Collection ID: 0047 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Torah (תורה)

Funders

• The Polonsky Foundation

Call number

Harley MS 5498a
(London, United Kingdom, British Library, Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation Project)

Alternate identifiers

• http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_5498a
• https://www.bl.uk/hebrew-manuscripts

Publisher

British Library

Language

Hebrew

Origin

Summary

Hebrew Bible, volume 1: Pentateuch

Notes

• The codex has been trimmed and it became smaller in size than the other three volumes.
   

Extent

124 folios (+4 unfoliated flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).; 124 folios (+4 unfoliated flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).

Support

Parchment

Binding

Post-1600 Harleian binding, red leather with gold tooling, marble paper pastedown. Spine: 'Bible I. Hebrew. Brit. Mus. Harl. Ms. 5498.'

Layout

Columns: 2; ruled lines: 32; written lines: 32; Uniform layout. Leviticus and Deuteronomy begin a new column. Initial word at the beginning of Numbers is unfinished. Weekly pericopes in volume 1 marked by pen-decorated פרש' in the margin at the beginning, later on only by non-decorative פר'. The masoretic rubric giving the number of verses etc. has only been given after Genesis.

Script

Sefardi square script, punctuated through the main text and unpunctuated through the masoretic notes, of the 14th century.

Provenance

• Acquisition: Inscription by Edward Harley's librarian, Humfrey Wanley, 28 July 1725 (folio 2r of volume 1). The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts. Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d.1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.
   

Related resources

• Manuscript description based on Margoliouth, G.: Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, London 1965.

Keywords

• 14th cetury

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of British Library Harley MS 5498a: Torah (תורה) are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

  To the extent possible under law, British Library has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about British Library Harley MS 5498a: Torah (תורה). This work is published from: United States. For a summary of CC0, see https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. Legal code: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.

  URL

  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Table of contents

• fol. 1r — Torah תורה
• fol. 2v — Genesis
• fol. 30v — Exodus
• fol. 53v — Leviticus
• fol. 72r — Numbers
• fol. 100r — Deuteronomy