An elegantly decorated example of Yemenite scribal virtuosity.

Rabbinic law requires that a Torah scroll be written without punctuation, vocalization, or accentuation in order to be considered fit for ritual use in the synagogue. Words are separated by spaces, paragraph divisions break up the flow of the text, and four letters (alef, he, vav, and yod) are frequently used to mark꧙ certain vowels, but even with these devices, the correct pronunciation and parsing of the biblical text into intelligible units is not readily apparent from its appearance in a scroll. Instead, Jews in antiquity relied on inherited reading traditions, passed down orally from one generation to the next, in order to understand the Bible.

In the early Middle Ages, not before the sixth century but also not later than the seventh, systems of committing these reading traditions to writing in biblical codices (not scrolls) developed in Palestine, Babylonia, and eventually specifically in Tiberias (Palestine). The last system, referred𝓰 to as Tiberian, would, with time, become the standard one used throughout the Jewish world to record the vowels and accents of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In addition, extensive lists containing the details of the consonantal skeleton of the Bible, as well as its proper vocalization and accentuation—collectively known as the Masorah (lit., Tradition)—were drawn up in order to ensure that scribes would copy the text correctly. The tradition of Aaron Ben-Asher (first half of the tenth century), scion of a famous family of Tiberian Masorah scholars, was considered ♑particularly authoritative, especially after Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) wrote of his decision 🧔to use a Bible edited by Ben-Asher (the famous Aleppo Codex) as the model for a Torah that he himself copied.

While the Jewish community of Yemen, whose roots stretch back to antiquity (and possibly to Second Temple times), had long used the Babylonian (supralinear) system of vocalization and accentuation when transcribing Torah codices, it, too, gradually adopted the Tiberian method, probably under the influence of Maimonides, whom Yemenite Jews revered as a great halakhic authority. Because of the high degree of exactitude with which Yemenite biblical manuscripts, known as tijan (sing., taj; Arabic for “crown”), were copied, as well as their adherence to the prescriptions of the Masorah, modern researchers consider these volumes to be valuable witnesses to the Ben-Asher tradition. Indeed, the great Bible scholar Mordechai Breuer saw the fact that the eclectic version of the Bible that he had edited turned out, post facto, to match the tradition reflected in tijan as proof positive of the soundness of the methodology he had employed in making his editorial determinations. The present lot is a manuscript taj comprising the text of the entire 𓄧Pentateuch.

The main differences between tijan and Hebrew Bibles copied in other parts of the Jewish world concern minute details of the biblical text, its vocalization, and its accentuation. Examples include the use of the plural form va-yihyu (they were), rather than the singular va-yehi, in Gen. 9:29 (see p. 88) and the spelling of the word dakka (crushed) in Deut. 23:2 with a final alef, rather than a he (see p. 496). Another distinctive feature of tijan is their scrupulousness in laying out the biblical text, especially the songs, in consonance with Maimonides’ prescriptions. This means that the last two lines of the Song of the Sea🐻 (Ex. 15:1-19; see pp. 217-219) each split their text into🌱 two blocks separated by an empty space and that the Song of Moses (Deut. 32:1-43; see pp. 518-521) is transcribed on sixty-seven, rather than seventy, lines.

In addition to its value as a witness to the Yemenite textual tradition, this taj also boasts extensive rubrication of aliyyah and decorative parashah markers. Moreover, appended at the beginning (with a separate quire count) is a copy of Mahberet ha-tijan. This latter work, an anonymous compendium of masoretic and grammatical rules adapted and abridged from the (tenth-century?) Palestinian Judeo-Arabic treatise Hidayat al-qari (Direction of the Reader), was often copied together with tijan as a guide to proper (Tiberian) reading of the biblical text. Two versions of this treatise exist: a shorter, rarer one in Judeo-Arabic (editio princeps: Leipzig, 1891) and a longer one, incorporating material culled from other sources, in Hebrew (editio princeps: Paris, 1870; offprint: 1871); this lot includes a copy of the latter. The volume was purchased by David Solomon Sassoon on September 12, 1927,✨ presumably from Elias Abraham Saadia Solomon Halfon of Aden.

Provenance

Abraham ben Saadia (p. 0)

Suleiman, who pawned it to Abu al-S♚a‘ud al-Adawi, Sunday, 1 Nisan 1954 AG (March 12, 1643 CE) (p. 70)

Joseph Haddad (p. 70)

Daughter༺ of Joseph ben Abraham al-Lawi al-Sawdi (p. 527)

