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 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS 
 
 A CHAPTER ON 
 BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 

 
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 Facsimile of the Samaritan Calendar (Cod. Caster, 1150), pages 3 and 4.
 
 THE 
 
 BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 A CHAPTER ON 
 BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 
 
 BY THE REV. THE HAHAM 
 
 MOSES CASTER, Ph.D. 
 
 Chief Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation 
 
 Reprinted from the " Jewish Review " 
 September, November, 1918 ; January, IS 13 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED 
 
 BROADWAY HOUSE, CARTER LANE 
 
 1918
 
 '3 
 
 l$k 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction, page 1 : difficulties of the problem, 1 : independent 
 character of the sources, 1 : Bible reading of the Law established 
 by Moses and Ezra, 3 : Public reading of the Law on Sabbath, 
 4 : Philo ; Josephus ; New Testament ; Mishna, 4 : Regular 
 reading of the Law on Sabbaths by the Samaritans, 5 : Antiquity 
 of the Samaritan tradition, 6 : Christian reading of the Law, 6 : 
 Reading of the Ten Commandments, 7 : No Jewish Canon, 8 : 
 Division of the Pentateuch, names of the Divisions, 9. 
 
 The Scroll of the Law, 10 : Division into Parashiyot, Petuhot and 
 Setumot, 12: Earliest division, 12: Samaritan Scroll and its 
 subdivision, 13 : Septuagint, 15 : Agreement of Jewish, Samaritan 
 and Greek Texts, 16 : System of and reason for subdivision, 18 : 
 Same principle for division of New Testament, 20. Kissim, 20 : 
 Piska and Pissuk te'amim, 21 : Parasha cited by the initial word, 
 or contents, 22 : King's Lesson, 22 : Parasha quoted by initial word, 
 23 : The Parashiyot of the Maamadot, 25 : Lessons in conjunc- 
 tion with or in lieu of Sacrifices, 26 : Samaritan Chapters of 
 Creation, 27 : Priority of Reading over the prayer, 28. 
 
 Annual Cycle System of Reading, 29 : Division into Weekly por- 
 tions, 30 : Parasha = weekly portion or lesson, 30 : Samaritan 
 weekly portion in annual cycle, 32 : Parallel reading by Jews 
 and Samaritans, 33 : Reading of the Weekly Portion, 34 : Por- 
 tions of three verses, 35 : Samaritan Reading of the Weekly 
 Lesson, 35 : Calling up to the Reading, 36 : The Kohen and the 
 reading of the Law, 36 : Church and the Annual Cycle, 39 : 
 Lessons of the Lenten Weeks of the Greek and Syriac Church 
 (Quadragesima), 39 : Karaites' Annual cycle, 41 : System of 
 Reading, 42. 
 
 Sedarim, 43 : No division into Parashiyot of Prophets and Holy 
 Writings, 44 : No graphic sign for Sedarim, 45 : Whole of the 
 Bible divided into Sedarim, 45 : Non - liturgical reason for
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 division into Sedarim, 46 : Division of the Psalter, 47 : Differ- 
 ence in number and size of the Sedarim, 48 : No rules for 
 marking Seder, 49 : Maimonides silent on Sedarim, 49 : Philo- 
 logical meaning of Seder = Order, 50: Seder for division of 
 Rabbinical Literature, 52 : Perek = chapter, 53 : Modern division 
 of Bible into Chapters, 53. 
 
 The Sedarim and the Midrashim, 54 : Sifra, 54 : Sifra ignores 
 Sedarim, 55 : Mekhilta idem, 55 : Peculiar Parallelism with 
 Samaritan, 55 : Pesikta also ignores Sedarim, 56 : Peculiar 
 Parallelism with Samaritan, 57. 
 
 Private reading, universal practice, 58 : Mikra = Pentateuch, 59 : 
 Kara = reading of the Bible, 59 : Private Reading concurrent 
 with Public, 61 : Daily Study of Biblical and Rabbinical Litera- 
 ture, 61 : The figure three in the liturgy, 63 : Agadat Bereshit, 
 64 : Arrangement of the Daily Readings by Portaleone and 
 Barukh, 65 : Private reading not confined to the house, 66 : 
 Reading and Study in the School, 66 : Pasuk, Piska = divisions 
 for the study, 67. 
 
 Sedarim = divisions for homiletical and didactic purposes, 68 : Explan- 
 ation of short and long Sedarim, 69 : Massoretic origin of the 
 name Sedar, 71 : Sedarim in Sheeltot, 71 : Sedarim in En 
 Hakoreh, 72 : Parasha, later development fourfold meaning, 72 : 
 Sidra weekly lesson, 73 : Recapitulation, 73. 
 
 Alleged three years' cycle one single Talmudic reference, 74 : Three 
 years' cycle and three and a half years' cycle, 75 : Benjamin of 
 Tudela isolated case, not general Palestinian custom, 76 : Mai- 
 monides and his son Abraham, 77 : En Hakoreh inconclusive 
 and self -contradictory, 78 : Conclusion, 78. 
 
 Appendix. The Samaritan Calendar (Hebrew and English), 79.
 
 The Biblical Lessons : A Chapter 
 on Biblical Archaeology 
 
 A custom which is not proved from the Torah is nothing else than 
 the result of an erroneous conclusion. Soferim xiv. 10. 
 
 As the title indicates this article is a study in Biblical 
 archaeology and palaeography. It is not undertaken 
 with a view of strengthening, or in any way affecting 
 the established customs and rites. In fact, this study 
 is one section out of a larger work dealing with the 
 history of the Bible, and is undertaken from the modern 
 comparative point of view. The investigation is to lead 
 us on step by step, from fact to fact, eschewing as much 
 as possible hypothesis or imaginary combinations, so that 
 we may reach results which rest on verified facts. The 
 materials accumulated in our ancient literature will be 
 treated from an independent point of view, and new 
 light may be thrown upon ancient problems from our 
 examination of all available data. A study of this kind 
 is beset with many difficulties, the greatest of which 
 is the indefinite character of all beginnings, the difficulty 
 of tracing tradition to its starting-point, and, above all, 
 the scantiness of the materials and the uncertain 
 character of the sources, which, in many cases, cannot 
 be chronologically fixed. It is difficult to determine, 
 especially in our Jewish literature, how much of that 
 which is found often in a late book is of a much earlier 
 origin, and how much of it represents events con- 
 temporary with the author. Nowhere is this difficulty 
 greater than in dealing with Jewish literature from the 
 Second Temple, and down to the close of the period 
 of Midrashic activity. I include here pseudo-epigraphic
 
 2 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 as well as Agadic literature. And there is another 
 point which increases the difficulties to be surmounted, 
 viz. that everyday occurrences, customs and rites, with 
 which the people are familiar, are very seldom committed 
 to writing. The beginnings of Jewish literature are just 
 as much shrouded in darkness as the beginnings of the 
 Christian, though this latter is of a much younger date, 
 and one might have expected to find more definite 
 information. It will be seen, later on, that in a way we 
 are still better equipped to explore our past than those 
 who undertake to unravel the mystery of the beginnings 
 of the Samaritan, Christian, Mohammedan and other 
 religious faiths, which have all developed during the 
 last two thousand years. One result which is out- 
 standing from these investigations coincides with the 
 result obtained in modern times in other fields of 
 archa3ological investigations. The ancient traditions, so 
 long misunderstood, ignored or rejected, are being 
 fully vindicated by the latest discoveries and by the 
 latest investigations. It is not here the place to discuss 
 the bearing of the results achieved by the diggings in 
 Babylon and Egypt, in Mycene and Cyprus, nor will I 
 refer to the new chapter which has been opened by the 
 discovery of the papyri of Elephantine, or by the Greek 
 papyri, which throw a flood of light on Jewish anti- 
 quities, and tend to corroborate the truth of the 
 ancient traditions almost down to the minutest detail. 
 Now the problem which I wish to attack here is the 
 role which the Bible has played in the liturgical service 
 of the Jews, both in public and in private. Since when 
 has the Bible been used for such educational purposes 
 and in what manner has it been used ? The tremendous 
 influence which this reading of the Bible has had need 
 not be emphasised here. It is too self-evident. It lies 
 at the very root of modern civilisation, and it has given 
 to the divine worship a character not dreamt of by the 
 followers of other faiths. Others have dwelt already 
 eloquently on this unique feature of the Jewish worship,
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 3 
 
 and have drawn conclusions so exalted for the uplifting 
 of the world that it suffices to have mentioned them. 
 I am dealing with the more mechanical side if I may 
 say so, the practical working of this great principle. As 
 indicated above, the investigation falls into two parts, 
 (a) the archaeological, including the palaeographical, and 
 (6) the historical. How far back does the tradition lead 
 us, and how far is this tradition corroborated and 
 strengthened by the Law ? Since when was it considered 
 a religious duty to inculcate the reading of the Bible 
 in the Jewish worship ? Our ancient tradition is 
 unanimous on this point. It says emphatically that 
 Moses ordained that the Law should be read to the 
 people on every Sabbath, festival and Holy Day through- 
 out the year. 
 
 A second tradition supplements the former, and says, 
 Ezra established the reading of the Law to take place 
 also on Mondays and Thursdays. There are minor 
 differences as to the rule concerning the reading of the 
 Law on the Sabbath afternoon, and as to the number of 
 verses to be read on the last occasion. These will be 
 treated later on. Here we have, then, a definite state- 
 ment which is based on the injunction, Deuteronomy 
 xxxi. 10, tracing from it a practice known throughout 
 the whole of Jewry. That records have come down to 
 us that the reading of the Law accompanied the prayer 
 need not be mentioned here ; it is understood. It 
 formed part of it, and it has never been conceived 
 independently of it in public worship. True, prayers are 
 mentioned where no reading of the Law may have taken 
 place, but never the reverse. In addition to this general 
 tradition, we have a definite fact stated in the Law that 
 the king was expected to read the Torah on certain 
 occasions (Deut., v. below), and no less emphatic is 
 ancient tradition that Ezra himself read the Law on 
 one of those solemn occasions (Neh. viu. 1-8 ; ix. 3). 
 At an earlier date also we find the High Priest, Hilkiah 
 (II Kings xxn. 8-13 ; xxni. 1-3), reading the Law in the
 
 4 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 presence of the king and the people, not to speak of the 
 still more decisive testimony in Joshua vm. 34. To this 
 practice, therefore, cannot be denied extreme antiquity, 
 and the tradition which connects it with Moses and 
 Ezra means that the practice is so ancient that it owes 
 its origin almost to the time of Moses. It is neces- 
 sary that we should go step by step, and establish 
 the fact that this was not mere tradition, but tradition 
 resting on real fact. We are told that the Haftarah 
 was introduced at the time of the Hasmonean 
 revolt, when Antiochus Epiphanes, in the middle of 
 the second century, forbade the reading of the Law, 
 and therefore the people substituted the reading from 
 the prophets for the reading of the Law. Though this 
 tradition is only mentioned by Abudarham, no one has 
 ventured to dispute its value as far as the fact is con- 
 cerned, that the Law was read before that time, and that 
 at the time of the defilement of the Second Temple it 
 was forcibly interrupted. Sirah, in his introduction 
 to his well-known book, speaks of his grandfather as 
 one of those who read the Law and the prophets. It 
 cannot be doubted that it was not meant only for private 
 purposes, but as we shall see, the High Priest and the 
 other priests used to read a portion of the Law and the 
 prophets in public. In the Mishna Yoma I, it is clearly 
 stated in the preparation for the service of the Day of 
 Atonement, that the sages of the time used to teach the 
 High Priest to read certain portions of the Law, which 
 he was then to read aloud to the people at the conclusion 
 of the sacrifice. And, moreover, we are told (ibid.) that 
 the sages used to read also some of the books of the 
 Holy Writings, such as Job, Daniel, Chronicles, etc. 
 If we come down to a little later period, we find that 
 Philo, and at least on one or two occasions Josephus, 
 speaks in no uncertain voice as to the reading of the Law 
 on Sabbaths and festivals ; nay, he also traces the 
 introduction back to Moses (Josephus, Contra Apionem, 
 ii. 17, 175) : " But Moses . . . demonstrated the law to
 
 be the best, and the most necessary instruction of all 
 others . . . enjoining the people to assemble together 
 for the hearing of the law, and learn it exactly, and this 
 not once or twice or oftener, but every Sabbath/' 
 And finally the information culled from the pages of the 
 New Testament (Luke iv. 16-20, etc.). Jesus and Paul 
 enter the Synagogue and read the Law and the prophets 
 to the assembled people. Talmudic and Midrashic 
 literature often repeats this tradition. At the time of 
 the Mishna no question was raised as to the regular 
 reading of the Law throughout the lands whither the 
 Jews had gone. It is so much of an established custom 
 that only incidental differences, exceptions in the reading 
 which occurred during the reading of the Law, are 
 mentioned to be discussed. The practice itself is so 
 firmly established that it requires no special mention ; 
 it is taken for granted. I turn from the Jews to the 
 Samaritans. It is necessary to do so for reasons which 
 will be shown later on. With them the same practice of 
 the reading of the Law on every Sabbath prevails ; and 
 this practice is never questioned, it is taken for granted 
 as with the Jews. Their literature, however, is so 
 scanty, and the information which has reached outsiders 
 so small, all their literary monuments are compara- 
 tively so young, that it is impossible to find in them 
 any reference to that institution of an early date. None 
 the less, sufficient proof can be found in the literature 
 for the Samaritan view, not only that they have been 
 continually reading the Law in their public service, 
 but that they trace this institution back to the earliest 
 time, nay, to Moses. Thus, in the earliest letters sent 
 by the Samaritans to Europe, or more properly to 
 Scaliger, towards the end of the sixteenth century from 
 Nablus and Egypt, the High Priest of the time Eliezer 
 writes distinctly that they read the Law on every 
 Sabbath and Holy Day, and he mentions even one of 
 the sections read on Pesach. Similarly in the letter 
 from Egypt the same fact is mentioned of the constant
 
 6 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 reading of the Law on Sabbath and Holy Days (Letters 
 published by de Sacy ; in Eichhorn's Repertorium, Vol. 
 XIII, 8, page 257 fL). And in a Samaritan MS. on 
 their customs and rites (my Cod. 872) the Samaritans 
 distinctly state that the custom of reading the Law on 
 every Sabbath, festival and Holy Day is a tradition 
 handed down to them from Moses, Pinehas and the 
 seventy Elders mentioned in the Bible. An older 
 authority we find in Abul Fath, in his Chronicle, and 
 even as far back as 1041 Josef Al Askari refers to it 
 distinctly in his Al-Kafi (my Codd. 821, 878, 1159). 
 
 Close investigation extending over fifteen years 
 ripened in me the conviction that the Samaritans have 
 preserved for us in an almost fossilised state customs 
 which go back to the time of the Second Temple. They 
 represent a phase in Jewry of Jewish rites, of Jewish 
 practices, of Jewish religious conceptions and views, 
 which one may call pre-Talmudic, pre-Kabbinic, which 
 concur in a remarkable degree with the traditions and 
 customs prevailing also among the Jews outside of 
 Jerusalem, and agree also with the most ancient 
 traditions and customs of the Christian Church. 
 
