BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Original Maimonides Manuscript Goes Digital

Bible and archaeology news

The Bodleian Library at Oxford University has digitized an 800-year-old copy of the Mishneh Torah, an authoritative guide to Jewish law written by the medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides in the 12th century. The manuscript, the centerpiece of the Bodleian’s Hebrew collection for more than 300 years, will now be available online for all to consult and study. As it turns out, this is exactly what the volume’s last owner, 17th-century scholar Eleazar son of Perahya, would have wanted. “[The manuscript] should not be sold or redeemed, nor should any single person ever take possession of it,” wrote Eleazar. “It should rather be kept available so that all scholars can correct their own version against it.”

The Bodleian Library at Oxford University has digitized an 800-year-old copy of the Mishneh Torah, an authoritative guide to Jewish law written by the medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides in the 12th century.