Books Features

New Medieval Books: The Kennicott Bible

The Kennicott Bible: A Masterpiece of Jewish Book Art

By Katrin Kogman-Appel

Bodleian Library Publishing
ISBN: 978 1 85124 600 7

Not only do you get a study of this late-medieval Hebrew Bible but it also comes with over 150 pages from the text.

Excerpt:

We know that it was written by the scribe Moses bar Jacob ibn Zabara and that it was completed in 1476 in La Coruna, Galicia, in the north-west corner of Iberia. We also know that it was written for Isaac, the son of the honourable Don Solomon de Braga. It is indeed an utterly magnificent codex. Consisting of 462 folios almost 30 centimetres in height, it is written in ‘impeccable Sephardi script together with the Masorah’ and it includes portions of David Kimbi’s grammatical treatise known as Sefer-ha-mikhlol. Complementing Moses’ scribal talents are those of Joseph ibn Hayyim, whose breathtaking illustrations are unparalleled in their beauty and symbolism. The chapters in this volume detail the astonishing accomplishments of both Moses and Joseph.

Who is this book for?

Fans of medieval manuscripts will love to have this book, both for the first 70 pages which explain the details of the manuscript, and the next 164 pages that show the images of the Bible (its not the entire manuscript but all the folios that have something more than just text). Those specializing in Jewish manuscripts will find this to be a useful study.

The author

Katrin Kogman-Appel is a Professor for Jewish Studies at the University of Münster who specializes in Jewish Book Culture in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Click here to view her Academia.edu page.

You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website

You can also buy this book on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk