The codex—an innovation at a time when most writing was still on scrolls—allowed Jews to study sacred texts while travelling.
Museum of the Bible unveils world’s “Oldest Jewish Book” in new exhibit
in a cave near one of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas that were carved into a mountain in ancient times and deliberately destroyed in an explosion by the Taliban in 2001, according to an article in The Free Press . Sometime later, someone reportedly tried without success to sell the book in Dallas, Texas. Then, following the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the book’s tracks disappeared until 2012, when a rare book dealer photographed it in London. The dealer, Lenny Wolfe, told The Free Press that he tried brokering a $120,000 (US) deal between a pair of private sellers and an un- specified Israeli institution, but that the insti- tution turned down the offer. Eventually, the Green family, evangelical Christians based in Oklahoma who own the Hobby Lobby chain, bought the book without knowing its true age or origin, and added it to a collection that would evolve into the Museum of the Bible. It was mis- labeled, “Egypt, circa 900 CE.” A museum curator who was examining the book real- ized that its real origin was Afghanistan when he encountered a photo of the book in an article in Tablet magazine about Jew- ish manuscripts being smuggled out of the country. That discovery eventually led to the carbon testing and the revelation of the book’s unique significance. The book will remain on display until mid-January, after which it will be on view at the library of the Jewish Theological Semin- ary in New York City. n
ASAF ELIA-SHALEV / JTA
T he Museum of the Bible in Wash- ington, D.C., has unveiled what it says is the oldest Jewish book ever dis- covered. According to the museum’s dra- matic claim, the tiny book is a relic of an eighth-century civilization on the ancient trading route known as the Silk Road, cre- ated by Jews living as a minority among Buddhists who ruled the Bamiyan Valley in modern-day Afghanistan. Measuring approximately 13 centimeters by 13 centimeters, the book combines a variety of texts written by different hands, including prayers, poems, and what the museum says is the oldest known version of the Haggadah, the central text of the Passover seder. The museum’s claims regarding the book are based on years of work by a
team of researchers; their work is slated to be published in a series of 10 essays in April. Anchoring the scholarly discussion surrounding the book is a 2019 laboratory test that used carbon dating to estimate the book’s age at 1,300 years, astonish- ing researchers at the museum. Far more ancient written Hebrew texts had been discovered, but only on scrolls, most fam- ously the roughly 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls that are displayed prominently in Israel. The carbon dating indicated that this was the earliest intact Hebrew codex by more than a century. Prior to the drama of the lab’s result, the book had garnered little interest in the dec- ades since it was first found in Afghanistan. A member of the country’s Hazara ethnic minority discovered the manuscript in 1997
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