 Justin Martyr (1st Apol. I. 67), who was a Samaritan, 
 at least born in Samaria, and intimately acquainted 
 with the Samaritans, refers distinctly to the custom 
 of the public reading of the Law among the early 
 Christians. I mention him here on the score of Samari- 
 tanism, not the Christian Church. The practice of the 
 Christian Church, as far back as can be traced, fully 
 corroborates the public reading of the Law. There was 
 a regular reading of the Holy Scriptures during the 
 public worship. At the beginning the lessons were taken 
 only from the Old Testament. Later on also from the 
 New. So Tertullian, Origen, and apostolic constitutions ; 
 the latter not only mention, but decree (II. 39 and 57) 
 that the Old Testament should be read before the New ; 
 and later on more ample reference will be made to these, 
 and to the practice of the Christian Church and the
 
 A CHAPTEK ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 7 
 
 order of the lessons in the Christian worship. This fact, 
 that the Samaritans also have the regular reading of the 
 Law on every Sabbath, festival and Holy Day, at once 
 sets at rest the suggestion, which has been made, that 
 the very reading of the Law had been introduced among 
 the Jews as a distinctive feature against the Samaritans. 
 Whether this may hold good for the reading of the Haf- 
 tarah is a matter which cannot be discussed here, but 
 that the reading of the Law had been taken over in 
 common by the Jews and the Samaritans alike cannot 
 be doubted, both following a much older tradition sacred 
 to both. And this at once forces the establishment of 
 the institution back to a much older date than even 
 those records which we have been able to quote. The 
 distinction between Jews and Samaritans was brought 
 out in a much more decisive manner in the public 
 reading of the Ten Commandments, on every occasion 
 of worship in the Temple and in the synagogues.* For 
 just in that, the most important section of the Torah, 
 the Samaritan text differs most profoundly from the 
 Jewish, and the very ground of separation between 
 Jews and Samaritans centres in the additional verses 
 which the Samaritans have added to the Ten Command- 
 ments ; counting those verses as the Tenth Command- 
 ment in which the selection of Mount Gerizim seems to 
 be not only indicated but justified by the very words of 
 Scripture. The public reading of the Ten Command- 
 ments alone would thus bring home much more 
 emphatically this difference which separates Jews from 
 Samaritans, than the reading of the Law, which both held 
 in common as the most sacred book, and in which, with 
 few exceptions, the other differences are of a minor 
 importance. The abolition of the practice of reading 
 the Ten Commandments, owing to taunts of the 
 " Minim," was really due to the fact that the " Minim " 
 claimed authenticity for the rest of their text of the 
 Pentateuch. Through the selection by the Jews of the 
 
 * A practice winch obtains to this very day in the Samaritan worship.
 
 8 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 Ten Commandments only, as points of difference, they 
 would thereby tacitly admit, as it were, the correctness 
 of the other portions. This seems to me to be the correct 
 interpretation of this abolition. It will be seen presently 
 that there is indeed a much more close agreement 
 between the two texts than has hitherto been suspected, 
 and a complete examination of the agreement will, I 
 trust, be of no little importance for the elucidation of 
 some of the most difficult problems in the archaeology 
 and palaeography of the Bible. But before proceeding 
 further, it was necessary to establish the fact that the 
 practice of reading the Law was of very ancient date. 
 
 It behoves us now to endeavour to establish the manner 
 in which the text was read. But here we are entering 
 upon the palseographical investigation of the books of 
 our Bible. How the whole of our Pentateuch had been 
 written originally we do not exactly know, except for 
 the very obvious statement in the Talmud that it was 
 written in small scrolls, " megilot " as they are called. 
 But no doubt the whole must have been subdivided into 
 smaller sections, otherwise it would have been too 
 unwieldy for any purpose, for teaching as much as for 
 reading. Names are often the most trustworthy indi- 
 cations of ancient practices. The very fact that the 
 Bible has not one title or one name for the whole of its 
 contents brings out more clearly than anything else 
 the fallacy of the idea of a Canon, established or sanc- 
 tioned by the Synagogue. If the Synagogue had at any 
 time established such a Canon, it would have coined a 
 proper name for it. The absence of such a name is 
 sufficient proof to doubt, nay, even to deny such a Canon 
 of the Synagogue. It may be a startling proposition, but 
 it will be discussed in another essay, forming another 
 chapter of my studies in the history of the Bible. The 
 Pentateuch goes by the general term Torah. The five 
 great divisions have no proper names. Three of them are 
 mentioned in the Mishna by a paraphrastic description, 
 such as Torat Kohanim (=Leviticus), Homesh Ha-
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 9 
 
 pekudim (=Numbers) and Mishneh Torah (=Deutero- 
 nomy). These now take their names from the initial 
 words. The only ancient division is into five books, 
 each one called a Fifth (Homesh). In the Sam. 
 MSS. to this day, the books have no titles. 
 
 The colophons at the end of each book (corresponding 
 to the Massoretic colophons of the Hebrew Bibles) call 
 the books the First, the Second, the Third, the Fourth, 
 and the Fifth, without any specific names. The Greek 
 translation represents a later tradition, and affixes 
 a title to each of them. It calls Bereshith Genesis, She- 
 moth Exodus, and Debarim Deuteronomium. But we 
 know the books only by the initial words Bereshith, 
 Shemoth, etc. It will be seen that this practice has been 
 continued when these books were divided into smaller 
 sections. It is a matter of some importance ; for if a book 
 or a section is known only by the initial word, it shows 
 a widely spread popular practice. The people must have 
 been sufficiently familiar with those books and these 
 sections to recognise them at once, as soon as the first 
 word was mentioned. And just as the five books were 
 called by the initial word, so we shall find this practice 
 applying to smaller sections, which are also known from 
 such initial words. There are exceptions when the titles 
 are given from the contents and not from the initial 
 word, and it will be interesting to see which of these 
 sections was called by its contents rather than by the 
 initial word. For it will be found that such sections 
 were not popularly so known. It was a mere scientific 
 title and not a popular one. How was the Bible divided ? 
 I will limit myself, in the first place, and for our purpose, 
 almost exclusively to the division of the Pentateuch. 
 There are definite indications of the Massoretic texts, 
 which give us an undoubted clue to these ancient 
 divisions. The whole text was subdivided into small 
 paragraphs called by the general term Parasha, I want 
 to make it perfectly clear that this word was not 
 originally applied exclusively to the weekly lesson or
 
 10 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 Perikope. This application dates from a somewhat later 
 period, and almost entirely owes its origin to the liturgical 
 use of the Bible. But one must not lose sight of the fact 
 that the study of the Bible was the primary object and 
 aim. The reading of the Bible was merely popularisa- 
 tion. But first and foremost the Bible was to be 
 studied, and in order that it should be taught properly, 
 it had to be divided into smaller sections. This ancient 
 and to my mind oldest division of the text has been 
 preserved with the utmost fidelity in the scrolls of the 
 Law ; and the Massora, that guardian of the ancient 
 tradition of our Scriptures, has preserved these divisions 
 to our very day, and has transferred them from the 
 written to the printed text. Happily, no one has yet 
 interfered too much with these divisions, so as to obliter- 
 ate their graphical character. It may be taken as an 
 axiom not open to doubt or discussion that the scroll, 
 as found now in our synagogues, has preserved to us the 
 text in the oldest form available, and the writing and 
 arrangement date from a period which one would be 
 justified in calling pre-Massoretic. The Massoretic rules 
 and prescriptions have had the object of not allowing 
 the text, as it stands, to be modified or altered in the 
 slightest degree. ' The Massorah is a fence round the 
 Torah," as stated in the Chapters of the Fathers. The 
 best proof for this is that neither the Massoretic rules 
 nor indications are found in the scroll: neither the 
 marking of the verses, nor vowel points, nor accents, 
 are allowed in a scroll : no names, no titles, not even 
 dates in any shape or form, are to be found therein. 
 The severity and rigidity of the rules for the writing 
 of the text has reached almost its extreme limit. Not 
 many erasures, not many corrections are allowed, and, 
 in fact, everything that could be done to preserve the 
 text intact and to reproduce the original with the utmost 
 fidelity and correctness has been done with great effi- 
 ciency and with excellent results. We may boldly state 
 that the scroll read to-day does not deviate in any shape
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 11 
 
 or form from those scrolls which were torn up in the 
 time of Antiochus and the Hasmoneans. The justifica- 
 tion for such statements rests on the palaeographic proofs 
 which have been hitherto not sufficiently recognised, 
 nay entirely ignored. Certain rules, no doubt, must have 
 been laid down by the Soferim, following probably older 
 examples, for the manner in which the text of the 
 Pentateuch ought to be written down. It had to be 
 written in columns ; sufficient spacing between words, 
 lines and columns had to be allowed ; and the divisions 
 between the five books had to be clearly marked in an 
 unmistakable manner. In addition to these, other 
 minor divisions have been introduced into the text which, 
 as must be stated with all emphasis, were used for didac- 
 tic purposes as the text-book of the moral and religious 
 life of the people, the source of its information, and the 
 spring of its inspiration. The study of the Law precedes 
 the reading. The object of the reading, then, is to convey 
 to the people as simply as possible the contents of the Law, 
 so that it be known not only to the Sages and Pupils, 
 but to the whole nation. It must therefore be added 
 that the same tendency prevails here in the tradition 
 surrounding the books as can be seen in other literature 
 which follows lines of normal development. With us 
 perhaps this tendency assumes a more definite form. 
 The tendency is to preserve the older and to join on to it 
 the results of later developments. We do not relinquish 
 the past at the expense of the present, but utilise the 
 present to strengthen the past. The fences round the 
 Law double and treble in course of time, but not one 
 of the old fences is given up. We add prayer to prayer 
 in the development of our liturgy, but we do not 
 substitute one for the other. And so this happened also 
 with the system of preserving the Law, especially when 
 it was transcribed from the scroll into book form. The 
 scroll represents to us the text in the oldest form in the 
 sacred service. But for didactic purposes the scroll 
 is found to be difficult to handle, and so it was written
 
 12 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 in pages, and here the Massora then added notes, rules 
 and injunctions destined to preserve the original text 
 intact. None of these marks, information, rules, etc., 
 have found their way into the ancient scroll. It is not 
 here the place to discuss the history of the writing of 
 the Bible, which would form an interesting chapter 
 by itself. It is only with the one aspect of the writing 
 I am dealing here : division introduced into the text 
 and marked off graphically. 
 
 It will be noticed that there is not a single column, 
 with the exception of the two songs in Exodus and 
 Deuteronomy, which is not broken up into two or three 
 smaller sections, divided off in olden times very clearly 
 one from the other by a white line. At least one line 
 has been left unwritten so as to mark off the division. 
 The size of this section varies : sometimes it is of eight 
 or ten lines, and other times two or three lines. Origin- 
 ally these also may have been separated from the other 
 by a large white space between. Later on in some MSS. 
 they were separated by a small space sufficiently clear, 
 however, to show that there is a break in the text. 
 According to the writing these spaces have been 
 designated as Petuhot, meaning open, that is, leaving 
 a full blank line, or Setumot, closed section, with a 
 blank space within the line. Meiri, in 1306, going 
 minutely into the graphical character of the scroll, and 
 endeavouring to establish it, in its minute details, 
 says then that no special information has come down 
 from olden times as to the Petuhot and Setumot. No 
 rules had been given authoritatively as to these sections, 
 fixing which are to be open and which are to be closed. 
 The Talmud knows these divisions, and goes so far as to 
 say that no Petuliah should be written Setumah, and no 
 Setumah should be written Petuhah. Such a mistake 
 in the mere writing of a section, or failure in marking off 
 graphically the divisions, suffices to annul the whole 
 column. It must be cut out from the scroll and another 
 column substituted for it. He goes on to say that neither
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 13 
 
 in the Mishna nor in the Talmud, nor even among the 
 writings of the Gaonim, is there found any direction for 
 the Petuhot and the Setumot. But he follows old model 
 codices like that used by Maimonides and another of 
 Toledo to fix these divisions. Maimonides, before Meiri, 
 has given in the thirteenth century laws on these open 
 and closed sections, but he also relies on the same 
 authority as Meiri. How old are these sections, and by 
 what name were they known ? 
 
 The silence of the Talmudic and Rabbinical literature 
 is easily explained. People do not put down in writing 
 information which they assume to be known by every- 
 body, but happily we are able to prove by means of 
 comparative palaeography that this division in the text 
 is extremely old, the very first into which the text of the 
 Bible had been broken up, and that it must go back to 
 the earliest possible written copies of the Pentateuch. 
 For curiously enough the Samaritans have also divided 
 their scrolls of the Bible in exactly the same manner 
 as the Jews ; they follow and preserve the very same 
 ancient tradition which lies at the base of the Jewish 
 and Samaritan text. They also write the Torah in the 
 form of a scroll, and like the Jews they have no marks 
 in the scroll of any Massoretic character, although, as has 
 been shown by me, they also have ancient Massoretic 
 accents dating back probably to the fourth or fifth 
 century. Yet they are not found in the most ancient 
 scrolls which are known to me, and which go back to 
 the twelfth century. But I may claim to have seen also 
 that old scroll of the Law which they declare to have 
 been written by Abisha, in the thirteenth year after the 
 entry of Israel into the land of Canaan, and therefore, 
 according to them, being more than three thousand 
 years old. It is in a very dilapidated state, the ink has 
 eaten through the parchment. The fact of its being 
 written on parchment detracts very considerably from 
 the claim. But that it is very old there can be no doubt. 
 There also I have found the writing to be in columns, and
 
 14 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 the text divided into small sections, just like other 
 scrolls of the twelfth century, partly in my possession 
 and partly photographed by me. There are no signs 
 otherwise of internal mark or division except the blank 
 space between section and section. The verses are not 
 divided off by colons, and the small sections agree with 
 the large inasmuch as a complete blank line has been 
 left between one and the other, even where the latter 
 consists of only one or two lines. The five books are 
 divided from one another by large spaces, just like in the 
 Jewish scrolls. If we turn to the Samaritan Pentateuch 
 in book form, we shall find that whilst they have pre- 
 served with absolute fidelity the small and large divi- 
 sions of the text, they have inserted there the marks 
 for dividing the verses. They have also introduced 
 accents, and, moreover, special signs between larger 
 divisions, to which we shall refer later on. It should 
 be noted that to each book they have added, as we have 
 done in our Bible in book form, Massoretic notes, giving 
 us the minuter details of these sections. This form of 
 outer agreement is as close as can be thought. It will 
 be seen that the inner agreement in the selection of 
 the portions and in the manner in which they 
 have been divided is much more complete than has ever 
 been dreamt of. It cannot be mere coincidence, as the 
 agreement often goes to the minutest details. The 
 Samaritans were certainly not the people to borrow from 
 the Jews. On this point anyone who knows the 
 Samaritans, their history, their life and their literature 
 cannot come to any other conclusion. But this closeness 
 in the outward agreement might still be challenged, 
 and perhaps some would insist that the one, in this case 
 the Samaritan, would depend on the other, the Jews, 
 and that the Sam. Pent, would be a late copy of 
 the Jewish scroll. On this point the study of the Sam. 
 scroll must set such opinions at rest. That the Jews 
 should have taken from the Samaritans, no one would 
 ever think of suggesting. It is as unlikely in this
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 15 
 
 case as I hold it to be in the other. This being the case, 
 the only solution of the problem is that the Samaritans 
 must have taken over their scroll like the Jews at the 
 very earliest date from a common original, and the 
 division therefore would be proved to belong to very 
 great antiquity. Yet there is a third test which comes 
 to our assistance, and proves that this division is the first 
 and the very oldest, and precedes any other into which 
 the Bible may have been subdivided forliturgicalorhomile- 
 tical purposes. The Greek translation, known as the Sep- 
 tuagint (LXX), that of the seventy, has in a remarkable 
 manner also preserved the very same division of the text 
 into minor sections. Unfortunately, no reference has been 
 made to this paleography of the Greek text, even in the 
 admirable introduction to the Septuagint by Swete. But 
 the old MSS., the Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and the 
 Alexandrinus, have all preserved the divisions. Tischen- 
 dorf unfortunately has omitted to mark the blank 
 spaces between one section and another. Swete, on 
 the contrary, has fortunately preserved them. In this 
 latter edition the spaces look like the Hebrew Setumot. 
 
