Writings: JudaismThe Cairo Genizah and leaf T-S 12.1826 of 10

Writings: Judaism

The Cairo Genizah and leaf T-S 12.182

Cambridge University Library calls the Cairo Genizah a storeroom of worn-out Jewish writings in Old Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue; Nick Posegay uses the name for writings from several storerooms. The library's research unit counts 193,000 fragments in the Taylor-Schechter Collection (no year given). This entry follows leaf T-S 12.182: Greek Psalm 22, probably 7th century, under a 10th-century Hebrew poem.

Last reviewed:

Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    The statements consulted give no year for Psalm 22 (21 in the Greek numbering), the psalm the lower text renders in Greek, so this row is left blank. They are the Talmud's list of authors (Bava Batra 14b), the Orthodox Union's entry on the Tanakh, and the Encyclopaedia Judaica's entries on the Sabbath and Shavuot.

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    The sources used here date no single psalm, so this row is left blank, as the tradition row is. The strip would mark the making of Psalm 22, the same event the tradition row would. Christine Hayes says in a lecture that the Psalms were gathered into one anthology in the post-exilic period, probably the fifth or fourth century BCE, with many psalms much older; the New Catholic Encyclopedia's entry says an earlier consensus put the book's final form around the 4th century BCE.

  3. This copy made

    6th or 7th century CE, the lower, Greek writing of Psalm 22 that the bar marks, with the upper, Hebrew poem about the 10th century CE (the library's catalog gives the 7th and the 10th; Benjamin Kantor, in the library's Fragment of the Month series, gives the sixth or seventh and the tenth; Nick Posegay dates the Hebrew poems written over two associated leaves to about the eleventh century; the bar runs 500 to 700 CE, computed here from the sixth and seventh centuries; neither the catalog nor Kantor names a method)

  4. This copy found

    1896 to 1897, when Solomon Schechter examined the Genizah in Cairo and brought the Taylor-Schechter Collection to Cambridge (the library's record says this leaf was donated with it by Schechter and Charles Taylor in 1898; the sources used here do not say which Cairo storeroom it came from, who first noticed it, or when)

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

A genizah is a storeroom for worn-out holy writings. Rabbinic law, the library explains, says texts bearing the divine name are buried or placed in a genizah.1 Cambridge University Library describes the Cairo Genizah as a purpose-built storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, now Old Cairo.1 Nick Posegay uses the name for all the manuscripts from several Cairo storerooms, including the Basatin Cemetery and dig sites in Fustat.2 The library's Genizah Research Unit counts 193,000 manuscript fragments in the Taylor-Schechter Collection but gives no date for the count. It says they are mainly in Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic (Arabic written in Hebrew script), Aramaic, and Arabic.34

This entry follows one leaf, T-S 12.182, a palimpsest: a leaf whose first writing was erased and written over.5 The lower text is Greek, from the Hexapla compiled by Origen, a church father and Bible scholar. The Hexapla set the Hebrew text of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible), that Hebrew in Greek letters, and four Greek translations side by side. The leaf keeps parts of Psalm 22 (21 in the Greek numbering). The upper text is Hebrew liturgical poems (piyyutim, poems for worship) by Yannai.67

How the copy was dated

The Cambridge Digital Library record gives the lower text as probably of the 7th century CE and the upper as about the 10th. It calls the lower one of the earliest manuscripts in the Genizah.6 Benjamin Kantor dates the lower text to the sixth or seventh century and the upper to the tenth.7 Neither page names a method. For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

Posegay writes that Genizah material runs from the sixth to the nineteenth century, and he names a Babylonian (that is, Iraqi) Tanakh fragment of 903 or 904 CE as the earliest securely dated manuscript.2

The physically oldest, he writes, are two Greek folios of Aquila's translation of Kings, T-S 12.184 and T-S 20.50, dated by handwriting to the fifth or early sixth century. The catalog lists them with this leaf. Posegay dates the Hebrew poems written over them to about the eleventh century, against the catalog's tenth for this leaf's poems.26

The text: its date and authorship

The date strip marks Psalm 22, the psalm the lower text renders in Greek. The sources used here give no year for it, so the first two rows say so in words.

The tradition's view

This column reports the tradition through the Talmud, an Orthodox glossary, a translation, and a reference work, since none dates the psalm. A Talmud teaching says that David wrote the Psalms by means of ten elders of earlier generations, so the collection includes psalms by Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham, and Moses, among others.8 The Orthodox Union teaches that the books of the Writings, the third part of the Tanakh, were composed by individuals inspired by the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh).9

In the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, the heading of Psalm 22 ascribes it to David.10 The Encyclopaedia Judaica's entry on the Sabbath describes Psalms recited before the Friday evening service, and its entry on Shavuot a less observed custom of reciting the whole book on the festival's second night, for its link with David.1112

Scholars of the Psalms: Hayes and Nowell

Christine Hayes says in a lecture that the Psalms were gathered into one anthology after the exile, probably in the fifth or fourth century BCE, though many date from before the exile. She adds that the headings are in many cases late additions and that calling a psalm Davidic may mean only that the House of David sponsored it.13

The New Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on the Psalms, by I. Nowell, writes that the psalms of David may include some written by the king, but that the attribution is honorary. It calls the book a collection of collections and says an earlier consensus that the book reached its final form around the 4th century BCE has been challenged.14

