Project Description

DIGITAL EDITION

Digital Edition of Masora Figurata developed by project members Clemens Liedtke and Kay Joe Petzold: http://bima.corpusmasoreticum.de/#/

OBJECTIVES

The aim is to clarify whether the relationship between the Masora in the Biblical manuscripts and the Masora traditions presented either in the form of lists or in isolation mirrors a relationship of ‘permanency’ in the textual tradition (liturgical tradition: synagogue) conserved in the Biblical artefact, and of ‘(varying) reception’ in an expanded field of application (commentary; grammar: Lehrhaus).

SUMMARY

Subject of the sub-project is:

• Masoretic commentaries and Masoretic supercommentaries in the Mediaeval exegetic and commentarial literature between 1040 and 1450
• Select Ashkenazi Bible manuscripts which present the text of the Masora magna in micrographic script as Masora figurata
• The key question in both studies is to what extent is the Masora tradition shaped by the material components and their designs: how are the great wealth of representational means connected with the different kinds of reception given in various social fields (scholarly circles, parish or synagogic practice).

RESEARCH STRATEGY

• Producing a complete edition of a Masora figurata (text-image edition)
• (Partial) translation of the Masora parva as well as of the Masora figurate, along with exegetical commentary
• Divining the philological underpinnings of the Masoretic list literature and drawing comparisons with the Masoretic collections known to date
• Praxeological reconstructions of “liturgical” and “scholarly“ spaces.

Questions adressed to the artefacts

• Which social space (synagogue? Lehrhaus?) demands ornamented Bibles, what “Sitz im Leben” do the Masoretic collections have?
• What forms of public(?) reading are prompted by the ornamental Bibles? (Usability? Legibility? Visibility?)
• What is the effect of the deliberate negation of genre-specific layouts?
• Determining the relationship between representation and selective reproduction