 The agreement is so close that it proves, if proof be 
 still required, that we have in these divisions the first 
 and oldest attempt of arranging the text into smaller 
 portions. The Greek translators have certainly not 
 invented these divisions, they merely followed the 
 Hebrew original. It is well known how anxious they 
 were to reproduce down to the minutest detail the 
 Hebrew original, especially in the translation of the 
 Pentateuch. They did not shrink even from the trans- 
 literation of the Hebrew words if they offered difficulties, 
 and in every particular they followed their text with an 
 almost absurd faithfulness. It is just because of this 
 accuracy and fidelity that the Greek translation was 
 held in such high, nay, sacred, repute among the Greek- 
 speaking Jews of Alexandria. 
 
 Its literahiess served even as a basis for arithmetical 
 and mystical speculation. The divisions, therefore, are
 
 16 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 the divisions of the ancient text. This is not a mere 
 hypothesis. A comparative table, which I have drawn 
 up, and of which I give here a few specimens, will show 
 such agreement, so as to remove any doubt, and to 
 bring out a result as convincing as it is surprising of the 
 antiquity and permanence of this division. It will show 
 how faithful the Massora has been in the preservation 
 of the text, and will satisfy us as to the reliability and 
 antiquity of the Samaritan tradition. I take the first 
 chapters of Genesis, and show how close this agreement is. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1st 
 
 sec. 1-5 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Pt. 
 
 Sam. 
 
 idem. 
 
 Greek 
 
 idem. 
 
 2nd 
 
 6-8 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Pt. 
 
 Sam. 
 
 idem. 
 
 Greek 
 
 idem. 
 
 3rd 
 
 9-13 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Pt. 
 
 Sam. 
 
 idem. 
 
 Greek 
 
 idem. 
 
 4th 
 
 ,, 14-19 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Pt. 
 
 Sam. 
 
 idem. 
 
 Greek 
 
 idem. 
 
 5th 
 
 20-23 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Pt. 
 
 Sam. 
 
 idem. 
 
 Greek 
 
 idem. 
 
 6th 
 
 , 24-31 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Pt. 
 
 Sam. 
 
 idem. 
 
 Greek 
 
 idem. 
 
 Here the Greek divides into two, and takes into the 
 2nd section, first part of n. 1. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 7th sec. 1-3 Mass. Pt. Sam. idem. Greek idem. 
 
 In chapter n. Greek and Samaritan agree still more 
 closely because they subdivide chapters n. and in. into 
 more minute sections than the Massora and yet agree 
 very closely with one another. Thus : 
 
 8th sec. 4-7 Heb. Pt. Sam. idem. Greek idem. 
 9th ,, 8-17 Sam. and Greek idem. 
 10th ,, 18-25 Sam. and Greek idem. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 llth sec. 1-13 Sam. and Greek idem. 
 
 12th 14-17 Heb. Pt. and Sam. idem. 
 
 13th ,,18-22 Heb. Pt. Sam. and Greek idem. 
 
 14th 22-24 Heb. Pt. Sam. and Greek idem.
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 17 
 
 CHAPTER IV (No Hebrew Division) 
 
 15th sec. 1-8 Sam. and Greek divide. 
 16th ,, 9-16 Sam. and Greek divide. 
 17th 17-24 Sam. and Greek divide. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 18th sec. 1-5 Heb. St. and Greek divide. 
 Sam. takes verses 1 and 2 with previous division. 
 
 19th 
 20th 
 
 21st 
 22nd 
 23rd 
 24th 
 25th 
 26th 
 27th 
 
 sec. 
 
 55 
 55 
 55 
 55 
 55 
 55 
 55 
 55 
 
 6-8 
 9-11 
 12-14 
 15-17 
 
 18-20 
 21-24 
 25-27 
 28-31 
 32 
 
 Heb. 
 Heb. 
 Heb. 
 Heb. 
 Heb. 
 Heb. 
 Heb. 
 Heb. 
 Heb. 
 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 St. 
 
 Sam. 
 Sam. 
 Sam. 
 Sam. 
 Sam. 
 Sam. 
 Sam. 
 Sam. 
 Sam. 
 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem. 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem. 
 
 Greek 
 Greek 
 Greek 
 Greek 
 Greek 
 Greek 
 Greek 
 Greek 
 Greek 
 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem, 
 idem. 
 
 This at the same time settles another vexed problem, 
 the relation between the Samaritan and the Greek. It 
 shows that whilst there is a close affinity, there is also 
 some definite difference between the two, and on the 
 other hand such a close agreement between the three 
 texts the Hebrew, Samaritan, and the Greek that 
 the dependence of Samaritan on Greek can no longer 
 be maintained. There are many more details affecting 
 this question, which, however, cannot be dealt with here 
 any further. 
 
 On the other hand, if we compare the divisions of the 
 last two chapters of the Pentateuch the same parallelism 
 will be found between all three texts, not only in the 
 problem of dividing up the texts, but also in following 
 certain graphical peculiarities. The Song of Moses 
 (Deut. xxxn.) is written in our scrolls in hemistichs, abso- 
 lutely identical in the Jewish and Samaritan scrolls, 
 and in the same form also in the Greek. It is otherwise
 
 18 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 absolutely undivided, it forms one whole section, and 
 it has been preserved like that in the Samaritan, and 
 no doubt also in the Greek, where the writing of the text 
 in verses makes it difficult if not impossible to trace 
 any sectional division. The same obtains in the last 
 chapter in the Greek with two or three small exceptions, 
 where it is written in prose. But the agreement between 
 the Hebrew and Samaritan continues down to sections 
 of one or two verses only, equally separated in both. 
 The agreement rests upon a very old and unshaken 
 tradition. The principle which the scribes Soferim 
 followed in writing, so that the books of the Law could 
 easily be studied, is seen more clearly in the Samaritan 
 text than in the Hebrew. Here the ancient division has 
 been obliterated by later superposition of other divisions 
 and where the distinction between one section and 
 another has now almost been entirely forgotten. They 
 are marked in our printed editions only with a letter 
 P or S, having lost entirely their original meaning. The 
 Samaritans, on the contrary, preserve the clear division 
 of the books as it is found also in our scrolls, and they 
 go even further, they are exceedingly careful to finish 
 the column with such a division, never breaking it up. 
 Each column begins with a new division, a practice 
 which has not been followed by us only a fragmentary 
 tradition has still been preserved by the Massoretic 
 indication of the initial letters of six columns, the letters 
 iBTP3 the first letters of the initial words of the 
 columns. Some writers persist in starting every column 
 with the letter 1 (creating the tradition of nniorn M) 
 or, as some scribes do, with -fron in the scroll of 
 Esther. The result of the Samaritan practice, as 
 seen in their scrolls, is that the last lines of the 
 columns are often cramped, and the writing greatly 
 reduced, so as to squeeze the words into a narrow space. 
 In order to obviate such cramped writing no doubt 
 our sages have dispensed with that rule, which is still 
 followed by the Samaritans, and which can be seen in
 
 their oldest scrolls. The division was no doubt intro- 
 duced to mark the change of ideas : a new statement, 
 the beginning of a new incident, or the introduction of 
 a new name, were reasons for dividing that portion off 
 from the rest. We find now in the Jerusalemitan 
 Talmud the peculiar statement of Rabbi Joshua ben 
 Levi, who says : "I have constantly refrained from 
 reading in books of Agadah. Only once I looked into 
 such a book of Agadah, and I found therein that there 
 are 175 Parashiyot in the Torah of speaking, saying, 
 commanding, and those 175 correspond to the life of our 
 father Abraham. I found, moreover, that the Psalms 
 were divided into 147 corresponding with the years of 
 Jacob, and that there were 123 Halleluyahs corre- 
 sponding with the years of Aaron." There are two or 
 three points of importance in this statement which 
 require to be studied. The author lived in the third 
 or fourth century, and he found in a book containing 
 legendary and homiletical interpretations of the Law 
 the statement that the Pentateuch was divided into 175 
 sections, and the reason given was in the regular homi- 
 letical style, because they corresponded with the years 
 of Abraham, and he says, what is of importance now 
 for our investigation, that they were, as it were, 
 characterised by the very words of "speaking," 
 " saying " or " commanding," which means that 
 these sections started no doubt with, or were marked 
 by, the words which are so often found in the Penta- 
 teuch, " and God spake " or " and God commanded." 
 Here we have then a clear indication of the leading 
 principle in the division of the Law. Wherever in the 
 text was found a portion that was sufficiently large 
 and coherent enough to form a section they marked it 
 off as such, whenever it began with these words, 
 m&w (vayomer), -irn (vayedabber) and so on, or when 
 the whole contents were filled up with one special 
 command, or one incident in the Bible in the life 
 of the Patriarchs which would lend itself to form a
 
 20 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 complete section. The examples quoted above of the 
 way in which the Hebrew, Samaritan and Greek divide 
 the first and last chapters of the Pentateuch, explain 
 very easily and clearly this system of division. Each 
 one begins with vayomer, or, as in the last chapter of 
 Deuteronomy, each section is given to another tribe, 
 however small the size of it may be. In the second 
 chapter of Genesis the Samaritan carried out this 
 system of division more rigidly still, as he divided it up 
 into still more minute sections. The Greek, who is the 
 third in the order of development, carried this principle 
 of division even to greater length. Not only in the 
 Pentateuch, but he also divided all the other books of the 
 Bible in a similar manner, and I have been able to trace 
 it in some of the oldest texts in the New Testament, 
 where the words " Jesus said " are often introduced 
 at the beginning of these sections into which the books 
 are so divided, whilst these words are missing in other 
 copies not so divided. Here we find then a clear prin- 
 ciple for the division of the text. 
 
 We gather from the words of R. Joshua ben Levi 
 that these divisions were called Parasha, or Parashiyot 
 (plural). The Samaritans have for this division the 
 name Kissa from the root Kss, meaning to cut 
 off, divide, practically like the Latin divisio, or 
 section. 
 
 Another word used may have been Piska. This latter 
 name may have changed its original meaning when a new 
 use was found for it. It may therefore be that the oldest 
 name for such division was Piska or Pissuk. It cannot 
 have meant " verse," because the Bible was not yet 
 divided into verses, and it is the exact word corre- 
 sponding with the Samaritan Kissa, division or section. 
 There are many indications that this was the original 
 meaning of the word. It would explain what has hitherto 
 remained somewhat of a riddle, and what had errone- 
 ously been taken as a proof for the very great antiquity of 
 the Massoretic division of the text into verses, when we
 
 find in the Talmud, etc., that Aher the scholar, or Nero 
 the Emperor, or Haman are said to have asked the 
 boy coming home from school to recite his Pissuk, 
 hitherto translated " verse." Considering that the reply 
 is seldom limited to one verse, and that the pupils 
 were not expected to study in school only one verse 
 during the day, this interpretation cannot be correct ; 
 but if it is understood that the boy was to quote some- 
 thing out of the Piska, of the section which he had 
 studied, the difficulty of the question is removed. The 
 boy could easily recite two or three verses, as indeed 
 happened. And again the Pissuk te'amim mentioned in 
 the Talmud, which has been taken to mean the division 
 according to accents, when such accents had not yet 
 been invented, will now be fully explained in the light 
 of the above investigation, for it means division of the 
 text according to its contents, according to the Ta'am, 
 and in complete agreement with the division known 
 throughout the Talmudic tradition. And this corre- 
 sponds entirely with the division of the Bible as de- 
 scribed above, a division guided by the contents of 
 the text. 
 
 This will be made much more apparent later 
 on, when a more detailed description of the Pesikta will 
 be given. The chapter of curses is called the Piska of 
 Curses. 
 
 The name, however, for the division of the Bible which 
 has obtained the widest currency, and has retained its 
 character almost unchanged to our very day, is Parasha. 
 Originally it does not refer at all to the weekly lesson, 
 but to every section, especially when used for liturgical 
 purposes, either in the Temple or outside. It is so 
 designated in the Mishna as Parasha. There are no other 
 older documents to show the use of the term Parasha, 
 but there is proof from the manner in which the portions 
 of the Bible are mentioned as Parashiyot in the Mishna. 
 It is there taken for granted that a mere allusion is 
 sufficient to mark the section to be read, and to know
 
 22 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 that not only is the reference to a section of the Bible, 
 but, still more, which section of the Bible is referred to. 
 Unless the use had been an already long-established 
 one, and unless the divisions marked off were known 
 as such, a mere citation of one word (the initial word) 
 would not have sufficed to make the identification so 
 complete as was evidently intended should be the case, 
 even for the casual reader or listener. The section, for 
 instance, dealing with the blessings of Bileam, is quoted 
 as the Parasha Bileam (Num. xx. 21-25). The portion 
 in Deuteronomy dealing with the duties of the king is 
 known as the Portion of the King. But this calling of the 
 section by the name of Parasha goes still further back. 
 The meaning in which it was used is the same as men- 
 tioned before when dealing with the division in the 
 Pentateuch, and it seems that the name Parasha is as 
 old as the division of the Torah into five books. 
 The initial word of the Parasha was taken as the title, 
 and we find it thus in the section dealing with the service 
 in the Temple on the Day of Atonement, when the High 
 Priest was expected to read certain sections of the Law 
 (Mishna Yoma vn. 1, and Sota vn. 7), for these sections 
 are mentioned by the initial word such as Aharei Moth 
 (Lev. xvi. 1) and Akh Beasor (ibid. 23, 27). He read 
 also Numbers xxix. 7, where Numbers is called the 
 fifth of the Pekudim. 
 
 Still more fully is this the case in the lesson which the 
 king was expected to read. As this chapter of the 
 Mishna is of far-reaching importance for our inves- 
 tigation I will give the literal translation of the text, 
 as found in Sota vn. 8 : 
 
 " At the going out of the first day of the Feast of 
 Tabernacles (at the end of the seventh year and the 
 beginning of the eighth) they made him a seat in the 
 court of the Temple, and he sat on it as it is said 
 (Deut. xxxi. 10, 11). 'And Moses commanded them 
 saying, At the end of every seven years, in the set time 
 of the year of release in the Feast of Tabernacles, when
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 23 
 
 all Israel is come to appear before the Lord their God 
 in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this 
 law before all Israel in their hearing/ Then the Kazan 
 (overseer) of the Synagogue takes the scroll of the Law 
 and gives it to the head of the Synagogue, and then the 
 head of the Synagogue gives it to the Segan, and the 
 Segan gives it to the High Priest, and the High Priest 
 gives it to the King. The King, standing up, takes it, 
 and, sitting down, he reads. The King Agrippa stood up 
 and took it and read it standing, and the sages praised 
 him. And when he came to the passage (Deut. xvn. 1 5), 
 ' Thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee/ his eyes 
 shed tears, and they said unto him, ' Fear not, Agrippa, 
 thou art our brother, thou art our brother/ The King 
 read from the beginning of Deuteronomy until Shema 
 (Deut. vi. 4), and then he read Deuteronomy xi. 13. 
 Then chapter xiv. 22, Thou shalt surely tithe, and 
 afterwards from xxvi. 12, When thou hast made an end 
 of tithing. Then the Section of the King xvn. 14, and 
 then the blessings and curses, Deuteronomy, chapters 
 xxvu. and xxvm., until he finished the whole Parasha. 
 The benedictions which the High Priest spoke the King 
 uttered also, with the exception that he substituted 
 ' remembrance of festival ' instead of ' remission of sin/ ' 
 Thus far the Mishna. In this Mishna we have a 
 description of an historical event which had happened 
 in the Temple, and certainly not the first of its kind, 
 on the contrary, perhaps the last, if this Agrippa who 
 is mentioned here as king is the Agrippa of the time of the 
 destruction. In the preceding Mishna we find a descrip- 
 tion of the service in the Temple as conducted by the 
 High Priest himself. In these chapters of Mishna 
 numerous Parashiyot are mentioned by name, and each 
 of them derives its name only and solely from the initial 
 word, with the single exception of the Parasha called 
 that of the King. It is furthermore important to note 
 that only the beginning is given, and nowhere an in- 
 dication where each of these portions came to an end.
 
