The Cairo Manuscript

The Cairo Manuscript

July 2017, Cairo. The Israeli researcher, Yoram Meital, as part of his research into the synagogues of the Egyptian capital, discovers almost by chance in the Abbasiya district, a biblical codex in the Karaite synagogue Moussa Der'i. The codex turns out to be one of the oldest known biblical manuscripts. This exceptional discovery was not announced in the specialized press until early March 2020.

Image opposite: Israeli researcher Yoram Meital. © DR.

Why so much silence and caution in announcing this news?

Analysis of the manuscript

The 313-leaf manuscript is very old. The parchment measures 36.4 by 34.6 centimetres. It dates back to the 11th century and is in direct line with the Massoretic school of Ben Asher (see Leningrad codex and Aleppo codex). Only eight codices are known to date back to this tormented century, when the crusades began in the Holy Land. This one is signed by Zachariah ben Anan in 1028 CE.

Image opposite: the president of the Egyptian Jewish community, Magda Shehata Haroun, at Cairo's Shaar Hashamayim synagogue, also known as Temple Ismailia or Adly synagogue, on October 3, 2016. © Khaled Desouki/AFP.

The document covers the whole of the Ketuvim.
The Torah is usually divided into three parts in the Jewish world. The Houmash or Pentateuch, the Neviim or Prophets and Ketuvim or Writings, which includes the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and so-called historical documents.
The manuscript has been religiously preserved by the Karaite community in Cairo for all these centuries. It was used as a guide in disputes over the reading or understanding of certain passages of the Torah. Among other peculiarities, the biblical text is not legible at first glance, due to the absence of the system of dots and annotations introduced by the Massorets around the 10th century. Some even believe that this phonetic transcription is even older.

Image opposite: the interior of Cairo's Shaar Hashamayim Synagogue, also known as the Adly Street Synagogue - Egypt's largest Jewish place of worship © Larry Luxner/Times of Israel.

It's worth remembering that the entire Jewish world, past and present, has regarded the Masoretic system as the authoritative basis for reading and understanding the text. Maimonides himself, who lived in Cairo in the 11th century, based his Mishneh Torah on the famous Aleppo codex.

Conclusion

This discovery is all the more exceptional in that it had been lost for forty years, the date of its last census by a team dispatched from Israel to formally identify and study all the Jewish treasures in Cairo. In view of the immense interest, not to say covetousness, aroused by this manuscript, the Israeli researcher and his Egyptian contacts decided to hide the text in order to prevent its disappearance or even loss.
It should once again be displayed in a safe place in Cairo dedicated to its Jewish treasures, because as Egyptian law specifies, these objects are the property of the Cairo Jewish community.