A Manuscript That Bridges a Gap

ON May 22, 2007, a Hebrew parchment section dating from the seventh or eighth century C.E. went in plain view at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. This is an original copy of Exodus 13:19– 16:1. It incorporates what is known as "the Song of the Sea"​—the triumph tune that the Israelites sang after their marvelous redemption at the Red Sea. For what reason is the divulging of this parchment section critical?

The appropriate response has to do with the date of the original copy. The Dead Sea Scrolls were composed between the third century B.C.E. furthermore, the principal century C.E. Preceding their revelation around 60 years prior, the most punctual Hebrew original copy was the Aleppo Codex, going back to 930 C.E. Except for a couple of parts, no other Hebrew compositions have been discovered that date to the mediating time of a few hundred years.

"The Song of the Sea original copy," says James S. Snyder, chief of the Israel Museum, "crosses over any barrier in the time of history between the Dead Sea Scrolls . . . also, the Aleppo Codex." According to him, this composition alongside other old Biblical writings "gives an extraordinary case of printed congruity."

The parchment part is accepted to be one of the numerous original copies found in the late nineteenth century in a synagogue in Cairo, Egypt. Notwithstanding, a private gatherer of Hebrew original copies didn't know about its hugeness until he counseled an expert in the late 1970's. The section was cell based dated around then and afterward filed until it went in plain view in the Israel Museum.

Remarking on the pertinence of the parchment part, Adolfo Roitman, leader of the Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, and keeper of the Dead Sea Scrolls, expresses: "The Song of the Sea composition shows the huge constancy with which the Masoretic adaptation of the Bible was transmitted throughout the hundreds of years. It is extraordinary how the particular prosody of the Song of Sea is a similar today as it was in the seventh eighth hundreds of years."