H. Scheide from Abraham I. Katsch in Russia.
Former owner:
  • Katsh, Abraham Isaac, 1908-1998
  • Scheide, William H. (William Hurd), 1914-2014
Edm rights:
  • No Known Copyright
View in catalog:
Curator's notes:

  • Biblical Hebrew, Imperial Aramaic
    Eastern Europe or Russia?, 1313, parchment

    The oldest Hebrew manuscripts exist as scrolls (often called the Dead Sea Scrolls), but a few manuscript codices from circa the 9th–10th centuries survive as well. This large illuminated bound manuscript, different from the more commonly encountered Torah scrolls, contains the Hebrew Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) with an Aramaic Targum, or paraphrase between the lines, and some other selections, and was copied by Solomon ben Neriyah in 1313, likely in Eastern Europe. It was rebound in pigskin, most likely in the 16th century, possibly in Germany or Bohemia. The binding was restored in 1968.

    Bequest of William H. Scheide ’36, 2015
    Scheide 46.2

    For further reading

    Berkowitz, David Sandler. In remembrance of creation: evolution of art and scholarship in the Medieval and Renaissance Bible. Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 1968. Entry 16.

Exhibit category:
Genre:
  • manuscripts (documents)
  • Loop-and-ball fastenings.
  • illuminated manuscripts.
  • decorated initials.
  • figure initials.
  • Blind tooled bindings.
  • Pigskin bindings.