Genizah Manuscripts of Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch (2 Vols.) - Erstausgabe

A set of two cloth-bound volumes, weight: 7 pounds. // The Cairo Genizah discovered during the last decades of the 19th century is one of the most important historical manuscript collections ever to be brought to the attention of scholars. According to recent suggestions, there were several Genizot in Cairo, and Solomon Schechter (Reader in Rabbinics at Cambridge University who recovered the manuscripts from the upper chamber of the Ben Ezra synagogue) may have also acquired some of his fragments from antique dealers and other sources. In addition to the Cambridge University Library, where about 140,000 Genizah documents and fragments have been catalogued, several other major European and American libraries obtained collections of Genizah documents - including the Bodleian in Oxford; the Saltykov-Schedrin (Antonin Collection) in St. Petersburg; and the Jewish Theological Seminary Library in New York. There is a vast literature on the Cairo Genizah, and its literary and historical value can hardly be exaggerated. Suffice it to state that it has enabled us to recover (more or less) the Hebrew original of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus). [...] Almost a century since the discovery of the Cairo Genizah, much of its material written in Judaeo-Arabic can be utilized only be a few specialized scholars. Not surprisingly, their ability to cover the almost inexhaustible material is rather limited. While OT textual studies have immensely benefited from Genizah fragments, relatively little has so far been done in the field of targumic studies which have become a major specialized area of research during the last decades or so. It is this gap which is admirably filled by Professor Klein in what can only be described as a monumental work of major importance for the study of the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch. It is a model of how such a work should be prepared and executed.