 24 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 It is obvious that there was no doubt in the mind of the 
 hearers and readers how far each of these portions went. 
 Certainly not further than marked off by the ancient 
 division. Everyone knew where it came to an end. 
 This custom of mentioning the Parasha by the initial 
 word has obtained also among the Samaritans. In one 
 of their oldest poems, ascribed to Abisha (fourteenth or 
 fifteenth century), sections of the Bible are also quoted 
 by the initial word, and the Targum of the Samaritan 
 Bible has the initial word of the section as it were 
 as a title written over each section. So in some 
 very old fragments from the Genizah in the Cambridge 
 Library, and so in a copy of the Targum in my pos- 
 session, and similarly in the Arabic translation of 
 the Samaritan Pentateuch in MSS. of the thirteenth 
 or fourteenth century. Everywhere the same custom 
 prevails. 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the universal application 
 of this name of Parasha to the section, and also as to the 
 antiquity of the name applied to the section. It was 
 sufficient to quote the first word in order to know exactly 
 which Parasha was meant, and where a doubt existed, 
 as in the case of the third portion read by the High 
 Priest, then the name of the Book of the Pentateuch 
 in which it occurred was added for elucidation. One 
 might linger for some time over these Mishnayot, so 
 important are they for the history of the service. I may 
 have to refer to them once more when dealing with the 
 reading of these sections in the Synagogue. For the 
 time being it was necessary to point out that the name 
 Parasha was given to portions of the Law, in smaller 
 or larger sections, used for liturgical purposes. If we 
 pass on to other references in the Mishna, we shall find 
 that the portions allocated for special Sabbaths, like 
 those preceding the Feast of Passover, are also 
 mentioned under the name of Parasha, such as Parasha 
 Shekalim, thus called because it deals with the Shekalim 
 contribution by every Jew to the treasury of the Temple,
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 25 
 
 or Parasha Zakhor, in which the remembrance of 
 Amalek is mentioned, or the Parasha Hahodesh, the 
 important Parasha which ushered in the very important 
 first month of the year. It would be almost superfluous 
 to multiply these examples in the Mishna and Talmud 
 to prove the use of the word Parasha to denote thereby 
 sections of the Bible, especially when connected with the 
 service. 
 
 In the reading of the Maamadot of Genesis, ch. i., 
 verses 1-5 are called a great Parasha, and 6-8 a small 
 Parasha, and it is said that the great Parasha is read 
 to two persons and the small Parasha to one person. 
 The reading is as follows : The first person reads 
 verses 1-3, and the second 3-5, and the third 6-8, each 
 one three verses. The second day (Monday) verses 6-13 
 divided in the same manner, the third day (Tuesday) 
 verses 9-18, the fourth day (Wednesday) 14^22, the fifth 
 day (Thursday) 19-24, and the sixth day (Friday) verse 23 
 to chapter n. 2. Here we have then the small section 
 called Parasha just like the larger section mentioned 
 above. Occasionally other sections in the Prophets 
 and Holy Writings are mentioned by the name Parasha, 
 but quite exceptionally. No other word is used for the 
 designation of these sections, no other title ever alluded 
 to, no other was so deeply rooted as this word for denoting 
 the Sections. In the oldest Halachic Midrashim, notably 
 in the Sifra, belonging probably in its original form to the 
 second century, this very division has still been re- 
 tained, with the name of Parasha. Occasionally this 
 Midrash has preserved also the name Dibbur or Dibra, 
 which has been mentioned above. It would be perhaps 
 hazardous as yet to discuss the name of Parashiyot in 
 the old Halachic and Agadic Midrashim unless we have 
 established the contention on unassailable ground that 
 down to a very late period, perhaps down to the sixth 
 or seventh century, no other name has been applied to 
 these sections. 
 
 In what manner were these sections used for the
 
 26 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 liturgy in the Temple and outside the Temple ? We 
 shall have to distinguish between the use made of 
 special sections of the Law or the Pentateuch for select 
 occasions like New Moon, specially appointed days in 
 the Bible for holy observances, when additional sacri- 
 fices had to be brought, and when other ritual cere- 
 monies were prescribed to be performed in conjunction 
 with sacrifices such as heave-offering (the Omer), the 
 firstlings (Bikkurim), etc., and the other readings of 
 the Law in the Temple, like the reading by the 
 King on the Jubilee. In addition to these we shall 
 have to consider the consecutive reading of the Law 
 for didactic purposes and in the liturgy. Here we are 
 face to face with a difficult problem, not easy of solution. 
 What was the form of the worship of the Jews outside 
 the Temple ? They could not offer up sacrifices on those 
 specially appointed days and seasons. What kind of prac- 
 tice did they institute in order, as it were, to perform so 
 sacred a duty incumbent upon them ? That they had 
 synagogues cannot be doubted, places of assembly for 
 worship and prayer, and no doubt also for study. 
 That they gathered on festive occasions, especially 
 on Sabbaths, New Moon, and other great days, requires 
 no proof. The evidence given at the beginning of this 
 article satisfies us amply on that head. It does not 
 affect our question, what kind of service they had in 
 the Temple of Yeb, or rather Assuan, as disclosed by the 
 papyri. The references are too vague to allow us to 
 come to a definite conclusion. But a careful examina- 
 tion has satisfied me that no real sacrifices were sanc- 
 tioned. Only incense offerings, and other bloodless 
 offerings, seem to be referred to in these precious frag- 
 ments of the past. In the Temple of Onias in Alexan- 
 dria, we are distinctly told that they read the Law 
 publicly ; no mention is made of any sacrifices. The 
 service of the Maamadot may help us however, if not 
 to solve, at any rate to approach the solution of these 
 problems, and if we study in addition the Samaritan
 
 A CHAPTEE ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 27 
 
 liturgy and some other indications in the history of our 
 own liturgy, what may have been an hypothesis will be 
 raised to a certainty. We have, moreover, the unanimous 
 tradition of Jews and Samaritans on this point, namely, 
 that in addition to the first chapter of Genesis other 
 portions Parashiyot were selected in their entirety 
 and read one after the other ; and that on such special 
 occasions, like New Moon, New Year, Pesah, etc., those 
 small sections Parashiyot in which the observance 
 of that special day was enjoined, or the actions to be 
 performed on that day were described, these sections 
 were read in lieu of the sacrifices in which they could 
 not take part, the Temple being too far away. This hap- 
 pened whilst the Temple existed. And still more so, 
 when they were no longer in a position to perform them 
 after the destruction of the Temple. In the liturgy, 
 notably in that of the special days, we find, in fact, 
 incorporated in the part of the prayer such short 
 sections or Parashiyot taken from the Bible which 
 refer to the special character of the day. 
 
 The Samaritans on their part have not only re- 
 tained the first chapter of Genesis, reading that also 
 in small portions every day like the Maamadot did in 
 olden times, but they call them almost by the same 
 name as they are called in the Mishna, " The Chapters 
 of Creation," Kisse deberiah, and then they read a 
 whole series of short Parashiyot or Kissin, as they call 
 them, inserting as we do precisely the same Parashiyot 
 from the Pentateuch on the several special occasions, 
 notably when they happen to be on the Sabbath. 
 The reading of the Shema is also the Samaritan practice. 
 The first Mishna of Berakhot already speaks of the 
 reading of the Shema as an old-established custom, and 
 calls it by the initial word Shema", although it embraces 
 three independent sections, and we find later on in the 
 Talmud a question by R. Napha why the two sec- 
 tions of the Shema are arranged in an order contrary to 
 that in Deuteronomy. (It is unfortunate that all this
 
 28 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 part which gives us a clear insight into the liturgy of the 
 Samaritans has been entirely omitted by Dr. A. Cowley 
 in his edition of the Samaritan liturgy. Not a trace 
 is left, and the references that are made sometimes in 
 the text are therefore absolutely unintelligible.) I re- 
 frain from referring to the other parts of our liturgy, 
 consisting of a mosaic of Biblical verses, selected with 
 a view to the festival, or the special occasion when they 
 are to be recited, such as verses referring to the Sab- 
 bath or New Moon, or on other occasions such as in 
 the Selihot the Musaph Amidah of New Year, etc., 
 collected together. On an elaborate scale this practice 
 is found among the Samaritans and Karaites. This is 
 mentioned here for the purpose only of showing that 
 there was a further development in the introduction of 
 Biblical verses in the liturgy after the time when the use 
 of the smaller portions had become rigidly fixed. The 
 part forming the prayer proper in which these had 
 taken their place did not exhaust all the requirements 
 of the service. The people were not satisfied with the 
 shorter sections which merely informed them on occa- 
 sions of the Biblical injunction referring to the import- 
 ance and character of the day they were celebrating. 
 The Bible could not remain to them a closed book, 
 and probably the reading of the Law in its entirety 
 preceded the Order of the service proper. The latter 
 found its expression by the worship in the Temple, 
 and by such devotional exercises as they were ready 
 to institute in imitation of the Temple worship. But 
 the study and reading of the Law stood by itself, and 
 it was not confined to the centres of the learned. 
 Tradition tells that the institution of the public reading 
 of the Law goes back to the very beginnings of the 
 foundation of the people as the People of God. Through- 
 out the Bible we read, " Thou shalt meditate on it," and 
 " Thou shalt read it " ; and, " Delight in the Law." It 
 is too well known to require any further proof that 
 the study of the Law was considered a most meri-
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 29 
 
 torious act, and to read publicly in the Law was to 
 make it possible for others to partake of that merit. 
 As far back as our tradition goes, public reading and 
 private study of the Law seem to be an integral part of 
 the religious life of the people. I am dealing with 
 these questions later on when following up the course 
 which these practices have taken during the centuries, 
 but no one denies the fact that the Law was read 
 publicly to the people, as mentioned by Josephus, 
 Philo, etc. 
 
 The question which we have now to face is : Upon 
 what system was this reading of the Law carried out ? 
 Here again the same old tradition informs us that Ezra 
 had appointed that the curses in Leviticus should be 
 read before the Feast of Weeks and the curses in 
 Deuteronomy before the New Year. This is a defi- 
 nite starting-point which shows unmistakably that 
 the reading of the whole of the Pentateuch must have 
 been completed in one year, otherwise it would have 
 been impossible so to regulate the reading that these 
 portions should fall in their consecutive order at those 
 fixed periods. It is impossible to imagine that only select 
 sections could have been meant, for there would have 
 been then no reason to fix a definite period. The rule 
 which is laid down that close upon four months must 
 elapse between the last chapter of Leviticus and Deuter- 
 onomy xxvii. and xxvni., gives us just the space required 
 for the two books (Numbers and Deuteronomy I.-XXVIL), 
 whilst the other seven months could be allotted to the first 
 three books of the Pentateuch. The month of Tishri was 
 given up to the reading of the select sections referring to 
 the Festivals and Holy Days. The tradition in the Mishna 
 knows, in fact, no other division of the Pentateuch ; 
 it assumes the annual cycle, and the discussion as in 
 Megillah, 29 fi., turns on finding a way to adjust the 
 reading of the weekly portions with the additional 
 readings for special Sabbaths, such as the four special 
 Sabbaths before Pesah, or that Sabbath on which
 
 30 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 Rosh Hodesh may happen to fall, meaning the Sabbath 
 in Hanukah. The question was, how to arrange for 
 the reading of Parashat Nesiim (the portion of the 
 offerings of the princes) or those in which the Shekalim, 
 Amalek, and others are to be mentioned in conjunction 
 with, or in lieu of, the regular weekly portion. These and 
 all the other references to the reading of the Law pre- 
 suppose only an annual cycle. 
 
 How was the Bible then divided ? Into weekly 
 Portions. The old division into Parashiyot was not 
 touched. There is no new larger portion which breaks 
 up the smaller section or begins in the middle. 
 It is always a Petuha (rarely a Setuma) which separ- 
 ates the preceding from the succeeding portion. The 
 only change which has taken place, if change it be, 
 was to give to the word Parasha a somewhat different 
 and more restricted meaning, which becomes more 
 and more identified with the weekly portion, to 
 the detriment of the older application of the word, 
 causing thereby some confusion. Anyone who finds, 
 for instance, either in the Samaritan Letter or in the 
 Rabbinical documents, the name of one of the 
 divisions quoted as Parasha has no doubt as to 
 what it really means. The difficulty arises when 
 reading older documents, Mishna, etc., and to some 
 extent the Sifra, to understand exactly what was meant 
 by that term. The meaning of Parasha as weekly 
 portion became soon an established fact. The Samari- 
 tans, who call their smaller portions Kissa, have chosen 
 the same word Parasha, writing it like the Hebrew, 
 but pronouncing it Barasha, to designate the weekly 
 portion into which they divide the Bible. This in- 
 vestigation has not the aim of proving that the Torah 
 was read publicly. The question which we are pursuing 
 and endeavouring to settle is the manner in which the 
 public reading, and to a certain extent the private 
 study and reading, was carried out. Was there no 
 other system except the annual ? Is there no trace of
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 31 
 
 any different system of reading found in the literature 
 clearly and unmistakably enunciated as such ? And 
 do we find in the Palaeography of the Biblical text any 
 indication or justification for such an assumption ? 
 These are the main points and to these we shall adhere. 
 It was necessary to establish, in the first place, the 
 primary division into Parashiyot or Sections as the 
 very basis for the division of the Law into Portions. 
 I have then proceeded to trace the way in which these 
 smaller Sections were used in the public worship in 
 the Temple by the High Priest, and by the King on 
 the one hand, and by the delegates as Maamadot 
 in private worship. The latter has shown us how 
 certain portions* were read, in what may be termed a 
 semi-public service. It was only carried on during 
 week-days and by a select few. We have, moreover, 
 seen that other Sections Parashiyot were embodied 
 in the service outside the Temple, i.e. in the Synagogue, 
 and on special occasions, notably on the Sabbath, New 
 Moon, Festivals, etc. Furthermore, that in accordance 
 with the whole Jewish tradition, the Law has been 
 divided into as many portions (lessons or Perikopes) 
 as there are weeks in the year. The number has been 
 fixed at fifty-four. During the year there are at 
 least a few Sabbaths on which Festivals occur, for 
 which separate readings have been instituted. These 
 larger portions have also been called Parasha, and 
 have assumed the names of the initial smaller Parasha 
 or section with which they begin. The name by which 
 the latter was known was transferred to the weekly 
 lesson. Originally, no doubt, the first and the last of 
 the smaller Parashiyot were mentioned in order to cir- 
 cumscribe and define exactly the extent of the weekly 
 portion. But later on, the custom having become 
 deeply rooted, it sufficed to mention only the name of 
 the initial small Parasha. 
 
