Writings: JudaismThe Kaufmann Mishnah7 of 10

Writings: Judaism

The Kaufmann Mishnah

The Kaufmann Mishnah (MS A 50) is a parchment codex of the whole Mishnah, the rabbinic collection of teaching edited about 200 CE. It has no colophon, and sources date it between the tenth and twelfth centuries CE, probably in Italy. David Kaufmann acquired it in 1896, and it is in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences library in Budapest.

Last reviewed:

Three dates, kept apart

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

    about 1300 BCE, the Oral Torah given at Sinai, to about 200 CE, the Mishnah compiled (the 1300 BCE year is computed here from the Orthodox Union's statement that the Torah was given at Sinai some 3,300 years ago and from the date stamp of the page that says it, 21 June 2006; the same entry says the Oral Torah was received at Sinai along with the Written Torah, and Maimonides also holds that it was given there; the Orthodox Union is the only voice consulted that dates the giving at Sinai, and the Conservative statement Emet Ve-Emunah and the Reform platform of 1976 give no date for it; the Orthodox Union dates the compilation by Judah ha-Nasi to about 200 CE; Maimonides gives no date for Judah)

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

    about 200 CE, drawn as 175 to 225 CE, for the Mishnah's editing, with no year from the scholars cited for the origin of the Oral Torah's contents (the bar marks the editing alone for that reason; Stephen Wald gives the beginning of the third century and Lawrence Schiffman about 200 CE; David Kraemer places Judah ha-Nasi, the editor, in the late second to the early third century; the width of the bar is computed here as the last quarter of the second century to the first quarter of the third; Wald and Schiffman hold that much of the material is older, with no start year, and Yaakov Elman holds that it was written down before the middle of the fourth century)

  3. This copy made

    10th to 12th century CE (the sources differ: the library's study gives the tenth or eleventh century, its manuscript list late 11th to early 12th, the Hebrew Palaeography Album the 11th century (its notes quote a library page's late 11th to mid-12th), and Judith Olszowy-Schlanger the 12th; there is no colophon)

  4. This copy found

    acquired by David Kaufmann in 1896; the collection was introduced to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences by Ignaz Goldziher on 23 April 1906 (not a find; the sources used do not say where the codex was before 1896)

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

What it is

The Kaufmann Mishnah is a codex, a book of bound pages rather than a roll, written in Hebrew on parchment, animal skin prepared for writing.1 It holds the whole Mishnah, the rabbinic collection of legal teaching in six orders that became the base of both Talmuds.23 The Album records two columns of 23 lines and full vowel signs, called vocalization.1 The library's study counts three complete Mishnah manuscripts, including a Cambridge copy of the 14th or 15th century.3

How the copy was dated

The codex has no colophon, a scribe's note giving date and place, so views differ on its age and origin.3 The library's study says it was written in the tenth or eleventh century. It quotes a passage, which its note credits to Michael Krupp, that its script and letter forms closely resemble certain eastern manuscripts of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, of those centuries.3

The library's manuscript list says late 11th to early 12th century. The Hebrew Palaeography Album gives the 11th century as its own date, and its notes quote two library dates: late 11th to mid-12th, and the tenth or eleventh. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, the Album's general editor, dates it to the 12th century elsewhere.415

Origin is also disputed. Ignaz Goldziher judged it South Arabian, giving no basis. Samuel Krauss, apparently from a spelling habit mostly found among Italians, and later Malachi Beit-Arie held that it was written in Italy. The study says the majority of scholars share that view, and that a Palestinian origin has also been proposed.3 The same passage says the hand that made most of the corrections probably added the vowel signs some centuries later, copying from a vowelled manuscript with a different text.3 For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The strip marks two events for the Mishnah, not the codex: the origin of the Oral Torah, the teaching that explains the written Torah, and the Mishnah's editing. The tradition's bar runs from the giving of the Oral Torah at Sinai, about 1300 BCE, computed here from the Orthodox Union's statement that the Torah was given some 3,300 years ago (posted 2006), to the Orthodox Union's date of about 200 CE for the compilation.678

The critical bar marks the editing alone, drawn as 175 to 225 CE (computed here) around the dates of Wald, Schiffman, and Kraemer, because the scholars cited give no year for the older material.2910 No Reconstructionist or Haredi (strictly Orthodox) statement was consulted for the tradition's view.

The tradition's view

Part of this column comes through glossary entries and scholars' reports. The Orthodox Union, an Orthodox organization, teaches that God gave Moses the Oral Law, the teachings that explain the written Torah, at Sinai, to be passed from teachers to students. It says the Oral Law was not first meant to be written down. When the hardships of Jewish history threatened its forgetting, Judah ha-Nasi compiled the Mishnah, about 200 CE.78

Maimonides holds that Judah gathered the teachings heard from Moses and composed the Mishnah, so that it could be studied quickly and not forgotten. He taught it to the Sages in public and revealed it to the Jewish people, who all wrote it down.11 Schiffman reports that medieval authorities disagreed about when it was written down.9

The Conservative statement Emet Ve-Emunah holds that Sinai was the single greatest event in the history of God's revelation but that revelation was not limited to it. God's communication continued, it says, in the work of the Rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud.12 The Reform platform of 1976 holds that Torah results from the relationship between God and the Jewish people.13 Neither statement gives a date for the Mishnah.

