Masorah Rearranged: Eight Masoretic Lists in MS London Oriental 2091, fol. 335v

Abstract

Corpus Masoreticum Working Papers 6

This paper deals with eight masoretic lists that are found on fol. 335v in MS London BL or. 2091. All lists on this folio are found in situ. The folio contains three figuratae, of which the first and the third encompass two lists each, whereas the middle figurata displays four. Lists 1 and 3 to 8 are complete, and only list 2 is incomplete. The paper explains the lists at hand and relates them to both the Okhla we-Okhla recensions (Halle/Paris) and to some Tiberian manuscripts, e.g. Firkovich, Evr. I B 19a, Codex Babylonicus Petropolitanus (St. Petersburg, Russian National Library, Firkovich, Evr. I B 3), MS JTS Lutzki 232 (E. N. Adler Ms. 346). In addition to the philological comparisons, I will address some initial questions regarding aesthetic aspects and the methods used by the masran to put his material to parchment.

The philological investigation will rebut the argument that the medieval scribes who composed the figuratae were merely artists and not philologists, and that, therefore, they had no idea of the aims of the Masorah. At the end of this paper, I will briefly discuss the idea that the masranim of Bible codices in Western Europe might have been reluctant about compilations of isolated biblical text extracts like the Okhla recensions and wanted to (re-)collect them in their appropriate place, i.e. attached to the biblical text.