Literary text: ENA 2555.1 + T-S 10K3 + T-S NS 175.57 + ENA 2556.1

Description

Manuscript of the Book of the Calendar Controversy, about the disagreement between Jewish leaders of Palestine and Babylonia on how to calculate the calendar year in 921/2. This led the Jews of the entire Near East to celebrate Passover and the other festivals on different dates over the course of two years. Four folios of this text are extant, ENA 2555.1, T-S 10K3 (one side only), T-S NS 175.57 (one side only), and ENA 2556.1. Stern concludes that these folios are discontinuous elements of the same manuscript and supposes their sequence from textual parallels in other manuscripts of the Book of the Calendar Controversy. Scribe changes throughout the manuscript appear random and change the style of script (round, square, compact, etc.). The evident involvement of several scribes in the production of this single manuscript suggests a commercial enterprise in which a team of scribes was employed to produce books, and where the books being copied were passed around the team at the convenience of the scribes’ individual work schedules. Its hasty, somewhat sloppy production by a team of scribes suggests that it was intended as a cheap, ‘budget’ copy, for circulation among a broader, private readership. (See Stern pp. 166-170 for discussion regarding the scribal hands.)