 Now the fact that these portions are quoted by 
 the initial words is the best proof possible that they
 
 32 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 had been already established for a long time, and 
 that the Bible had been subdivided for public read- 
 ings in such manner, for the mere reference to the first 
 word was enough to characterise the portion meant. 
 The reference to Lekh Lekha, or Noah, was quite suffi- 
 cient for the people to understand to what it referred. 
 The Samaritans, in fact, have retained the older form of 
 quotation. Originally the portion was, e.g., from Lekh 
 Lekha to the portion Vayera, or Mikkes to Vayehi, 
 and the Samaritans to this very day so designate their 
 Portions, although in some instances for brevity's sake 
 they quote only the beginning (v. Letters to Scaliger 
 quoted above). They also know only the annual cycle, 
 as observed by Jews and Karaites. The Samaritans 
 have done exactly the same, though in not a few in- 
 stances they differ considerably from the Jews in the 
 starting-point of their Parasha. They sometimes begin 
 in the middle of one of our Parashiyot, but they follow 
 the same system and provide like the Jews also for 
 a larger number of Parashiyot for the intercalary year, 
 when four Sabbaths are added. They do it in the same 
 manner as we do, by dividing three or four longer 
 Parashiyot into six or eight shorter ones, or vice versa, 
 combining two or three into one, agreeing even in this 
 detail in some instances with the practice of the Jews. 
 They combine, e.g., Matot and Mas'ei together with 
 Pinehas, and the Portion corresponding to Nissabim, 
 Vayelekh, as we do. A close examination furthermore 
 shows that they never started from the middle of a 
 Kissa. Like the Jews, they start invariably from the 
 beginning of those smaller Sections marked by us as 
 Pet or Set, as the case may be, and clearly distinguished 
 by them as a Pet by a blank line between. Dr. Cowley 
 has reprinted the list of Parashiyot as found by him 
 in one of the Petermann MSS. in Berlin. But unfortu- 
 nately he has not noticed that the list for Genesis 
 which he published, is the extended list for the Leap 
 Year, and thus creates some confusion in the under-
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 33 
 
 standing of the division (J.Q.R., Vol. VII, 1894, 
 p. 137 ff). He starts Exodus with number 14, while 
 he leaves off Genesis with 18. The same list is also 
 found in my Cod. 1135. 
 
 It being of importance I reprint here in the Appendix 
 the whole calendar for one year like my Cod. 1150, 
 with all the indications week by week of the Portions 
 read, wherein also other calendaristic details of the 
 highest interest are given. That the Samaritan division 
 has not been done haphazard, but rests on very ancient 
 tradition, is evident from the fact that on one or two 
 occasions they start the " Barasha " with the very Por- 
 tions which we have selected for our Festivals and Holy 
 Days. I will refer to them anon, when examining the 
 Sifra and Pesikta. 
 
 Before I proceed to describe the way in which the 
 Portions are read, it is necessary to draw attention to 
 the further parallelism between Jews and Samaritans, 
 showing the extreme antiquity of the practice followed 
 by both. Both begin the reading of the Law immedi- 
 ately after the Feast of Tabernacles. It must be re- 
 membered that the King read the Law at the Jubilee, 
 also at the end of Tabernacles, and this, no doubt, 
 remained a starting-point for the annual reading for 
 the future. What is still more significant in the highest 
 degree is the arrangement in which both Jews and 
 Samaritans agree that the curses in Leviticus are read 
 before the Feast of Weeks, and those in Deuteronomy 
 before the New Year. A Leap Year makes no differ- 
 ence with this arrangement, for the Samaritans expand 
 the fourteen Portions into which they divide Genesis 
 into eighteen, in order to provide for their four inter- 
 calary Sabbaths. They begin the reading of the second 
 book of the Law invariably on the first Sabbath of the 
 eleventh month (Nisan is the first), and Leviticus with 
 the first Sabbath of Nisan. From this rule they do not 
 deviate. Remembering then that this arrangement of 
 the reading of the curses and blessings is traced back
 
 34 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 by tradition to Ezra, we have here an unexpected cor- 
 roboration by the reading of the Samaritans. No less 
 curious is, that on the last Sabbath of the eleventh 
 month (or the first of the twelfth) an additional 
 Portion is read, namely, Exodus xxx. 12, the well- 
 known additional Section to our Parasha Shekalim read 
 by us precisely at the same time. These are not 
 haphazard coincidences, for they run parallel in the 
 minute details of liturgical arrangement. Both point 
 thus to a far greater antiquity than has hitherto 
 been believed, for it cannot be stated often enough that 
 the Samaritans have borrowed just as little directly 
 from Rabbinical Judaism as the Jews have borrowed 
 from the Samaritans. 
 
 We shall now consider the way in which the weekly 
 lesson is read by the Jews, Samaritans, etc. How was 
 this weekly Portion read ? Did the people take any part 
 in the reading, and if so, in what manner ? It is im- 
 possible to assume, as some have done, that originally 
 the people read only one verse, and that three verses 
 formed the whole of the weekly Portion. The very 
 size of the ancient Parasha, which very seldom is less 
 than three verses and often consists of a larger number 
 of verses, precludes even the hypothetical assumption 
 of the possibility of such a short reading. It would 
 be almost ludicrous to imagine that men should be called 
 to read before the public one single verse, considering 
 that they were reading so many Parashiyot in their 
 prayers like those mentioned above, whilst the whole 
 of the reading of the Law should consist of one verse. 
 That three men should be called up on a solemn day 
 to exhibit the greatness and beauty of the Law by the 
 reading of one single verse each seems too preposterous 
 to be believed. There is not a shred of evidence for 
 such a system. The Mishna cited above makes it 
 perfectly clear that in the week-day semi-public reading 
 of the Maamadot, each of the persons was expected to 
 read at least three verses. Note that this was for a week-
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 35 
 
 day lesson. Why the minimum of three verses should 
 have been established is not mentioned anywhere. 
 But the reason is not far to seek. The priestly 
 blessing consists of three verses, and this no doubt was 
 taken as a model for the reading. The analogy of the 
 Samaritans does not sufficiently assist us in the history 
 of the reading of the Law, at any rate in one direction ; 
 although their practice is very suggestive in other direc- 
 tions. They do not read from the Scroll as far as I have 
 been able to ascertain. They have the Scrolls, it is true, 
 and they have used them in ancient times. In the later 
 centuries, however, they only take them out from the 
 Ark, show them to the people at the conclusion of the 
 prayer, and then settle down to read from their MS. 
 books. The cause may be that not being able to obtain 
 pure parchment from goat skins sacrificed ritually and 
 properly prepared owing to the loss of the ashes of 
 the Red Heifer, and being in a state of Levitical 
 impurity, they had no more "pure" parchment from 
 the fifteenth century on, as they assured me, and are 
 therefore, no doubt, afraid to wear out the few parchment 
 Scrolls by too constant use. They therefore use their 
 books, which are mostly written on paper. They have 
 a double system : one at the conclusion of the morning 
 service and one at the conclusion of the midday service. 
 In both the whole congregation takes part. The reading 
 in the morning is not, however, carried on in the " Kin- 
 sha " (their Synagogue), but in the " Bet-kahana " (the 
 house where the priests are dwelling), and there the 
 reading partakes of a character reminding one as em- 
 phatically as possible of the injunction mentioned in 
 the Talmud, that every man should read the Bible, 
 each verse twice in Hebrew and once in the Targum. 
 This system of reading the text twice and the Targum 
 once, I have seen done by the Yemenite Jews in Jerusa- 
 lem on Shabuoth afternoon, when squatting on the floor 
 in their Synagogue they read the Book of Ruth in such 
 manner. The Samaritans similarly read alternately ;
 
 36 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 the reader always one of the priests reads and the 
 congregation joins in either by repeating the verse or 
 reading the verses alternately during the morning 
 service. They have now forgotten the Targum, 
 which they used to read alternately with the Hebrew 
 text, in the same manner, I understand, down to 
 about 150 years ago, when the practice ceased, be- 
 cause the people had lost the knowledge of the 
 ancient Samaritan tongue in which the Targum is 
 composed, and therefore it had lost its meaning. They 
 read the whole Parasha, verse by verse, in the morning. 
 At the midday service we find they read the whole 
 Parasha again, but then the priest starts and reads the 
 first three or four verses of each Kissa corresponding 
 to our small Section, and the people afterwards read 
 the other half until they finish the whole of the weekly 
 lesson. Calling up therefore does not exist. With us 
 the former practice of reading the text with the Targum 
 alternately, now also given up, had been the general rule, 
 and has had an influence upon the study of the Law to 
 a far greater extent than has hitherto been surmised. 
 "It is incumbent upon every individual to read the 
 whole of the weekly portion to himself, twice in the 
 Hebrew text and once in the Targum " (Berakhot, 8a). 
 This will be considered in connection with the private 
 form of study. But we are still discussing the public read- 
 ing, where the Meturgeman had his place, and where, no 
 doubt, the reading was carried out exactly in the same 
 manner as the Samaritans did and do. Faint indications 
 of this are preserved by the way in which the Song of 
 Moses was read alternately by precentor and people, 
 and by the practice of the congregation chiming in at 
 the end of the sections in the Sabbath Portion. This 
 is merely a remnant of the older practice in which the 
 congregation, no doubt, repeated the Hebrew text, 
 verse by verse, and listened to the Meturgeman who 
 explained it to them in the vernacular. 
 
 As regards the minor subdivision or the calling up of
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 37 
 
 people to the reading of the Law, we find that the 
 Levites in the Temple already are stated to have read 
 the Portion in precisely the same manner, dividing 
 the weekly Portion into seven smaller Sections as we 
 do. A Synagogue from which the Scroll of the Law is 
 taken is mentioned in the Mishna referred to before. 
 It is from that Synagogue that the Kazan took the 
 Scroll and gave it to the High Priest, and he to the 
 King. So there must have been a Synagogue within 
 the precincts of the Temple itself. This division into 
 seven is not an artificial one as it might appear from a 
 casual study of the passage in the Talmud, where a 
 gradual development seems to be indicated by the 
 enumeration of the various occasions in which the 
 number of people to be called up that is who are to 
 take their share in the public reading is successively 
 increased from three on week-days to four on New 
 Moon, etc., until seven on Sabbath. The seven portions, 
 no doubt, correspond with the seven days of the week, 
 and are unquestionably a very old practice. But this 
 is a minor point which I cannot pursue any further 
 here. 
 
 What part the Kohen, as such, may have taken in the 
 public reading of the Law is one of the problems which 
 await solution. It is intimately connected with the 
 question raised by me, as to the form of the Jewish 
 worship outside the Temple. In close relation to it 
 stands, of course, the position held by the Kohen in the 
 community. 
 
 The fact that the Samaritans still give to the Kohen 
 a pre-eminent position in all religious questions cannot 
 be overlooked. Of no less importance is the Christian 
 practice which gives to the priest functions absolutely 
 identical with those claimed by the Jewish Kohen. He 
 alone was and is allowed to deal with the Sacraments and 
 holy offices. In the Church he is primarily, or the only 
 person who leads and reads the prayer. He was presum- 
 ably also the leader and reader in the Synagogue, and
 
 38 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 hence his claim to be the first to take part in the reading 
 of the Law, just as the Samaritan priests do to this very 
 day, in their service. If, as suggested above, the reading 
 of three verses is an imitation of the threefold blessing 
 of the priest, it is obvious that the Kohen should be 
 expected to read also, in the first instance, the portion 
 of the Law and afterwards to retain at least the first 
 position in the reading. To return now to the system 
 of reading, the practice of the Church shows that 
 it knows only an annual cycle. The Church ex- 
 tended it over the Old and New Testaments, originally 
 reading only the Old, until the New was considered 
 to be of equal sanctity, that is, when the Heathen- 
 Christian element prevailed over the Jewish-Christian. 
 Then they slowly eliminated the reading of the Old, 
 and substituted for it almost exclusively the reading of 
 the New Testament, retaining, however, the system of 
 an annual cycle. The general principle of the lessons 
 of the Church is exactly the same as that of the Jewish 
 lesson. On festive occasions special portions fitted for 
 the occasion are read from the Old Testament and New 
 Testament bearing on the importance of the day ; 
 and throughout the special season of the year selections 
 are made from the Bible for the same purpose of 
 public reading. The comparison which I established 
 before when dealing with the sectional division between 
 the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Greek Bibles will help us 
 to understand the practice of the Church. It follows 
 here absolutely and entirely the example of the Syna- 
 gogue and the Kinsha. The lessons from the Old 
 Testament for the Christian Lectionaries, notably in 
 the Triodion for the Quadragesima, are sections taken 
 from the LXX, determined by the original division of 
 the Greek text ; they also begin with the first verse of 
 a section and finish with the last verse. They never 
 begin the lesson in the middle, just as the Jews never 
 start any lesson from the middle of a small Parasha, 
 or the Samaritans in the middle of a Kissa. For the
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 39 
 
 Church the Books of the Bible stand on a different 
 plane, and preference is given or no doubt was given 
 to those chapters of the Prophets which lent themselves 
 to a Christological interpretation. When the new dis- 
 pensation dispensed practically with " the Law/' it 
 was obvious that no such prominence would be given 
 to portions from the Law as is done by Jews and Samari- 
 tans. 
 
 It is curious how little is known of the beginnings of 
 the ancient Christian liturgy. The recent researches 
 of Glaue, Die Vorlesung heiliger Schriften im Gottes- 
 dienste, and the book of Harnack, Uber den Privaten 
 Gebrauch der Heiligen Schriften in d. Alien Kir die (Leipzig, 
 1912), throw very little light on the reading of 
 lessons from the Old Testament in the first two 
 centuries of the Christian Church. But the investi- 
 gation which I have carried out leaves no doubt as to 
 the system and the practice followed in the primitive 
 Church. The result from the lesson of the Church falls 
 into line with the result obtained from the readings in 
 the Synagogue and Kinsha. They all point in the 
 same direction and prove mutually their antiquity. 
 Direct dependence of one upon the other is utterly im- 
 possible, for though they agree in the main principle, 
 they differ sufficiently in detail to obviate the possi- 
 bility of any direct borrowing. 
 
 Another point is the size of the lesson of the Church. 
 On an average it is about twenty-five to thirty verses ; 
 herein again, no doubt, the Church follows the old 
 example of the Jews where the smaller daily lesson 
 certainly contained more than eight or nine verses. 
 No question thus of a possible reading consisting of one 
 or three verses alone even for a week-day, and still less 
 for a Sabbath, Festival or other Holy Day. These lessons 
 must have been of the size of the actual Parasha. As 
 the matter is of still wider importance, I will mention 
 here the lesson from the Old Testament read during the 
 Lenten weeks (from Ash Wednesday to Easter) accord-
 
 40 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 ing to the Byzantine and the Syriac rites, limiting my- 
 self to the lessons of the first ten chapters of Genesis ; 
 the former from the Triodion, the latter according to 
 the list given in Maclean's East Syrian Daily Offices, 
 page 284. In the Greek the lessons read are as follows : 
 
 I. Hon., Gen. i. 1-13. Tues., 14-23. Wed., 24- 
 Gen. ii. 3. Thurs., n. 4-19. 
 
 II. Hon., m. 21 ff. Tues., iv. 8 ff. Wed., iv. 16. 
 Thurs., v. 1-24. 
 
 III. Mon., vi. 9-22. Tues., vn. 5. Wed., vn. 6-9. 
 Thurs., vii. 11-vni. 3. Fri., vm. 4-210. 
 
 IV. Mon., vm. 216 ix. 7. Tues., ix. 8. Wed., ix. 18. 
 Thurs., x. 1-9. 
 
 In the Syriac the reading from the first ten chapters 
 of Genesis is : 
 
 I. Mon., Gen. i. 1-20. Tues., I. 20-n. 8. Wed., n. 
 8 to end. Thurs., m. 1-20. Fri., m. 20 to end. 
 
 II. Sun., v. 18-32. Fri., v. 32 to end of vi. 
 
 III. Sun., vii. Fri., ix. 8 to end. 
 
 Of these two the Greek seems to be the older, and the 
 other the Syriac a somewhat later division ; yet both 
 follow the same principle of providing daily lessons from 
 the Old Testament. They take as basis for their 
 division what will be certainly a great surprise to 
 students of the history of the Christian liturgy, a division 
 of the text which coincides down to the minutest detail 
 with the Samaritan division of the Hebrew text. It is 
 noteworthy, for instance, that Genesis vm. 21 should 
 be broken up in the Greek lesson into two verses, and 
 that one lesson should finish with 2la and the other 
 begin with 21 b, a division which coincides absolutely 
 with the Samaritan division, and is not found even in the 
 Septuagint. 
 
