World’s oldest Torah from around 1150 discovered in the University Library in Bologna
Listed as a small manuscript of the seventeenth century, the Sefer Torah was – according to several C14 analyses – compiled 850 years ago. This makes it the oldest complete Torah-scroll still in existence.
Professor Mauro Perani, professor of Hebrew at the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna, who discovered the treasure, tells that it is written on a lambskin scroll which measures 36 meters and is 63.5 cm wide. While older fragments from the 6th and 8th century have been found, the survival of a complete Torah scroll is very seldom as worn out scrolls are buried. Also, Nazis and Italian fascists destroyed a huge amount of scrolls during WW2.
The discovery of the Torah is very significant insofar as it was written before the codification of scribal standards established by Maimonides, the foremost intellectual figure of Judaism. Thus the Scroll is interlaced with writings and formulations, which were later purged by him.
However the scroll is not the earliest extant manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. These are found in the Leningrad Codex from 1010 AD and the remnants of the Aleppo Codex from the 10th century.
Apart from the newly (re)discovered Torah, Bologna was also home to the first printed Pentateuch, which was made in Bo-lan-yah – Bologna – in 1482.
Press release posted at facebook by Mauro Perani