Scholars of the Mishnah: Wald, Kraemer, Schiffman, Elman, and Rosen-Zvi

Stephen Wald dates Judah ha-Nasi's editing to the beginning of the third century CE. He holds that the work of elaborating the contents began long before.2 David Kraemer reports that all attribute the Mishnah's editing to Judah ha-Nasi, the patriarch of Palestine's Jewish community in the late second to the early third century.10 Lawrence Schiffman dates Judah's redaction to about 200 CE and holds that only a small part of the material is attributed to the time before Rome conquered Palestine in 63 BCE.9

Schiffman holds that Judah promulgated the Mishnah orally. A written Mishnah, he argues, became the formal object of study only at the end of the period of the Amoraim, the sages who discussed it, about 500 CE, or later.9 Yaakov Elman argues from the language that the Mishnah was written down before the middle of the fourth century. In Palestine, he holds, recitation stayed the norm in the schools.14 Ishay Rosen-Zvi reports that Albeck, Lieberman, and Epstein differed on whether the written copies of the Mishnah were formal editions, private notes, or something between, and that all accepted that some written version existed.15

How it was found

It was acquired, not found. David Kaufmann, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Hungary, obtained it in 1896.316 His mother-in-law's will gave the collection to the Academy Library after he and his wife died. Ignaz Goldziher introduced the collection to the Academy on 23 April 1906.16 The sources used here do not say who owned the codex, or where, before 1896.

What it shows, and what it does not

It shows a whole Mishnah copied by about the 12th century. That is roughly 700 to 1,000 years after the usual date of about 200 CE for its editing, and about 2,200 to 2,500 years after the Sinai date (both computed here). Krupp's passage holds that it keeps older forms of the Palestinian text type, often reflects the spoken language of second-century Palestine, and should be the basic text for scholarly editions.3

It does not show the Mishnah as Judah ha-Nasi edited it, or whether it was first written or recited; the scholars above differ on that. Krupp's passage adds that it does not seem as faithful to the Palestinian version as the Cambridge copy.3 The Cairo Genizah, a storeroom of worn-out Jewish writings in Old Cairo, holds older Mishnah fragments.175 Olszowy-Schlanger argues that a leaf of a different, fragmentary codex carries a partly preserved colophon that she reconstructs as 840 or 841 CE, which makes that codex the earliest dated Mishnah manuscript.5

See also

Sources

  1. Mark Farnadi-Jerusalmi (entry author), in the Hebrew Palaeography Album, general editor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. Budapest, MTA MS. A50 (Name: Kaufmann Mishna). Hebrew Palaeography Album, 2024, the Details record (updated 30 July 2025). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  2. Stephen G. Wald. Mishnah. Encyclopaedia Judaica (Gale), via Encyclopedia.com, introduction and "The Mishnah as a Literary Work". Accessed 2026-10-29.
  3. The Kaufmann Collection website of the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (study 4, section 3.2 on the Mishnah codex; the page does not name its author). 3.2. Mishnah (MS A 50), from study04, with footnotes 71 to 74. Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest (ujkaufmann.mtak.hu), the whole section and footnotes 71 to 74. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  4. Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (list of the Kaufmann Collection manuscripts). manuscripts, Kaufmann (call number, title, place and date, link to the full text). Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest (ujkaufmann.mtak.hu), the row for Kaufmann A 50. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  5. Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. The oldest Hebrew manuscript dated by its colophon: a leaf of a Mishna manuscript with Babylonian vocalization in Toronto. Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, June 2023, 2023, the whole article and footnotes. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. OU Staff. Torah. Orthodox Union, 2006. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  7. Orthodox Union. Oral Law (Judaism 101 glossary). Orthodox Union, glossary entry. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  8. Orthodox Union. Mishnah (Judaism 101 glossary). Orthodox Union, glossary entry. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  9. Lawrence H. Schiffman. The Redaction of the Mishnah (an excerpt from From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, Ktav, Hoboken, 1991). Center for Online Judaic Studies (cojs.org), 1991, the whole excerpt. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  10. David Kraemer. The Mishnah (chapter 12 of The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4, The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, ed. Steven T. Katz). Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 299 to 315, 2006, the two-paragraph abstract only (the chapter is behind a paywall and was not read). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  11. Maimonides (trans. Eliyahu Touger). Mishneh Torah, Transmission of the Oral Law (introduction). Sefaria (Moznaim translation), paragraphs 12 to 15, 18, 21, 23, 30, and 34 in the saved text. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  12. Commission on the Philosophy of Conservative Judaism. Emet Ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism. The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, The Rabbinical Assembly, and The United Synagogue of America, 1988, printed pages 18 to 26. Accessed 2026-10-29.
  13. Central Conference of American Rabbis. Reform Judaism: A Centenary Perspective. Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1976, section 3, Torah. Accessed 2026-10-28.
  14. Yaakov Elman. Orality and the Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud. Oral Tradition 14, no. 1 (1999), pp. 52 to 99, 1999, pp. 52 to 53, 58, 72 to 73, 79 to 81. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  15. Ishay Rosen-Zvi. Orality, Narrative, Rhetoric: New Directions in Mishnah Research. AJS Review 32, no. 2 (November 2008), pp. 235 to 249, 2008, the abstract and footnotes 6, 30, and 39 (the article's own text is behind a paywall and was not read). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  16. Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Kaufmann Collection. Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, the whole page. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  17. Cambridge University Library. Taylor-Schechter Genizah: A Priceless Collection. Cambridge University Library, the page. Accessed 2026-11-06.