 It is not necessary to pursue this comparison 
 much further. It is quite sufficient to prove (a) that 
 the continuous reading of the text was the practice of
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 41 
 
 the Church, (6) that the reading was extended over a 
 good number of verses, although no one was called up, 
 and the whole of the reading was left entirely to the 
 priest, (c) that the ancient subdivision of the text into 
 small Parashiyot was taken as the basis for the arrange- 
 ment of the lessons, none venturing to break up these 
 sections. If we then turn to the Palestine Syriac Lec- 
 tionary of the Gospels, dating probably from the 
 fourth or fifth century, the same tradition meets us for 
 dividing the whole of the Gospels into large sections 
 for the purpose of reading them as lessons during divine 
 service, and finishing the reading in the course of one 
 year. The tradition of the Church is thus uniform with 
 that of the Kinsha and the Synagogue ; for the Chris- 
 tians certainly would not have invented an annual 
 cycle or arranged the reading of the sacred Scriptures 
 unless they followed a universally accepted tradition 
 considered ancient, well established and holy. No- 
 where is there to be found a trace of any other division 
 of the Bible, and nowhere is there an attempt of es- 
 tablishing a cycle of lessons extending beyond one 
 year. 
 
 The Karaites may be mentioned here, although they 
 are of a' very late origin ; but in view of their dislike to 
 everything that appeared to them to be of Rabbinical 
 origin, and their claim to be the representatives of the 
 older, undiluted Biblical tradition, if they had found 
 anywhere a practice which they thought to be of a 
 recent origin, or an arrangement based merely upon 
 Rabbinical interpretation, they would certainly have 
 altered it, just to show their opposition and their in- 
 dependence. The yearly cycle as given by Bashyatchi in 
 his AderetEliyahu (Odessa, f. 105a), is precisely the same 
 as that of the Jews, nor does the author of this Karaite 
 Code of Laws in any degree remotely point or allude 
 to any other form of reading but the annual cycle. 
 He says, moreover, it is based by them on the statement 
 in the Book of Ezra (Neh. viu. 18), " Also day by day,
 
 42 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 from the first day unto the last day, he read in the Book 
 of the law of God," that is, as they explain it, from the 
 day after Succoth to the same day a year hence. The 
 daily lessons in the churches and the practice of the 
 Anglican Church seem to rest also on this statement. 
 The Karaites call their weekly lessons " Parasha," and 
 they have no other name for them. They read the 
 Parasha almost in the same manner as we do. In the 
 Prayer Book it is mentioned that " on the Sabbath in 
 which no Scroll is taken out the people read from the 
 Humash, viz. the book; according to custom the Haham 
 reads the first verse, the people continue and the 
 Haham concludes." This reminds one very forcibly of 
 the system prevailing among the Samaritans. But 
 when they read out of the Scroll, they also divide the 
 Portions into seven on the Sabbath, and the Kohen is 
 the first to be called up to the reading. 
 
 The list of Haftarot given on f. 1056 is not entirely 
 different, as some have asserted, from that of the Jews. 
 From Numbers to the end of Deuteronomy, with one 
 or two exceptions, the Haftarot are precisely the same 
 as those read by the Jews, and a notable fact is that 
 the special Haftarot for the " three weeks of trouble " 
 and the " seven weeks of comfort " are almost the 
 same as the Jewish. Of the three between 17th of 
 Tammuz and 9th of Ab two are identical. The difference, 
 therefore, between Jews and Karaites amounts to 
 very little ; and is not much greater than that exist- 
 ing between the Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Yemenite, 
 Italian, Persian, not to speak of other Rites. We find 
 thus the same tradition even in the question of Haftarot, 
 that only an annual cycle is known and practised. 
 We see by their choice of chapters from the Prophets 
 to be used as Haftarot that they believed the chapters 
 read by the Jews as Haftarot rested on Rabbinical 
 authority only ; and therefore, whilst accepting the 
 principle of the reading of the Haftarah, they often 
 selected deliberately other chapters in lieu of those read
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 43 
 
 by the Jews. Up to a certain date there was some 
 latitude in the choice of the Haftarah, as the divergence 
 between the various Jewish Rites shows. 
 
 But the Karaites never ventured to alter the reading 
 of the Law ; they followed exactly the same principle 
 and the same tradition as the Jews ; for it was to them 
 an equally ancient and sacred tradition, although they 
 claim for themselves an independent calculation of the 
 calendar and different counting of the seven weeks 
 which separate Pesach from Shebuoth. The latter falls 
 with them always on a Sunday as with the Samaritans 
 and the ancient Sadducees. But despite this difference, 
 the division of the Bible is mainly the same, and they 
 know only an annual cycle. 
 
 At a very late period, so late that its beginnings are 
 not difficult to determine, a new word, Seder or 
 rather the plural, Sedarim turns up, notably in Mas- 
 soretic treatises, with a specific meaning. It is there 
 employed to mark divisions of the Bible. I will not 
 as yet discuss the interpretation placed upon this new 
 division. For the time being we are considering this 
 division of the Bible from a purely palaBographical and 
 archaeological point of view. It has already been shown 
 that the scroll of the Bible in accordance with the tradition 
 preserved by the Jews, Samaritans, and Christians alike 
 was written in a uniform manner and with definite 
 divisions marked off, and that such divisions have never 
 changed. On the contrary, they formed a rigid frame- 
 work for any ulterior arrangement of the text of the 
 Bible. So rigid was this division, that the Law would 
 never allow the slightest deviation, and any change 
 sufficed to make the Scroll unfit for religious service. 
 The column was eliminated or so corrected as to re- 
 establish the proper form of writing. It has been shown 
 that the Parashiyot could not be divided ; and it was 
 later on laid down as a rule that no man called up to the 
 Law could break off the reading unless he either read 
 to the end of that section (Parasha) or at least left
 
 44 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 three verses before the end to enable another person to 
 be called up. 
 
 The great antiquity of this division is shown by the 
 mode of writing the scrolls. A blank line originally 
 divided one section from the other, and a larger space 
 divided one of the five books from the other. The weekly 
 portion falls in entirely with this arrangement, and no 
 weekly lesson is known to begin in the middle of a section. 
 Now this tradition is limited to the Pentateuch. No 
 indications are found in the Mishna or Talmud of any 
 such divisions of the other Books of the Bible, Prophets, 
 Holy Writings, except for one or two rare instances 
 where the words Parasha or Perek are used, to which 
 reference will be made later on ; there is no question of 
 Parashiyot as a regular institution or division. No rules 
 are laid down for writing and dividing these Books of 
 the Bible in a special, clearly prescribed manner, nor is 
 there any direction as to what would make such a book 
 fit or unfit for service when used for the reading of the 
 Haftarah. The same holds good for the five scrolls, not 
 excepting the Book of Esther. When the Talmud dis- 
 cusses at length, in the treatise Megillah, how the latter 
 is to be written and read, no reference is made to any in- 
 ternal division or Parasha ; in fact, there existed none 
 which has been authoritatively or universally recognised 
 and followed as such, and there is nowhere greater inde- 
 pendence than in the copies of these parts of the Bible.* 
 
 Even in the MSS. containing only the Haftarot, and 
 therefore destined to be used in the Synagogue for 
 religious service and to be read immediately after the 
 Law, great obscurity prevails. There is no fixed tra- 
 dition as to how these portions from the Prophets 
 should be written and how they should be subdivided. 
 No Haftarah nor any other portion of the Bible out- 
 
 * It is a pity that Prof. Kittle should have taken it wantonly upon 
 himself to introduce irrelevant and misleading divisions in his edition of 
 the Bible. He has no authority for it, and still less to decide which is to 
 be a Petuha and which a Setuma (an open or a closed section) in Prophets 
 and Holy Writings.
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 45 
 
 side the Pentateuch has ever been called Parasha. 
 If, however, the Sedarim represent and, as has been 
 assumed, stand in direct connection with the public 
 reading of the Law in the Synagogue, it is more than 
 surprising that no graphic trace of such a division 
 should be found in any MSS. of whatever age and place. 
 In those few MSS. in which the Sedarim are marked, this 
 is not done, let it be noted, in the Scroll but in the book 
 form ; the letter D (Seder) is written at the margin to 
 show where the Seder begins, just like any other Mas- 
 soretic marginal note of late date and of no legal value. 
 There is no division inside the text ; there is no blank 
 space left, there is no internal sign, nothing to show that 
 there is a break. Persons unacquainted with the Masso- 
 retic Sigla might be induced to believe that it is the sign 
 for Setuma, which by a mistake had got into the margin. 
 Even that D is not found in any of the Biblical MSS. 
 before the twelfth century and rarely even later. But 
 what goes further to prove the recent and non-liturgical 
 origin of this division is that it has been extended 
 to the whole of the Bible. No one can maintain that 
 the Prophets and Holy Writings have ever been read 
 publicly in connection with the liturgy and in any con- 
 secutive order. That the whole of the Bible should 
 have been so divided is evidence that it has not been 
 done in obedience to any regulation or principle accord- 
 ing to which they were to be used as lessons. There are 
 many books of the Holy Writings which have never been 
 used as such in their entirety, or in any large portions, 
 for any divine service ; such as Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, 
 Chronicles, Proverbs, or even Job. The reading of 
 these books is mentioned in Mishna Yoma among 
 those which the sages read to the High Priest privately. 
 They were singled out for the reading to the High 
 Priest, no doubt, for that very reason that they were 
 otherwise never used in public worship. Of the 
 Prophets themselves, it is well known, only selected 
 chapters are read as Haftarot. It would be a remark-
 
 46 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 able claim, after the whole of the Bible had been divided 
 into some 452 divisions for no liturgical purpose, to 
 say that the same division limited to the Pentateuch 
 rests upon a definite liturgical use to which the Penta- 
 teuch has been put. Either the division embraces the 
 whole and rests on a principle affecting the whole of the 
 Bible, or it does not. It cannot be claimed to be applied 
 in one way for one section (the Law), and to owe its origin 
 separately for that portion, whilst no explanation can 
 be given for the extension of that principle to the rest 
 of the Bible. If the Pentateuch had been divided into 
 150 weekly lessons for liturgical purposes, the division 
 of the rest of the books of the Bible could not have 
 been made for the same reason, as it cannot be applied 
 to the Prophets and Holy Writings. It is therefore 
 clear that Sedarim have nothing to do with Synagogue 
 lessons or Perikopes. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the other books of the 
 Bible must also have been divided into smaller sec- 
 tions ; but there is no fixed tradition for such division 
 nor any decisive authoritative rule as to the character 
 of the section, whether it be open or closed. It can 
 be shown, however, that the example of the Pentateuch 
 served as the model in general outline for the divisions of 
 the other parts of the Bible. The oldest division is that 
 of the Psalter, which has been broken up into five books, 
 like the Pentateuch. The Psalter was the hymn-book 
 in the Temple, as proved by the ancient testimony of 
 the Levites singing Psalms in the time of Ezra and 
 later (Rosh. Hash. 31a), an example followed by the 
 Synagogue and the Church. Curiously enough, the 
 Samaritans call their hymns " tehilot " (or, tehilelot), 
 probably the older name for our Book of Psalms (so 
 Ben Asher) " tehilim " being the later form and used 
 to differentiate between the Biblical book and other 
 liturgical hymns. To this day the Synagogue makes 
 large use of the Psalter. This division of the Psalter 
 into five books belongs to a very ancient period, long
 
 A CHAPTEE ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 47 
 
 before the Massora. Proof thereof is the doxology at 
 the end of each of the last four books ; and in our daily 
 morning service, after the doxology with which the 
 Halleluyahs conclude, we also recite the doxologies 
 of the preceding four books together, as if we had 
 read the whole of the Psalter during that service.* The 
 Psalter was subsequently divided into thirty sections, 
 a certain number of Psalms being set aside for each day 
 of the month ; a division with which we shall deal 
 later. The five Megillot, or scrolls, no doubt owe 
 their origin and arrangement to the same desire of 
 following the example of the Law's division into five 
 books. The five scrolls were used also in the liturgy. 
 But besides this division of these books (Psalter and 
 five Megillot) we must presume that all the books of 
 the Bible were divided into smaller or larger sections, 
 following the basis laid down for the division of the 
 Pentateuch into Parashiyot, either when starting a new 
 subject, or a new prophecy, or a new date. 
 
 It would be of real importance if the Sedarim 
 could be shown to represent an ancient division. But 
 the divisions found in ancient MSS. of the Bible are 
 of a totally different character, agreeing in the main 
 with the small sections or Parashiyot of the Pentateuch. 
 The Septuagint is also subdivided into smaller portions, 
 though those found in the Greek text do not tally with 
 those found in some of the Hebrew manuscript Bibles. 
 If we now continue our examination of the Sedarim 
 we shall find that the tradition about the numbers is 
 anything but reliable. According to one account there 
 are 154, according to another 158, and according to a 
 third 167 Sedarim. None of them can be explained on 
 any possible calculation. Moreover, if we are to follow 
 Ginsburg (Introduction to the Bible, pp. 33-4), there is 
 a fourth tradition contained in a MS. with the Massora 
 
 * Of course each Psalm forms a small section for itself like the Parasha 
 of the Law, and we find indeed some Psalms are quoted as Parasha or 
 Perek in the Talmud, Ber. II, 1-2 ; Berach 96 and 136 ; Gittin 60a ; Rosh. 
 Hash. 306. (A small portion in Isaiah is also called Parasha : Meg. 24a.)
 
 48 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 Parva which disagrees with the others. On examining 
 these Sedarim a little more closely, we shall be struck 
 by the incongruity of the size. Assuming for argu- 
 ment's sake that these Sedarim served some liturgical 
 purpose and constituted the weekly lesson in the 
 Synagogue, we find that some of them consist of 
 seven, eight, or fifteen verses, whilst others run into 
 chapters. Surely it is impossible to imagine that 
 those who were responsible for such a division should 
 not have tried to standardise these weekly lessons, 
 and make them more or less of equal size. Are we to 
 assume that those who used the Sedarim for their 
 weekly lesson had gone entirely against the rules laid 
 down for Jewish public worship, that they should es- 
 tablish for themselves new rules and regulations which 
 flew in the face of all the tradition of the past ; that 
 they should have ignored the practice of the Temple and 
 the practice of the Synagogue as described in the Mishna 
 and the Talmud, that they should have ignored the 
 ancient division of Parashiyot and started their weekly 
 portions from the middle of these sections as, e.g., 
 in Genesis xix. 1 ; xxvu. 28, etc., that they should 
 deviate from the number of persons to be called up, 
 the number of verses to be read on such occasions, all 
 this for centuries, and, forsooth, in Palestine, without 
 leaving a single trace in the practice and terminology of 
 the Synagogue ? Not only is there no mention anywhere 
 in the whole literature of any weekly division by the 
 name of Seder, but also the readings from the Prophets 
 must have been entirely different and independent in 
 size and selection of those that have formed the read- 
 ings of the Prophets as Haftarot from remote antiquity. 
 For the Sedarim in the Prophets are, almost without 
 exception, of a much larger size than the Haftarot ; a 
 Seder often being equal to two or three chapters. 
 Isaiah has only twenty-six, Ezekiel twenty-nine, the 
 Minor Prophets twenty-one, and the whole of the Book 
 of Psalms nineteen. If these Sedarim hold good also
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 49 
 
 for Haftarot, what a profound difference between the 
 obligatory weekly lesson of the Torah consisting of 
 perhaps seven or eight verses, and the Haftarah from 
 the Prophet of fifty or sixty verses ! 
 