How it was found

In 1896 the sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson brought Genizah leaves they had bought to Cambridge. Solomon Schechter recognized among them part of the lost Hebrew Ben Sira.151 Charles Taylor, who helped pay for the journey, wrote that Schechter set out in mid-December 1896 intending, with the consent of the local Jewish authorities, to examine the Genizah, and that Cairo's chief rabbi placed its contents freely and unreservedly at his disposal.16 Posegay likewise writes that the chief rabbi, Aharon ben Shim'on, ultimately gave Schechter permission to remove what he liked.2 Cambridge says he brought almost 200,000 manuscripts back with permission.1

Posegay and Levi add complications. Posegay writes that Schechter also paid Egyptian workers to remove manuscripts and bought some from dealers, and that the synagogue's renovation from 1889 to 1892 left manuscripts in its courtyard or buried around Fustat.2 Amalia Levi, reviewing Rebecca Jefferson's book, reports that it raises ethical questions about how Western scholars acquired fragments from communities that, in Levi's summary, were often misled to give up their treasures.17

The library's record says Schechter and Taylor donated this leaf in 1898 as part of the Collection. The sources used here do not say who first noticed it, or from which Cairo storeroom it came.6

What it shows, and what it does not

Cambridge presents the collection as what one community, the Jews of Fustat, stored: religious books and everyday papers side by side. It names three finds, the original Hebrew of Ben Sira (a book of the second century BCE, in a 10th-century copy), the Zadokite Fragment (now called the Damascus Document, later found among the Dead Sea Scrolls), and Maimonides's own handwriting.1 T-S 12.182, which Kantor calls the oldest direct witness to the Hexapla, shows Hebrew poems copied over a Greek Bible-scholarship manuscript.7

It does not show that the Genizah mirrors all medieval Jewish life. Posegay writes that late Genizah material raises questions about the integrity of Genizah collections around the world, since some fragments postdate Schechter's discovery or were never in Egypt.2 Nor does this leaf settle whether the Hexapla had a first column of Hebrew in Hebrew letters, which no surviving witness keeps. R. G. Jenkins argued from its measurements that it did, and Kantor calls the argument persuasive. Kantor adds that little is known of the leaf's history.7

See also

Sources

  1. Cambridge University Library. Taylor-Schechter Genizah: A Priceless Collection. Cambridge University Library, the page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  2. Nick Posegay. Searching for the Last Genizah Fragment in Late Ottoman Cairo: A Material Survey of Egyptian Jewish Literary Culture. International Journal of Middle East Studies 54, no. 3 (2022), pp. 423 to 441 (open access), 2022, pp. 423 to 441; the pages cited are those on Schechter's permission and payments, earlier removals, and 'discovery'. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  3. Cambridge University Library. Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. Cambridge University Library, the page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  4. Mohamed A. H. Ahmed. Judaeo-Arabic Poetry in the Cairo Genizah: T-S Ar.37.127. Cambridge University Library, Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, March 2018, 2018, the article. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  5. Nicolai Sinai. Beyond the Cairo Edition: On the Study of Early Quranic Codices (a review article on Asma Hilali, The Sanaa Palimpsest, and Eleonore Cellard, Codex Amrensis 1). Journal of the American Oriental Society 140, no. 1 (2020), pp. 189 to 204, 2020, pp. 189 to 204; the footnotes on pp. 191 to 203. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. Cambridge University Library. Palimpsest; piyyut; Bible (T-S 12.182) (Cambridge Digital Library record). Cambridge University Library, Cambridge Digital Library, the catalog metadata. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  7. Benjamin Kantor. The Oldest Fragment of Origen's Hexapla: T-S 12.182. Cambridge University Library, Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, March 2019, 2019, the article and its bibliography. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  8. Babylonian Talmud (William Davidson Edition). Bava Batra 14b. Sefaria, Bava Batra 14b. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  9. Orthodox Union. Tanakh (Judaism 101 glossary). Orthodox Union, glossary entry. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  10. Jewish Publication Society of America. The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text. The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1917. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  11. Efraim Gottlieb; Susan Nashman Fraiman; and others. Sabbath. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com, "The Laws and Customs of the Sabbath" and the section on modern questions. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  12. Shavuot. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com, opening. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  13. Christine Hayes. Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) (RLST 145), Lecture 21: Biblical Poetry: Psalms and Song of Songs. Open Yale Courses, Yale University, transcript. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  14. I. Nowell. Psalms, Book of. New Catholic Encyclopedia (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com, the entry. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  15. Shulamit Elizur and Michael Rand. A new fragment of the book of Ben Sira, T-S AS 118.78. Cambridge University Library, Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, January 2011, 2011, the article. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  16. Charles Taylor. The Genizah of Old Cairo. The Expository Times 9, no. 8 (1898), pp. 344 to 346, 1898, pp. 344 to 345. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  17. Amalia S. Levi. Book Review: Rebecca J. W. Jefferson, The Cairo Genizah and the Age of Discovery in Egypt: The History and Provenance of a Jewish Archive (I. B. Tauris, 2022). Judaica Librarianship 23 (2024), pp. 179 to 182 (open access), 2024, pp. 179 to 182. Accessed 2026-11-06.