Hebrew Manuscripts : Composite manuscript: fragments of commentaries on the Torah and on the Song of Songs

Hebrew Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Composite Yemenite manuscript containing (1) two incomplete Judeo-Arabic fragments from the same unknown philosophical commentary on the Torah or from two similar such commentaries (folios <a dir='auto' href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>1a-32b/33a</a> and <a dir='auto' href='' onclick='store.loadPage(85);return false;'>39a-40b</a>) and (2) an incomplete Judeo-Arabic commentary on Songs of Songs (folios <a dir='auto' href='' onclick='store.loadPage(73);return false;'>33a-38b</a>).</p><p>It seems that the two fragments of the biblical commentary belong to the same text, even though they are written in different hands, but this is not certain. The commentary contains various stories which Moses Gaster lists on the typescript that accompanies the manuscript.</p><p>Although the name is not stated, the Commentary on Song of Songs was written by Zechariah ben Solomon ha-Rofe, a prolific Yemenite author from the fifteenth century. Zechariah might also be the author of the Torah commentary. However, the present text is unlike the ones he is known to have written (for the genre and information about the author see Y. Tzvi Langermann, Yemenite Midrash, 1996).</p></p>