 In addition to this deficiency from a palaeographical 
 point of view of distinctive signs by which these Sedarim 
 are marked off in the Scroll, there is also a complete 
 absence of any direction or rule for the marking of 
 such division. If one remembers the strictness of the 
 rules laid down for the open and closed sections, it is 
 more than surprising that no care should have been 
 taken, if this division into Sedarim were an old one, to 
 lay down some rule or some legal guide for marking 
 them in the Scroll. It is inconceivable that such a 
 division could have obtained over a wider area over the 
 whole of Palestine, and in ancient times covering the 
 whole of the Talmudic period, without any legal formula- 
 tion of the rules and principles underlying such division. 
 How little they could be or have been connected with 
 the history of the Scroll and the use to which it was put 
 in the public service can be seen by the continued 
 silence of all authorities, almost without exception. 
 It is sufficient to quote Maimonides, especially as I shall 
 have to refer to him in connection with the alleged 
 three-year cycle. In his Hilkhot Sefer Torah, Sect. 
 Ahabah, he devotes a long chapter (chapter vm.) to a 
 minute and detailed description of the open and closed 
 sections of the Pentateuch. He enumerates each one 
 and describes very carefully whether it should be open 
 or closed, and he gives as his authority the famous 
 model code of Ben Asher, originally kept in Jerusalem 
 and then used by him in Egypt. But he never men- 
 tions even the word Seder, and does not seem to be 
 aware of any other authoritative division of the Law 
 but that into Parashiyot. No less interesting is the 
 still more minute description of the Scroll by Meiri, 
 who in 1305 wrote his Kiryat Sefer, containing a minute 
 treatment of every letter, nay, of every jot and tittle,
 
 50 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 in the sacred Scroll. He calls every one of these smaller 
 sections by the ancient name of Parasha, but he knows 
 nothing of any other division of the Bible or of the 
 supposed Sedarim. On the contrary, as far as I am 
 aware, he is the first to call our usual weekly Portion, 
 i.e. of the annual cycle, by the name of Seder. 
 
 I turn now from the palseographical to the philological 
 investigation of the word Seder and its use in Rabbinical 
 literature. It will be found that in the whole of that 
 literature Mishna, Talmud, Agadah the word Seder has 
 only one definite meaning, that of order, the succession 
 of things, facts, deeds, performances, the complex of 
 actions that follow one another in a definite series. It 
 has never been connected with any division or section 
 referring to the Bible. 
 
 There is not one single example which can be ad- 
 duced, as far as I am aware, to show that it has ever 
 been taken as equivalent to Parasha, either in the 
 ancient meaning of the original smaller section, or in 
 the later development which made that word identical 
 with the weekly Portion (lesson, perikopes). It is 
 necessary to settle this point as clearly as possible ; for 
 only thus many a misconception will disappear. I will 
 take a few examples at random from the Mishna and 
 Talmud, and it will be seen that the word Seder has 
 never been used otherwise but as the designation of 
 order, or sequence. What can we want more than the 
 expression " Seder of the Parashiyot," used in Megillah 
 in. 4 in connection with the discussion of the four 
 special portions for the four Sabbaths ? and it is further- 
 more stated (ibid.) that they (the Parashiyot) are read 
 Kesidran, i.e. in their proper " order/' We have the word 
 Seder Hayom (Mishna Yoma I. 3), meaning the whole 
 " order " of service for the Day of Atonement ; and 
 (ibid. v. 7) everything is described in proper " order" 
 al Jiaseder. We have Seder Berakhot, "order" of the 
 blessings and benedictions, in Bera. 486; the "order" 
 of the blessing after meals (ibid.). We have Seder
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 51 
 
 Vidui, " order " of confession (ibid. 31a), Seder Tefilah, 
 the " order " of Prayer (Rosh. Hash. 176). Special stress 
 must be laid on the following citation. When the Tal- 
 mud wishes to describe the " order " of the books of the 
 Bible (Baba Bathra 146), it speaks of them as the Sidran 
 Shel Nebiim, and Sidran Shel Kethubim, the " order " 
 of the Books of the Prophets and the " order " of the 
 Books of the Holy Writings. The Talmud does not 
 refer here to any internal division called " Seder," but 
 only to the sequence of the books. No less interesting 
 is the reference to the " order " of the creation, which is 
 called Sidre Bereshit (Sabb. 536, Kethub. 1036) ; whilst 
 when these chapters are ' mentioned as " lessons " in 
 the liturgy they are called Parashiyot, as shown above. 
 We have, furthermore, the Seder of the Maamadot in 
 Taanit in. 7, meaning the " order " of the successive 
 Maamadot, but not referring to the Parashiyot read 
 at the Maamadot. We have Seder Hakeriah, " order" of 
 the reading of the Law, but nothing that would indicate 
 that thereby was meant which special portion of the Law 
 was to be read. It is simply used to describe the 
 " order " in which the people are to be called up Kohen 
 first, Levite second, and Yisrael third, when the Scroll 
 is taken out for the portion of the day, Sabbath, New 
 Moon, Hanukah, etc. In Yoma 33a we find Abbaye 
 arranges the Seder Hama'arakhah, or the " order " of 
 the daily service in the Temple. 
 
 Turning to our Prayer Book we find, e.g. in the Mussaf 
 Amidah, " Temidin Jcesidran umussafim kehilkliatan," 
 where seder and halakhah are used as synonyms ; and 
 in the Ashkenazic form we have also Siddure Nesakheha, 
 " order " of its drink-offerings, the form Siddur re- 
 minding one of the title " Order of Prayers/' i.e. Prayer 
 Book. So far has this word been identified with se- 
 quence and proper arrangement of the consecutive 
 order of prayers, that the Prayer Book has got the name 
 Siddur instead of Seder Hatefilah. Compare with this 
 the Syriac name for the Prayer Book, Takhsa, which
 
 52 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 means " order." It would be easy to multiply ex- 
 amples which would prove one and the same fact, that 
 the word Seder was never used in any other meaning 
 but that of " order/' and never applied through the 
 whole of the ancient Talmudic literature either to any 
 portion of the Bible or to any portion of the Law. 
 
 On the contrary, this title is employed for non- 
 Biblical Rabbinical literature exclusively, while Parasha 
 served to denote exclusively divisions of the Bible and 
 notably of the Law. It is into Sedarim and not into 
 Parashiyot that the Mishna is divided, and no one has 
 ever used another term to designate the division of the 
 Mishna. Speaking, for instance, of the Seder Moed 
 everyone would at once know that the " order " of the 
 Oral laws referring to the festivals is meant, whilst, for 
 instance, no Parasha has ever been cited by the title 
 Seder. One does not find in the whole literature, Seder 
 Bereschith, Seder Noah, or a Seder Yithro, or any other. 
 The fact that the word Sedarim had been applied ex- 
 clusively, at any rate during the whole of the Talmudic 
 period, to the compilations of the Oral Law ought at 
 once to put us on our guard when we see the same 
 name applied to the written Law. Moreover, when 
 applied to the Mishna, the word Seder is the general 
 title for a whole series of laws and ordinances which are 
 subdivided into Masekhtot and Perakim. All these are 
 new forms used exclusively in connection with the 
 Oral Law and Rabbinical tradition. The word Seder 
 does not as yet represent a small division, equivalent 
 with the Parasha of the Bible. A long time must elapse 
 and profound changes must take place before such a 
 transfer could be possible ; and, as will be seen later, 
 a change in the meaning attached to this word is due 
 to a different school of thought and belongs to a period 
 when with changed conditions a new significance was 
 attached to older words. 
 
 Take now the word Perek, also seldom, if ever, 
 used in connection with the Biblical books. It is
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 53 
 
 applied part exclusively to Rabbinical literature and the 
 same change in the use of the name has taken place 
 many centuries later. Firstly, in the Mishna, the sub- 
 division is called Perek (Perakim). Then we find Pirke 
 Aboth, the " Chapters of the Fathers " ; Pirke Hekhalot, 
 " Chapters of the Heavenly Halls/' We have Pirke de 
 R. Eliezer, Perakim of R. Jehudah, and so on. They are 
 never called " parasha " ; and, on the other hand, none 
 of the divisions of the Bible is ever known or quoted 
 as Perek. Centuries elapsed ; the Bible was divided 
 by the Christians into chapters, and then the word 
 Perek was used for this modern non-Jewish division of 
 the Bible. It is found in the Massoretic closing notes 
 of the various books of the printed Bible ; but in the 
 Massora we find layers in the terms used, some of extreme 
 antiquity, and others of so recent an origin as these 
 Perakim of the fifteenth or sixteenth century. A term 
 found in Massoretic writings need not be considered 
 as old unless it is proved by other evidence to be of 
 ancient origin. The conclusion from the philological 
 point of view is also obvious. Even if the Bible or 
 Pentateuch would ever have been divided for liturgical 
 purposes into smaller sections, if any proof would have 
 been forthcoming that there was any practice but an 
 annual cycle for the reading, and that there had been 
 in general use another division for a cycle of three years 
 or three and a half years, surely these divisions would 
 have been marked by certain definite names clinging 
 to them as has been shown to be the invariable rule 
 with the weekly portion. No writer, with one single 
 exception, to be noted later, down to comparatively 
 modern times, has identified this division with any 
 liturgical purpose, and has explained the Sedarim to 
 have been introduced for such an aim. But a certain 
 connection has been alleged to exist between the Sedarim 
 and certain Midrashim. It is, therefore, of importance to 
 establish in the first place the relation between the older 
 Agadic compilations with these Sedarim, in order to
 
 54 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 see whether such old works as the Mekhilta, Sifra, 
 Pesikta, etc., had any knowledge or took any cognisance 
 of these Sedarim. Those who have tried to identify the 
 Sedarim with the triennial cycle have never asked 
 themselves in what relation these stand, and have 
 rather hastily drawn conclusions from premises which 
 never warranted such conclusions, even if we should 
 agree that some of the later Midrashim start from 
 verses which mark the beginning of the so-called 
 Sedarim. Nothing even then would show that these 
 Sedarim served the liturgical purpose of an annual, or 
 still less a triennial, cycle, but would only show that the 
 Bible or the Pentateuch had been subdivided in an 
 additional manner. It will then be for us to find out 
 the reason, if we can, for such subdivision. 
 
 If we now examine the Sifra, the oldest of the hala- 
 chic Midrashim, perhaps contemporary with the Mishna 
 or perhaps a little older, and in its structural arrange- 
 ment no doubt going back to the tradition of R. Akiba, 
 we shall reach a more definite result. The agreement 
 between the Midrash and the smaller not the weekly 
 Parashiyot is so close as to leave no doubt that no 
 other division was recognised or known by the author. 
 The Sifra is divided into eighty sections, and Hoffman, 
 in his introduction to the Midrashim, shows that certain 
 portions had been deliberately left out of the Sifra. 
 The number of these omitted Parashiyot amounted 
 to fourteen or sixteen. These added to the eighty 
 would bring up the sum to ninety-six, the exact 
 number of Parashiyot, Petuhot, and Setumot, into 
 which Leviticus is divided. No room there for any 
 Seder, and no trace of any Seder. It is worth while 
 dwelling here, however briefly, on the terminology used 
 in the Sifra to designate divisions. It will show that 
 in addition to Parasha, also Perek is the most constant 
 term used ; the latter alternating as it were with the 
 former. In addition to these, other terms are sporadi- 
 cally used, showing that the terminology was still some-
 
 CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 55 
 
 what fluid, not yet rigidly fixed except in the case of 
 the Parasha. The other terms found in the Sifra are 
 Megillah, as Megillat Mesora, (col. 134 ed., Venice), 
 Megillat Emor (col. 184), and sometimes Dibbura, an 
 archaic form for parasha (vide above), col. 85 and 211 ; 
 once we find the word Sidra (col. 222) at the end of 
 Behar. All these terms seemed to be used more or less 
 promiscuously, and parasha itself sometimes designated 
 a section, sometimes a lesson or perikope, and some- 
 times merely indicated the contents, such as Parasha 
 Nega'im, Parasha Zabim, similar to Parashat Hamelekh 
 in the Mishna. 
 
 An analysis of the Mekhilta may follow. As far as it 
 has been preserved and very likely it began with the 
 present first chapter it is divided into nine Masekhtot, 
 and subdivided into smaller Parashiyot. No other 
 term is apparently used. For the larger division the 
 term Masekhet is used, which, as shown above, is 
 applied to the sections of the Mishna, and which is 
 never applied to any Biblical book. Masekhet means 
 '' textus " ; hence our word text, a web, a thing woven 
 together by the hand of the author. It will be evident 
 that whilst the author of the Mekhilta keeps rigorously 
 to the ancient division of Parashiyot and knows also the 
 Perikope, he had no knowledge of any division of the 
 Bible corresponding with Sedarim. If on one or two 
 occasions the chapter of the Mekhilta begins with the 
 passage where the Seder is now marked, it is a mere 
 coincidence ; for on those two occasions the weekly Peri- 
 kopes begin in the same place (v6. and vn.). On the 
 other hand, in three passages the author's division 
 seems to run parallel with that found in the Samaritan 
 Bible, starting from what is now a Samaritan Perikope 
 (Nos. i., vi., vii.). On one occasion the Masekhet comes 
 to an end with the Samaritan Perikope, as in ixa. In 
 conformity with the halachic character of this Midrash, 
 those chapters of Exodus which contain no Halacha are 
 omitted in the Mekhilta, such as chapters xxm. 20 to
 
 56 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 xxxi. 11 ; xxxi. 18 to the end of xxxiv., xxxv. 4 
 to the end of the book, and very likely also 
 chapters i. to xn., these being relegated to the Agadic 
 Midrash. Moreover, it must be pointed out that some 
 of the Masekhtot cover only small sections, such as 
 those to Exodus xvn. 8-16, xxxi. 12-17, and xxv. 1-3. 
 Of these the former contains the episode of Amalek 
 connected especially with Purim, and the last two deal 
 with injunctions concerning the strict observance of 
 the Sabbath. But throughout there is no reference to 
 the Sedarim, and not even a remote agreement with 
 any division into Sedarim. It is obvious that at the 
 time of the composition of the Mekhilta such division 
 did not exist. Passing on from the Mekhilta to the Sifre, 
 we find here the weekly lessons are clearly marked, but 
 these may be due perhaps to a late hand. On the 
 other hand, it has the minute subdivisions of the text 
 corresponding to a large extent with the division of the 
 Bible into verses ; each of these little divisions is 
 called Piska, that is, a small school lesson, an agadic, 
 or halachic interpretation as the case may be of 
 one or a few verses together. Of no less consequence 
 will be now an analysis of the Pesikta the oldest col- 
 lection of a purely agadic interpretation of the text 
 both of the Law and of the Prophets, as far as they were 
 read as lessons in the service. An examination of the 
 Pesikta will serve also the purpose of bringing out the 
 fact that to the author only one set of Haftarot and 
 Parashiyot was known, and they were all enclosed 
 within an annual cycle. He knew no two Parashiyot 
 for any festival, or, for any one special day, two different 
 Haftarot. 
 
