TOLEDOT YESHU, MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER [19TH CENTURY]

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Description

16 leaves, 8 5/8 x 5 3/8 inches; 220 x 135 mm, written in Ashkenazic semi-cursive script in brown ink, catchwords, modern foliation in pencil, library stamp on first and last leaves. Wrappers; slightly soiled, spine split, small tears along top edge.

Provenance

Solomon Halberstam (shelf no. 190)

Literature

Hirschfeld (ms. no. 450); Krauss, Das Leben Jesu (Berlin, 1902) and R. Di Segni, Il vangelo del Ghetto (Rome, 1985)

Catalogue Note

Toledot Yeshu, another one of the so-called “Slavic” versions of the polemical biography of Jesus. On fol. 6r-v, following a passage on the use of the Divine Name by Jesus, the scribe inserted the opinion of Moses Sofer of Pressburg (the Hatam Sofer) against the magical use of the Divine Name. At the end of the text on fol. 16, the scribe has added two responsa (also by Moses Sofer) on the custom of refraining from study on Christmas Eve. Both these responsa were printed in the Jerusalem, 1975 edition of Sofer’s responsa literature.