'ONQELOS MANUSCRIPT WITH BABYLONIAN TRANSLITERATED VOCALIZATION IN THE VATICAN LIBRARY (MS. Eb. 448) BY A. DIEZ MACHO Barcelona

- 1. Several years ago, the "Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas" and the "Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos", upon the suggestion of Ibanez MARTIN, then Minister of National Education in Spain, dfiftc3 a joint plan of editing a Polyglot Bible. They intended to cc ntinue a national tradition in so far as the two first Polyglot Bibles in existence-the "Complutensis" (Alcala, 1515) and "Biblia Regia" (Antwerp, 1569-73)-were edited by Spanish scholars. This new Polyglot Bible was scheduled to contain the following texts: Massoretic text, LXX, New Testament in Greek, Targumim, Vulgate, Vetus "Hispana", Peshitta, Coptic Sahidic version and the Spanish translations of Hebrew and Greek texts. I was entrusted with the edition of the Targumim. I started with 'Onqelos on the Pentateuch. BERLINER'S text-a reprint of Sabbioneta edition-does not measure up to present day standards. Therefore I looked for another text visiting foreign libraries of Italy, France and England. In Oxford I got in touch with Paul KAHLE. KAHLE's advice-already expressed in his Md0 and Cairo Geniza-was to edit the 'Onqelos of Sabbioneta excluding all the "Tiberian" vocalizations. From the very beginning of these researches, I contacted another leading scholar in targumic studies, Dr. A. SPERBER, who for many years, had ready for publication a critical edition of "O.-iqelos and of the Former Prophets Targum. SPERBER'S suggestion was to publish, as basic text for 'Onqelos, the Ms. Eb. 448 of the Vatican Library. The value of this Codex had been discovered by SPERBERin a facsimile reproduction of a page of the same Ms. contained among the Specimina Codicum Orientalium of E. TISSERANT he realised that this page

1) Ed. Bonn, 1914. See Plate 4 reproducing part of f. 152 of the 448 Ms. 114 exhibits, in Tiberian vowel signs, a genuine Babylonian vocalization. In summer 1952, I examined in the Vatican Library the Ms. 448, and on the results of this examination a long study is printed in the Jubilee I, dedicated to Prof. MILLAS (Barcelona, 1954). My concern here is to deal with some aspects of 448 Ms. which in the study referred to, are treated in a summary way or are not treated at all. But first let us introduce the Ms. Eb. 448 itself. - 2. The 448 is a Codex written in vellum, containing Hebrew Pentateuch and Targum 'Onqelos in alternating verses, in 349 folios. The text is arranged in three columns a page. On upper and lower margins is the Masora magna. The Masora parva is on the intercolumn margins and it offers mainly massoretic notes to the Hebrew, occasio- nally to the Targumic text. The vocalization of the Hebrew text has no special interest. It is the ordinary Tiberian punctuation. Targum vocalization was put first according to the Babylonian laws of vocalization, but a late second hand 1) corrected the first hand vocalization and changed it in an uniform and very consistent Tiberian punctuation similar to that exhibited by the yemenite Mss. of "Onqelos, the Brit. Mus. Or. 2363 and 1467. Masoretic notes mostly are of the first hand; several are of second hand. - 3. Date of 448 Ms. Two chronological indications are in the same Ms.: a) In f. 349 v., we read this colophon written in small cursive handwriting: 7 n?ms "completed in the year 5012" (1252 A.D.). But this note is lately written over an under- lying colophon of nine lines, completely faded out, and it seems to refer to the completion of the second hand correction. In addition: it is contradictory in itself, because it gives the figure of the thousands (h) and claims to give the date "according to the short dating" (namely: without the figure of the thousands). TISSERANT 2) entirely disregards this date, considering it as a XV cent. addition. b) A second chronological note is found in the upper margin of the next folio 350 ro., in which the number 5844 is written in arabic figures. This date-in which the number 5 is plainly a wrong sub- stitution of 4-secures a date (4844-3750=1084) that in all probability is the true date of 448 1.

1) In the following pages, 448 I, or simply I, stands for first hand vocalization; 448 II, or II, for second hand vocalization; Sab. for conqelos edited in Sabbioneta, 1557. 2) Specimina... pag. 15.