The codex the Museum of the Bible has “unveiled” and called the “Washington Pentateuch” is an interesting artifact. Much of the marketing of the exhibition says things about it that are just plain silly. The provenance of the artifact also deserves careful scrutiny. What I present here, however, are some initial observations of the pages presenting the book of Genesis, which have been placed on-line by the MOTB. The photographs are of 62 leaves with writing on both sides, labelled as “recto” and “verso.” Genesis ends on 062r, so there are 123 images. The first three – 001r, 001v, and 002r – are blank, so 120 of the page images have writing on them. One initial, surprising observation is how different the quality of the pages is. Some are perfectly clear, with well preserved black ink on a parchment colored background, while on others the ink is so faded that reading it is a strain. Often this difference is present on the front and back of the same leaf. Here is my initial description of the contents of the first twenty leaves.
001r blank
001v blank
002r blank
002v 1:1-14
003r 1:14-26
003v 1:26-2:5
004r 4:8-4:23
004v 4:23-5:11
005r 5:11-27
005v 5:27-6:7
006r 6:7-20
006v 6:20-7:11
007r 7:11-23
007v 7:23-8:12
008r 8:12-9:2
008v 9:2-15
009r 9:2-19
009v 9:20-10:13
010r 10:13-11:4
010v 11:4-20
011r 10:23-11:7
011v 11:7-23
012r 11:23-12:5
012v 12:5-18
013r 12:18-13:11
013v 13:12-14:7
014r 14:7-18
014v 14:18-15:9
015r 15:9-16:3
015v 16:3-16
016r 16:16-17:14
016v 17:14-27
017r 17:27-18:13
017v 18:13-27
018r 18:27-19:5
018v 19:5-16
019r 19:16-30
019v 19:30-20:5
020r 20:5-20:16
020v 20:16-21:13
The most interesting observation is that Genesis 2:5-4:8 is missing from the codex. A section of this length would correspond to two leaves or four pages of the manuscript. Next, there are two places where parts of the manuscript are duplicated. Leaf 009 goes back to Genesis 9:2 to duplicate much of what is on 008v (though the two do not start at the same place in 9:2) then leaf 010 continues from leaf 009. I am not a handwriting expert, but to me it looks like the writing changes from 008 to 009. The other duplicate is at 011, which goes back and repeats much of what is on 010. The parchment color also appears to change for 009 and 010. These changes correspond to the description in the provenance provided by the MOTB that lists 009 and 0010 among the 21 folios it claims were “replaced” in 1141. “Replaced” is not quite the right word, though, because they do not fill a gap perfectly. They seem to have come from a different codex. I will more to add later.
observingpointsofconvergence 