Physical Description

528 pages (10 1/8 x 7 1/4 in.; 257 x 185 mm) (collation: i⁸, ii-iii¹⁰, iv⁷ [iv₈ canceled], i⁹ [i₁ canceled], ii-xxi¹⁰, xxii-xxiii⁸, xxiv⁴) on Yemenite (unmarked) paper; modern foliation in pencil in Hebrew characters near upper-outer corners of ff. 2-28; modern pagination in pencil in Arabic numerals in lower margins at center (0-527); first and final pages of each quire signed in pen at head and foot, respectively, in Hebrew characters (sometimes damaged or obscured); midpoints of quires generally marked in the upper-right and lower-left corners of the middle opening with a hook-shaped symbol; written in Yemenite square (text body) and semi-cursive (Masorah) scripts in black ink; single-column text of thirty-one (pp. 2-68) or nineteen (pp. 71-525) lines per page; ruled with a mastara (ruling board); justification of lines via dilation or contraction of final letters; horizontal catchword occasionally in lower margin of last page of quire (see also p. 11); Tiberian vocalization and accentuation of biblical text (except on pp. 351-352, 369-373); Masorah magna and Masorah parva written in micrography in margins (inscribed diagonally on p. 275); Tetragrammaton abbreviated to two yodin flanking a vav with or without a dot above; corrections in primary and secondary hands. New parashiyyot generally indicated via a decorated, rubricated marginal pe and accompanied by a verse tally and mnemonic for the previous parashah; enlarged, rubricated Hebrew letters (bet through zayin) generally used to mark the start of new aliyyot (often altered/updated by later hands); decorated, rubricated marginal Masorah markers used at some biblical midpoints (pp. 127, 296, 302, 305, 316, 393, 485); books generally end with masoretic notes on the number of verses they contain (pp. 184, 281, 349, 443; see also p. 526); the Song of the Sea (pp. 217-219) and the Song of Moses (pp. 518-521) are either (in the second case) written in two mini-columns with a space in between or (in the first case) made to look like brickwork; the custom of pe lefufah (spiral letter pe) observed. Scattered staining and dampstaining (e.g., p. 112); corners rounded; extensive worming mostly concentrated in lower margins, often affecting some text and sometimes affecting the stability of the paper (especially because the tape used to repair the damage has been removed); thorough repairs on pp. 0-1, 526-527, more moderate in edges of pp. 4-11; damage in upper margins affecting some text on pp. 0-3; some text covered by repairs on pp. 2-5, 90, 164, 166, 197, 244, 268, 307, 367, 499, 501, 503; repairs not covering text on pp. 103, 227, 247, 267, 290, 380, 382, 386, 402, 424, 525; upper-outer corners of pp. 110-117 lackinౠg; long tear through pp. 218-219; text restored more extensively on pp. 229, 424, 519-521, 523, 5ꦦ25 and more moderately on pp. 163, 169, 181, 192-193, 231, 286-287, 299, 302-303, 465, 500. Modern brown buckram, slightly worn; paper ticket with title affixed to top of spine; shelf mark lettered in gilt at base of spine; modern paper flyleaves and pastedowns.

Literature

Mordechai Breuer (ed.), Torah nevi’im ketuvim muggahim al pi ha-nussah ve-ha-masorah shel keter aram tsovah ve-kitvei yad ha-kerovim lo (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1989), 395.

Joseph Derenbourg (ed.), Manuel du lecteur, d’un auteur inconnu, publié d’après un manuscrit venu du Yémen et accompagné de notes (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1871).

Ilan Eldar, “Tivan shel mahberot ha-tijan mi-teiman u-mekoroteha shel ha-mahberet ha-ivrit,” Massorot 2 (1986): 19-29.

Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, “Biblical Manuscripts in the United States,” Textus 2 (1962): 28-59.

Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, “The Rise of the Tiberian Bible Text,” in Alexander Altmann (ed.), Biblical and Other Studies (Cambridge, M🅰A: Harvard University Press, 1963), 79-122, at pp. 11⭕9-120 n. 133.

Shelomo Morag, “Ha-mikra u-mesirato be-teiman: he‘arot ahadot,” in Shalom Gamaliel, Mishael Massuri Kaspi, and Simeon Avizemer (eds.), Orhot teiman (Jerusalem: Mekhon Shaꦚlom le-Shivtei Yeshurun, 1984), 26-35.

Adolf Neubauer (ed.), Petite grammaire hébraïque provenant de Yemen: texte arabe (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1891).

David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, vol. 2 ([Oxford]: Oxford University Pre🐎♑ss; London: Humphrey Milford, 1932), 609 (no. 996).

David Stern, “On the Term Keter as a Title for Bibles: A Speculation About Its Origins,” in Shmuel Glick, Evelyn M. Cohen, and Angelo M. Piattelli (eds.), Meḥevah le-Menaḥem: Studies in Honor of Menahem Hayyim Schmelzer&nb𝔉sp;(Jerusalem: JTS-Schocken Insti🌟tute for Jewish Research, 2019), *259-*273.

Yosef Tobi, “The Taj in the Yemeni Tradition,” in Aaron Amram (ed.), Keter taj ve-zot ha-torah, 2 vols. (Petah Tikva: Aaron Amram, 20✨04-2005), 1:11-17 (English section).

Doron Ya‘akov, “Yemen, Pronunciation Traditions,” in Geoffrey Khan, Shmuel Bolokzy, Steven Fassberg, et al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, vol. 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2013).