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| The Kaifeng Torah Scroll at SMU |
At the time of Pollak's writing seven of the thirteen scrolls were extant. The Kaifeng Jews numbered each Torah scroll, and dedicated it to each of the tribes of Israel. Are the scrolls still in the same locations since Pollack examined each one?
Scroll 2. British Library, excellent condition. Purchased by the Chinese Delegates in 1851. Here is the bibliographic information.
Title
The Pentateuch scroll, so-called
'Kaifeng Torah Scroll.'
Funders
- The Polonsky Foundation
Call number
Add MS 19250
(London, United Kingdom, British Library, Hebrew Manuscripts Digitisation
Project)
Alternate identifiers
Publisher
British Library
Language
Hebrew
Origin
Between 1643 and 1663
Place
Kaifeng,
China
Summary
The Pentateuch scroll, so-called 'Kaifeng Torah Scroll.'
Notes
- One liquid spill.
- A few cuts/tears at edges.
- Some erasures. Slight dirt.
- Pleats and folds (not obscuring text).
Extent
95 membranes, 239 columns.; 95
membranes, 239 columns.
Support
Parchment
Binding
BM in-house. Boxed.
Layout
· Columns: 239; ruled lines: 49;
written lines: 49; Uniform layout. Ruling by hard point. 239 columns in total,
one to five columns per membrane. No tagin. No majuscular and minuscular
letters, or special shapes of letters. The "puncta extraordinaria" placed
on a few words only.
Script
· Oriental (close to Persian) square
script of the 17th century.
Provenance
- Acquisition: Presented to the British Museum by the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews on 11 December 1852: inscribed on verso
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| British Library Kaifeng Scroll on display |
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| Detail of British Museum Kaifeng Torah Scroll |
Scroll 4. Cambridge University Library. Excellent Condition. Purchased by the Chinese Delegates in 1851. Not in any catalog or online source. Images courtesy of the Cambridge University Library.
Some images of the scroll:
Scroll 5. Bodleian Library, Oxford. Excellent Condition. Purchased by the Chinese Delegates in 1851. Not in any catalog or online source. The library contacted me to say the item is not cataloged online, but is "MS. Hunt. Add. B (R) [and] can be found described in Neubauer’s catalogue."
A Chabad site references the scroll at Oxford:
Scroll 6. Osterreich Nationalbibliothek, Vienna. Relatively Poor Condition. Purchased by Karl von Scherzen in 1870. Here is the link for microfilm copies of the scroll: Austrian Kaifeng Scroll Here is the library reference to the scroll:
Torah Rolle
The date of composition of this scroll is listed as 1700-1799, which is almost certainly incorrect. With the possible exception of the American Bible Association Scroll, which may be a patchwork of pre-1642 flood Torahs, therefore probably dates before the seventeenth century, all Kaifeng scroll were produced in the years following the 642 flood. Pollak notes this scroll is in relatively poor condition. But it does not appear this judgment is made from the physical condition of the scroll. From the microfilm images it appears to be intact and undamaged:
Pollak writes that all skins are present, but there are "lacunae within the text." What can these be? Pollak does not elaborate. I will examine this scroll with this in mind at a later date although the microfilm that I have access to is of poor quality.
Scroll 7. Library of the Jewish Theological Seminar, New York. Purchased by W.A.P Martin in 1868 in Peking from two Kaifeng Jews. Pollak notes problems with missing portions of this scroll, and replacement skins that do not match up to the text. Here is the library listing:
Local Call Number
Two images of the scroll:
Scroll 12. Bridwell Library, SMU University. Purchased in 1851 by the Chinese Delegates. Excellent condition. This is the scroll started Pollak down the path of Kaifeng Jewish studies.
Images of the scroll:
Unnumbered Scroll. Library of the American Bible Society, New York. Most like purchased by W.A.P Martin in 1868 in Peking from two Kaifeng Jews Very poor condition. There is not a direct link to the ABS Kaifeng Scroll. But an anonymous post has much information POST. See Pollack's write up on this scroll in The Torah Scrolls of the Kaifeng Jews.
Pollak notes that the texts is fragmentary, only extending from Genesis 1 to Leviticus 19. He claims the skins "appear to be written in the thirteenth or fourteen century," that is the 1200s to the 1300s. He further states that the skins "were done in several different soferic hands and in styles that are prevalent in central or western Asian lands." This is an logical assertion but Pollak does not provide any footnotes to follow up. What else can be said about this? How can we examine and date this scroll?
He believed this scroll was collated from sheets that were "salvaged from the flood waters of 1642." This is probably correct. Some scholars assert this is the Scroll of Moses, the exemplar scroll supposedly copied by the KJs following the flood of 1642. There are some issues with that possibility we will examine later.
Here are images of the ABS scroll:
The water damage is clearly visible.
Twelve Skins. Pollak examined twelve loose sheets of Genesis. Unclear provenance. On page 86-7, he summarizes the provenance of these sheets. He also discusses these skins in great detail here: Preliminary Study of Twelve Detached Skins from a Centuries-Old Chinese Torah Scroll. Michael Pollak, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, Vol. 21 (2001), pp. 82-104
According to a Sotheby's Catalog from 1986, these:
12 leaves from a Genesis scroll sold in our New York rooms, 18 December 1986, lot 88
It is unclear where they are today. How can they be located? As they are skins from Genesis, are these the skins missing from the ABS Scroll?
Of the 13 scrolls that existed after the rebuilding of the Kaifeng Synagogue following the Flood of 1642, we only know the whereabouts of scrolls 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12 and the ABS unnumbered scroll. Where are scrolls 1, 3, 8, 9, 10, and 11? Do they still exist? Some of these appears to be missing parts scrolls we will examine, but it is difficult to say which numbered scrolls were bought and are now missing.
Next, we will explore the missing Torah scrolls of the Kaifeng Jews, as enumerated by Pollak.
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