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Khanmeti Palimpsest Fragments of the Old Georgian Version of Jeremiah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2011

Robert P. Blake
Robert P. Blake
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

Among the innumerable fragments and scraps of manuscripts which have percolated through to Western Europe from the renowned Rümpelkammer at Cairo, there have been found not a few palimpsest leaves bearing the marks of other milieus and having traced upon them characters in tongues other than Hebrew. Chance brought the writer on the trail of one such vagrant parchment during a visit to Oxford in the summer of 1921; an investigation of the hand-list of Georgian MSS. at the Bodleian Library showed that this institution possessed a “fragment of Jeremiah in capitals.” As soon as I glanced at it, I realized that a perplexing puzzle had been solved. In 1902 Professor P. K. Kokovtsov of the University of St. Petersburg published a facsimile and collation of the Hebrew text on a Hebrew-Georgian parchment palimpsest leaf, a photograph of which had been sent anonymously to Professor N. Ya. Marr. The Hebrew text proved to be a portion of the Jerusalem Talmud; from the photograph it was difficult to tell which was the original writing. The late Sir A. E. Cowley kindly informed me that the fragment had been acquired in 1894 along with several others from Rabbi S. Wertheimer in Jerusalem, and that its provenance from the Genizah collection was almost certain. Professor F. C. Conybeare had already identified the Georgian text as a fragment of Jeremiah, and presumably had at the same time sent the photograph to Professor Marr, the covering letter probably having been lost.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 1932 , pp. 225 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1932

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References

1 Neubauer, A. and Cowley, A., Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, vol. II, Oxford, 1906,Google Scholar Introduction; Jewish Encyclopedia, Art. ‘Genizah.’

2 The leaf is listed as MS. Georg. C 1 = MS. Heb. 2672, and is framed in glass, as are the other fragments at Cambridge and London: see Neubauer and Cowley, p. 47.

3 II. XI (1899), cTp. 195–205; ibid..» cTp. 413: Kokovtsov later identified the fragment from the catalogue. (See article of Hencko cited below, note 41).

4 From the Tractate Bābā Qāmā c. 6 and 8. The other fragments likewise come from this same tractate. The late Professor G. F. Moore pointed out to me that the Hebrew text of these fragments is published by L. Ginzberg, Yerushalmi Fragments from the Genizah (in Hebrew), New York, 1909, pp. 242–244. I would record my deep gratitude to Professor Moore for much help and many fruitful and stimulating suggestions generously and freely bestowed through many years. My warm thanks are also due to Professor William Thomson, who went over the article in its final form.

5 Neubauer and Cowley, loc. cit.

6 London, 1913, p. 406.

7 Brit. Mus. MS. Or. 6581 = MS. Georg. 3.

8 Taylor-Schechter MS. 12.741.

9 See Harvard Theological Review, XIX, October, 1926, p. 300.

10 See ibid. XXII, 1929, pp. 33 ff.

11 The leaf is here reproduced from an excellent photograph which I obtained through the kind offices of Mr. F. R. Hall, Comptroller of the Oxford University Press.

12 The Oxford leaf (c. 18); the initial sentence is written in red both in I and O.

13 See I (Tiflis, 1923), pp. 50 f.

14 See Harvard Theological Review, XXI, 1928, p. 368.

15 A photograph of this manuscript was sent me by the owner.

16 This form was pointed out by Šanidze in the article cited below, p. 234, note 32.

17 See p. 232.

18 A study of the alphabets from various manuscripts and monuments as given by I. Djavakhišvili in his (Tiflis, 1927) ad fin. makes this clear.

19 This is especially characteristic of the psalters; e.g. MS. Tiflis Eccles. Mus. 38 (ca. 904).

20 On this point see H. B. Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 2d. ed. by R. R. Ottley, Cambridge, 1914, pp. 351 f. The chapter headings are only partially preserved, for instance in Jeremiah, in Codex I.

21 For convenience I reproduce the alphabet as far as it is preserved. The drawing was executed by my wife.

22 In a good many manuscripts the only difference between e and o i is in the length of the left bar, and it is very difficult to distinguish between them.

23 The form of the reversed P is the older, as we can see from the inscriptions; cf. I. Djavakhišvili, Bulletin de l'Université de Tiflis, II, 1923, pp. 317 ff.

24 In some cases this finial slopes upward and outward at an angle of 45 degrees.

25 On this point see below, p. 236.

26 The closed head is the older form, but was more persistent in the manuscripts. See A. Č'ikobawa in Č'veni Mec'niereba III, No. 34, 1924, and Harvard Theological Review, XXI, 1928, p. 371, note 63.

27 I have not observed this form elsewhere.

28 Šanidze has noted the occurrence of the ž with the closed head in his texts (Khanmeti mravalt'avi, p. 109); see below, p. 234.

29 This is the type which underlies the ordinary nuskhi (ecclesiastical minuscule) form.

30 ‘The Caesarean Text of Mark,’ Harvard Theological Review, XXI, 1928, pp. 365 f.

31 See the following note.

32 Bulletin de l'Université de Tiflis, VII, 1926, pp. 98–152.

33 Hencko, in the article cited below (note 41), p. 237.

34 Šanidze, Khanmeti mravalt'avi, p. 116.

35 Šanidze, pp. 112–114.

36 We must assume the following development

37 The dative in Georgian ends -sa or -s.

38 See Djavakhišvili (above, note 23), p. 361, note and Hencko (below, note 41), p. 346.

39 N. Marr, Antiokh Stratig, Plenenie Ierusalima persami v 614 godu, St. Petersburg and Tiflis, 1909, pp. 73 f. of Introduction.

40 On this codex see my articles in Revue de l'Orient Chrétien, XXIII, 1924, p p. 26 f., 30–32, of the reprint, and in Harvard Theological Review, XIX, 1926, pp. 300–301.

41 I (1925), cTp. 345–352.

42 Harvard Theological Review, XXII, 1929, pp. 33 ff.

43 ibid. p. 65.

44 Harvard Theological Review, XIX, 1926, pp. 271 f.

45 The text of U is not preserved for chapter xii, but is extant for the other sections; Harvard Theological Review, XIX, 1926, p. 276.

46 See A. Šanidze, Bulletin de l'Université de Tiflis, II, 1923, pp. 417 ff.

47 Etymologically is connected with ‘head,’ which is used as the reflexive in Georgian. In the older manuscripts the reflexive sense was not yet fully attached to the adjectival form.

48 Streane, The Double Text of Jeremiah, 1896, p. 136, on Jer. iii. 2.

49 Streane, p. 242.

50 Jerome, Comm. in Ierem. ad xvii. 26 (Migne, P. L. XXIV, col. 824 B).

51 Percy J. Heawood, and Journal of Theological Studies, XIII, 1911–12, pp. 66–73.

52 Edited by I. Qip'šidze and A. Šanidze, Tiflis, 1928, p. 27.