Now available in English: ‘Hebrew Codicology’Malachi Beit-Arié’s new book in the CSMC’s online repository

5 January 2022

Photo: The National Library of Israel

In November 2020, the Hebrew original of Malachi Beit-Arié’s opus magnum was published digitally in the CSMC’s online repository. Now, the English translation is available as well.

The publication of Beit-Arié’s book had been long awaited. The world-leading expert on medieval Hebrew codicology, currently a Petra Kappert Fellow at CSMC, had been working on it for almost 20 years before it was eventually published, digitally, in November 2020 (read more about the background here). At first, however, only the Hebrew original of the book was available. Two months later, Hebrew Codicology: Historical and Comparative Typology of Medieval Hebrew Codices based on the Documentation of the Extant Dated Manuscripts until 1540 using a Quantitative Approach has finally come out in English. Just like the original, the translation is available as open access and can be downloaded from the CSMC’s online repository.

Beit-Arié describes his new book as ‘both an introduction to medieval Hebrew manuscripts and a typological guide to their characteristics, based on the exhaustive examination of almost all the extant Medieval manuscripts dated up to 1540’. Its primary aim is ‘to demonstrate the need to regard handwritten books not only as receptacles of texts, but also as cultural artefacts replete with information without which Jewish Medieval history would remain impoverished.’