farding the readings of this MS see Ginsburg, ntrod. pp. 215-230, 439-441, 475 f.
D. The arje of many MSS is much controverted. Cod. Brit. Mus. Add. 4708 (Latter Propliets) was assigned by the late Dr. >L Margoliouth to the 6th cent. ; Mor. Heidenheim judged that it might have been written between the 6th and the Stli cent. ; B. Kennicott (cod. 126) ascribed it to the beginning of the 15th century. Ginsburg says: ' The writing is such as we meet with in the Sephardic codices of the 12th and 13th centuries,' and, so far as the present writer can judge without having examined the MS for himself, Ciinsburg is right. II Tlie Bible Cambridge 12 bears the date ' 7 Adar, 616,' i.e. 18th Feb. 856 A.D. We wonder that so sagacious and learned a scholar as the late S. M. Schiller-Szinessy accepted this date as correct (see his Catnlor/ue, p. 13). Cf. L. Zunz, Zur Gesch. u. Literalur, Berlin, 1845, p. 214 f. ; Ad. Neubauer in Studia Biblica, iii. pp. 27-36.
The number of unquestionably genuine ancient epigraplis in Bible MS is not largo. At Tzufutkale the present writer in 1874 noted tlie following, which emanate from the writers of the MSS them- selves : 922 A.D. = 1234 Seleuc, cod. 34, Moses ben Naphtali, known as a contemporary of Aaron ben Asher; 930 A.D. = 1241 Seleuc, cod. 35/36, Balomo ben ki'k-id, mas(s)ora written by Ephraim
ben NVfCU ; 943 A.D. = 4703 of the Creation, cod. 39, Lsaak ben Jochai ; 952 A.D. =4712 of tha Creation, cod. 40, Joseph ben Daniel ; 961 A.D. = 4721 of the Creation, cod. 4 ; 989 A.D. = 1300 Seleuc, cod. 43, Joseph ben Jacob; 994 A.D. = 4754 of the Creation, cod. 44, Moses ben Hillel | 1051 A.D.=4811of the Creation, cod. 11, Moses(?) ben Anan. — Unfortunately, the Karaite Abraham Firkowitsch (both in hislirst collections and in tha latest just mentioned, which since 1875 has like- wise been in St. Petersburg) either himself wrote entirely a great many epigraphs, or falsified them by altering dates and names. For instance, in cod. Tzufut. 11 he changed 4811 of the Creation into 4411 = 651 A.D. !
Much fresh information is to be hoped for from the treasures of the Genizah of Old Cairo brought by S. Schechter to Cambridge ; see the description of the Genizah by E. N. Adler in the JQR, 1897, p. 669 if.
E. Why is the number of ancient MSS of the Heb. OT so small ? Why have we no MSS as old as those of the NT, the LXX, and the Peshitta T The reasons are : (1) Not a few Bible MSS, espe- cially Pentateuch rolls, were destroyed by fanatical Christians during the persecutions of the Jews in the Middle Ages, particularly in the time of the Crusades. (2) A much larger number, how- ever, of MSS were destroyed by the Jews them- selves by means of the genizah (ni'ia). Already the Talmud (Megilla, 26i) tells of how a worm- eaten Pentateuch roll is buried beside the corpse of a sage ; cf . Shulhan 'A rukh, Joreh De'ah, 282, § 10. This custom was later extended to all Heb. MSS of Biblical and non-Biblical texts, frequently, indeed, with the modification that a room, generally a cellar, in the synagogue was devoted to their concealment. To the dryness of the Egyptian climate we owe the abundance of the material which, as was mentioned above, has been found in the synagogue of Old Cairo. But it was not only such MSS as had been damaged by the tooth of time, by fire, by water, or by constant use, that were deposited in the genizah ; further, all Torah rolls that contained more than three mistakes in a column had to be concealed (see Talm. Menahoth, 296; Shulhan ' Arukh, Joreh Deah, 279). This rule partly explains how the MSS that have come down to us represent in the main one and the same text. Codices which deviated from the text of the recognized nakddnlm and the mas(s)oretio principles were considered ' incorrect,' and were consigned to the genizah. A very notal)Ie instance of this is the codex of 916 A.D. found by Abr. Firkowitsch (cf. A. Firk., pnDi 'i^n, Wilna, 1872, p. 12, No. 29). Hence the present writer is unable to adopt the view of J. Olsliau.sen, P. de Lagarde, and most moderns, that all Heb. JISS go back to a single standard copy (cf. also his discussion in G. A. Kohut'a Semitxc Studies, Berlin, 1897, pp. 56.3-571).
F. LiTERATOM.— In preneml : Wolf, Bihlioth. Heb. U. 281-832, iv. 78-93 ; II O. G. T^xhsen, Tentanun de variis codicum Heb. iteneribtts, Rostock, 1772 ; Befreyctes Tentainen, 1774 ; II J. O. Eiclihorn, Einleit. in das AT*, ii. 468-684, Oottingen, 1823 ; I H. L. Strack, Prole'jotnena critica in VT llcb., Leipzig, 1873, pp. 9-58 [this book iiaa been lontr out of print ; the author hopea to write a new work on the sul)ject) ; ' Die bibliachen und die nias3oret. Ilandschriften zu Tscliuf ut - Kale in der Krim ' in Xlachr. f. luther. Theolonie, 187.5, pp. 687-624 ; || M. Stein- schneider, Vorlfsttn^en iiber die Kunde ftebraischer Hand- schri/ten, deren Samtiiliingen und Verzcichnisae, Leipzig, 1897 (110 pp.); I Ad. Netibauer, 'The Introduction of the square characters in liiblical MSS, and an account of the earliesi llSSof the OT' in Sludia Biblica et Kecies. iii. (Oxford, 1S91) pp. 1-36.