Dear Safranim, Some of you may be interested to learn about a bibliographical matter Prof. Jeffrey Tigay, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible at the University of Pennsylvania, brought to my attention today. It involves the publication in the mid-1970s of a critical edition, based on manuscripts, of Yehudah he-hasid's commentaries on the Torah. If you have the first edition of this work (Perushe ha-torah) in your collection, it wouldn't be evident from the title page that this "first" printing actually went through several printings, reflecting a controversy at the time that resulted in the expurgation of four passages. Below, you will find Prof. Tigay's detailed analysis of Penn's holdings of four different copies, reflecting three different printed versions of the so-called "first edition.". At Prof. Tigay's suggestion, I brought these copies and information to our Hebraica cataloger Ruth Rin, who revised the cataloging record and and solved the cataloging issues involved. Students interested in this text will now be able to recognize the textual variants in this edition. You will find Ruth's record below, and includes Prof. Tigay's research:
Author: Judah ben Samuel, ca. 1150-1217. Title: Perushe ha-Torah. Publisher: Yerushalayim, [Langeh], [1974 or 1975] 735. Description: Book 13, 216 p. 24 cm. LC Subject(s): Bible. O.T. Pentateuch --Commentaries. Notes: Includes index. The ed. of Yehudah He-Hasid's commentary on the Torah: Perushe ha-Torah le-Rabi Yehudah he-H asid. Yerushalayim : Langeh, 5735 [1974 or 1975], edited by Isaac Samson Lange, contains four passages stating that certain passages in the Torah were added later than Moses, ranging in time from Joshua to the Anshe Keneset ha-Gedolah, and that King David removed certain psalms from the Torah and transferred them to the book of Psalms. Those passages aroused controversy and the volumes were recalled; the pages with the offending passages were removed and were replaced with new pages minus the offending passages. The process is concisely described by I. Ta-Shma in his article: Mashehu 'al bik oret ha-Mik ra be-Ashkenaz bi-yeme ha-benayim, in: ha-Mik ra bi-re'i mefarshav / ed. by Sara Japhet. Jerusalem : Magnes, 1994, p. 453. -- Penn owns four copies of this work, with at least one volume reflecting each stage in its publication, as seen in the local note below. -- This entry provided by Prof. Jeffrey Tigay. Local Note(s): Not censored in any of the 4 copies: p. 138: Az hosifu v -khatvu ... RBML copy is not censored on any page. JANES and CAJS stack copies have three censored pages: p. 64: ... v i-Yehoshu'a ketavo [o] anshe Keneset ha-Gedolah... p. 184-185 : Uva-H umash hayah keti[v] ela she-Dav id ha-melekh hesir ... and p. 198: katvu bi-yeme Keneset Gedolah ba-H umash ... CAJS/Special copy is not censored except for p. 198. Other Contributors: Lange, Isaac Samson. 1909- --- Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: hasaf...@osu.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
