New Light on Proto-Masoretic Torah Scroll

During the past years, two fragments of a Torah scroll caught much attention since they appeared to date from the so-called “silent era”, the centuries between the writing of the latest Dead Sea Scrolls and the production of the earliest Hebrew Bible codices. The scroll was produced in the 7th or 8th century CE. MS London, Jews’ College #31, contains Exodus 9:18–13:2. The other fragment, MS Durham, Duke University, Ashkar-Gilson #2, was disclosed more recently in studies by Edna Engel and Mordechai Mishor (2015) and myself (2014). It displays excerpts of Exodus 13:19–16:1, including a well-considered arrangement of the Song of the Sea. In the meantime, Mordechai Veintrob has identified thirteen additional fragments of the same scroll, which originate in the Cairo Genizah. They show sections from all the books of the Torah except Leviticus. This impressive discovery makes it possible to test my suggestion that there is an exceptional relationship between this Torah scroll and the more recent Aleppo Codex.