 Another cycle (biennial or triennial) would obviously 
 have produced a larger number of Haftarot, and each of 
 these would have formed the subject for a separate 
 homiletical interpretation. But the Pesikta knows only 
 the one universally acknowledged set of lessons and 
 Haftarot. But I will consider the Pesikta here solely
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 57 
 
 from the point of view of its relation to the Sedarim 
 tracing whether there is any connection between them, 
 and whether the Sedarim lay at the basis, or were the 
 starting-point of the homilies more especially because 
 the Pesikta is of a purely Palestinian origin, and it is 
 alleged that a triennial cycle was the rule in Palestine, 
 and that the Sedarim were the divisions of the Bible 
 in accordance with that cycle. The number of homilies 
 contained in the Pesikta which, needless to add, is 
 also the oldest collection and goes back at least to the 
 fourth or fifth century is thirty- two. Of these, thirteen 
 (xm.-xxii. and xxiv.-xxvi.) take their text from the 
 Prophets, being Haftarot; and two (xxix. and xxxi.) 
 have no text and will therefore be omitted. Of the 
 remaining seventeen not one starts from the same verse 
 as a Seder, unless it is at the same time the beginning 
 of a Perikope. On all other occasions the starting- 
 point is the old Parasha or section, and on some occasions, 
 the weekly Parasha ; and what is of special significance, 
 we find also a remarkable parallel between the Pesikta 
 and the division into Perikope of the Samaritans. In one 
 of these instances the Pesikta agrees also with the Mek- 
 hilta (No. v.), but in the other two instances (Mekhilta 
 vi., xii.) the Pesikta is entirely independent and stands 
 by itself in this agreement. For each of these Pesiktot 
 we have Talmudic authority, some being already men- 
 tioned in the Mishna, others in the Talmud, the Baby- 
 lonian as well as the Palestinian showing that the read- 
 ing of these lessons as a fixed tradition goes back to 
 very ancient times, and was never questioned either in 
 Palestine or Babylon. From the foregoing examination 
 no doubt can be left that down to the fifth century at 
 least the Sedarim did not exist. Such a division of the 
 Bible in addition to, and superseding, as it were, that 
 into Parashiyot both as section and Perikope was not 
 known. It had no connection whatsoever with liturgy. 
 It was not allowed to be marked by any sign in the 
 writing of the text, nor did it influence the ancient
 
 58 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 exegesis of the Law. Moreover, the legal authorities 
 took no notice of it in laying down the rules for the 
 writing or for the reading of the text. Still the exist- 
 ence of a division not only of the Pentateuch but 
 also of the whole of the Bible into Sedarim can- 
 not be gainsaid. It will be my endeavour to trace the 
 late origin of these Sedarim, and to show the place which 
 they occupy in the history of the text of the Bible and 
 in that of its interpretation. It is for this reason that the 
 examination of Agadic Midrashim in their relation to 
 the Sedarim will be undertaken later. 
 
 In addition to the public reading of the Bible, and side 
 by side with it, went the private reading or meditation. 
 The preceding investigation has thus far led us to one 
 result based on the archaeological and palseographical 
 facts preserved from ancient times and scattered through- 
 out the whole literature. They all point unmistakably 
 to the existence of only one system of public reading. 
 The technical terms used leave no room for any other 
 interpretation or for the existence of any other way of 
 reading the Law in public, and prove that the system 
 was to read the whole of the Pentateuch from the end 
 of Succoth to the end of Succoth. It would be, how- 
 ever, a grave mistake to assume that the public reading 
 of the Bible was the beginning and end of the use to 
 which the Bible has been put. From a purely historical 
 point of view it is clear that the public reading was only 
 one aspect of the study of the Bible, and that before 
 and concurrent with the public reading, the private 
 reading and study must have been a universal practice. 
 Whilst in Deuteronomy it is enjoined that the King 
 should read the Bible (or such portions of it as were 
 prescribed according to the tradition) once in every seven 
 years to the assembled people, in the Bible the com- 
 mand of reading and meditating on the Law was 
 repeated ever and anon. It is out of this private reading 
 that the public reading grew; for it is not easy to 
 assume that every Jew was sufficiently educated to
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 59 
 
 read the Bible for himself, and therefore the public 
 reading was instituted to assist in the fulfilment of 
 that duty, and to make the Book better known among 
 the masses. It would be almost superfluous to quote 
 here all the passages in the Bible where reference to 
 the reading and study of the Law is mentioned or 
 emphasised. From the first command to Joshua 
 (chap. i. 8) to the dying exhortation of David to Solo- 
 mon (i Kings ii. 3), almost to the last words of the 
 prophet Malachi and the most important public action 
 of Ezra (Neh. vin. 8), all record the same fact, the reading 
 of the Bible in public and in private ; and the whole 
 of the later development rests and turns exclusively on 
 the study and application of the Law. From 1 Mac- 
 cabees (i. 56 f.) we learn that many private persons 
 were possessed of books of the Law, which, by the order 
 of the King Antiochus, were rent and then burned by 
 fire. No doubt these were Bibles in the possession of 
 private persons who used them for their private reading. 
 I might in passing refer also to the " Sefer " of R. Meir, 
 a famous private model codex of the Law. So much 
 was " reading " identified with the reading of the Bible 
 that to the Pentateuch the very name " Mikra," i.e. 
 " the reading book," was given. The Bible was, in the 
 true sense, the textbook of the people. In this sense 
 our sages have interpreted the word that occurs in 
 Nehemiah, and they state that Ezra read ..." bami- 
 kra " " in the Law " (Meg. 3a). 
 
 It is interesting to follow up the use of the word 
 Kara in the old Rabbinic literature, where we find it 
 almost exclusively used for Bible-reading. When, 
 however, the Mishna or the Oral Law is mentioned as 
 being read, another verb was substituted; "tana" or 
 " shana."* In Mishna Yoma i. 6 the word Kara is used 
 to denote that the High Priest read the portion of the 
 Bible, and it is said that, in case he did not know how 
 to read, they taught him. Surely the High Priest 
 
 * Cf. Ket. 17a of one who read the Bible and studied the Mishna ; 
 dekare vetane.
 
 60 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 could not have been an uneducated man : but though 
 the Hellenising priests may have had a very good 
 general Greek culture, they might not have been equally 
 well versed in the Hebrew reading of the Law. In 
 various parts of the Mishna (Meg. n. and in.) the very 
 same verb is used for the reading of the Megillah the 
 Hebrew Scroll. The expression " keriat shema," the 
 private recitation morning and evening of the three 
 sections of the Bible known as Shema (Deut. vi. 4-9, 
 xi. 13-24 ; Num. xv. 37-41), has become quite a 
 technical term, and occurs ever so many times in this 
 stereotyped form. It is unnecessary to multiply examples, 
 for the word is never used in any other meaning through- 
 out the Mishna and Talmud except for reading the Law 
 in public as well as in privats. To teach a man the 
 Bible was called " makre," which does not mean simply 
 to teach him to read, but to teach him the Bible, as 
 is made clear by Ned. iv. 3. The meaning of the word 
 "mikra" was occasionally extended even to a small 
 portion of the Bible, not an entire volume, but a text 
 or portion of it (Sota iv. 2 ; Yeb. 116), and in numer- 
 ous passages the technical rule is laid down that no 
 "mikra" loses its original meaning whatever another 
 interpretation may put into it (Sanhed. 34a, lOla ; 
 Sota 146, etc.). A Biblical scholar was called Kara, 
 that is, the " read one " (Kiddush 496). Hence the 
 name of the Karaites, who call themselves Bene Mikra, 
 the children, or faithful followers, of the Mikra. A 
 man who calls himself Kara is a man who could read 
 (i.e. he knows) the Law, the Prophets, and the Holy 
 Writings. The development went even further, and a 
 verse of the Bible was then called Kera, a thing or piece 
 read. The original meaning of the reading had so 
 entirely been forgotten that this name was applied to 
 the verse. It is an alternate name for " katub," the 
 latter derived from the root " katab," to write. Hence it 
 often occurs in the Mishna and the Talmud. In the 
 ancient exegetical rules (in the Boraitha), E. Ishmael
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 61 
 
 uses this term exclusively to denote the verse. Kera 
 as the " read " verse occurs in this meaning very often 
 in the Talmudic literature (Berachot 2a ; Sanhed. 456, 
 Via ; Moed. Kat. 36, etc.). This was the only name 
 by which a verse of the Bible is described as such and 
 quoted in the Mishna and in the Talmud. The applica- 
 tion of the root Kara only and solely to the reading of 
 the Law, is in itself a proof sufficient to show how 
 universal the practice was. It is also of importance to 
 notice here that Pasuk never means, or could mean, a 
 verse in the Talmud. We shall presently deal with this 
 expression, but for the time being it is sufficient to 
 establish this practice of private reading and to show 
 that it is very old, and that it had developed its own 
 terminology differentiating its practice from any other 
 reading or study. It was a devotional and didactic 
 reading in the house, in the family, and in the school. 
 A statement in the Talmud makes it a law that a 
 man is to finish his Parashiyot with the people, that is, 
 he is to make his private reading concurrent with the 
 public reading, not allowing the people to go ahead, 
 but to keep pace with the public reading (Berachot 8a). 
 We are also told that the teacher and the children" may 
 prepare their Parashiyot by lamplight (Tosefta Sabbath 
 i. 12 ; Sabb. 136), on which occasion the expression 
 " Mesader Parashiyot " is used, which we must bear 
 in mind. It shows that the pupils and teacher had to 
 arrange their Parashiyot according to a definite order 
 (Seder). We are told that R. Simeon ben Johai left 
 no Parasha in the Torah which he had not studied 
 (Sukka 25a). So important was the private reading of 
 the Law that every man was expected to perform it 
 every day, and to repeat the same blessing as when 
 called up to read the Law in public. This practice has 
 been retained to our very day. Small sections of the 
 Law are read every morning, and the blessing is said 
 in the earlier part of the daily service. A similar 
 blessing is said on the Prophets when x-ead as Haftarah.
 
 62 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 The oldest examples of these blessings are found when 
 the High Priest read the Law to the people on the Day 
 of Atonement (v. above). In order that the reading of 
 the Holy Writings should not interfere with the reading 
 of the Law and the Prophets and with the homiletical 
 interpretation during the public worship, it was not 
 allowed to read the Holy Writings during the Morning 
 Service, or to meditate on them in the same manner. 
 Yet in spite of this desire of keeping every part of the 
 Bible in its proper place during the service, we find none 
 the less that, whenever a man started reading the Holy 
 Writings, he still was expected to say the blessing 
 mentioned in Soferim xm. 1. This principle of private 
 devotion and of continuous reading of the Law had 
 become more and more a universal practice. In the 
 course of centuries it was extended from the Law 
 proper to the Mishna and Talmud, and later to the 
 mystical literature. The original short Maamadot, 
 used only by the respective Mishmarot, became after- 
 wards of general use, and the Maamadot already in the 
 Siddur of Rav Amram* of the ninth or tenth century 
 were extended over the seven days of the week, and 
 additional pieces were added to them taken from the 
 Rabbinical literature. 
 
 This was a natural development. As already re- 
 marked, the principle which underlies the development 
 of Jewish history, liturgy, Law, etc., is to preserve the 
 old and to build upon it, enlarging and developing. 
 Nothing that once had been the possession of the people 
 was discarded, but if circumstances changed it was put 
 to a different use. The reading of the Bible had been, 
 however, S( engrained in the conscience and practice 
 of the peopi ,, that it could only go on expanding and 
 developing or the lines laid down by tradition and usage. 
 Daily study and daily prayer went hand in hand, but 
 study was considered superior. A Beth ha-midrash 
 enjoined greater respect and greater sanctity than 
 
 * v. Baer Abodat Israel Rodelheim, 1868, page 495 and note.
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 63 
 
 Beth ha-keneset the school stood higher than the 
 synagogue. "One may sell a synagogue to build a 
 school, but one may not sell a school to build a syna- 
 gogue." The mere study of the portions referring to 
 sacrifices was equivalent to the bringing of them. Such 
 is the Jewish Law. There is no need to dwell here on 
 the deep attachment of the people to the practice 
 which familiarised them with the contents of the Bible. 
 In order to facilitate the understanding they did not 
 shrink from adding the recital of the Targum the 
 lingua vulgare of the time. When that Targum or 
 Aramaic translation became still more popular, and owing 
 to the influence of Arabic domination was threatened 
 with extinction, it also became somewhat of a holy lan- 
 guage. This Targum developed later on into a more 
 paraphrastic translation. The only points which I wish 
 to note here are the slow expansion from trans- 
 lation into paraphrastic legend and homily, and the 
 fact that each verse was read three times, twice in 
 Hebrew and once in Aramaic. This recurrence of the 
 figure three is very notable. It seems to play a 
 very definite role in the history of the Bible in the 
 synagogue. Not only is the Bible divided into 
 three sections the Law, the Prophets, and the Holy 
 Writings but the Bible is read by the Maamad three 
 times daily. Each one reads at least three verses. 
 The Bible is, moreover, read three times publicly 
 during the week on Saturday, Monday, and Thursday. 
 Three persons are called up to the Law, representing 
 the three divisions, Kohen, Levite, and Yisrael. Every 
 verse must be read practically three times, twice in 
 Hebrew and once in Targum. The Samaritans read 
 their Parasha three times during the Sabbath evening, 
 morning, and midday (Ramsha, safra, and sehrem 
 this is their pronunciation of our sahoraim). One might 
 mention here the repetition of Psalm CXLV. three times 
 daily, not to speak of the thrice holy in the Kedushah. 
 The private reading was certainly not limited only
 
 64 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS : 
 
 to the Law. It must have extended, in ancient times, 
 over the whole of the Bible. It is quite true that in the 
 public service, only the Law and the Prophets were 
 allowed to be read ; and nothing was allowed to intervene 
 between these readings and the homiletic exposition 
 which accompanied the reading: and with it, more or 
 less, the service was brought to a close. It is for this 
 reason that the Holy Writings were excluded ; but we 
 find that after Minha on the Sabbath it was allowed 
 to read the Holy Writings. And, moreover, as 
 mentioned above, a special blessing had to be said 
 before the recital of these Writings. And this read- 
 ing must have been half private, half public, more 
 or less connected with the homiletical exposition 
 in the afternoon, in which the Law, the Prophets, and 
 the Holy Writings were equally represented. A Midrash 
 has come down to us of uncertain date, though of late 
 origin, called Agadat Bereshit, in which this three- 
 fold reading has been preserved. The book contains 
 eighty-four chapters composed of groups of three para- 
 graphs each, in which the text for the first of the groups 
 is taken for the homiletical exposition from the Law, 
 for the second from the Prophets, and for the third 
 from the Holy Writings, mostly Psalms. Here we have 
 a proof for the further development of private reading 
 and homiletical exposition in conjunction with the public 
 reading. To this very day a remnant of the practice has 
 been preserved, at any rate in the Sephardic rite. 
 On Sabbath afternoon, at the conclusion of the Minha 
 Service, three verses are read from the Parasha of the 
 next week, although a large section had been read out 
 of the scroll during the service. It is thus practically 
 repeated. Then three verses are read from the Prophets, 
 i.e. from the Haftarah of next week, and from the Holy 
 Writings Psalm cxxxiv. is recited ; or instead, three 
 verses from the Megillot before the seasons of the year 
 on which these are read in full. Other verses, among 
 them two doxologies, are recited before and after the
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 65 
 
 reading. In olden times the Targum to these verses 
 was also recited, which was later replaced by the Spanish 
 translation of the Targum, thus giving it fully the 
 character of the study combined with the homiletical 
 interpretation by the Meturgeman. 
 
 When an equal position was granted to the Oral Law 
 in private study and reading, the Rabbis enjoined that 
 a man should divide his time into three sections, and 
 he should devote one third to the Torah (Bible), another 
 to the Mishna, and a third to the Gemarah (Kiddushin, 
 30). In accordance with this principle, even in our 
 prayers the first part of the service is made to contain 
 portions from the Torah, Mishna, and Gemarah, by 
 which means we are fulfilling this command of daily 
 study, and at the conclusion of this section we 
 say the proper Kaddish de-Rabbanan. The pre- 
 eminence given to three is seen also in the " three- 
 fold blessing " of the priests, which may have been the 
 starting-point. But the people obviously never rested 
 content with the obligatory public reading of the Law 
 three times only during the week, and the system of 
 daily private readings was slowly evolved. It is best 
 seen in the subdivision of the Psalter into thirty 
 daily sections. Further systems of reading had 
 accordingly been arranged extending over the year 
 in which the Pentateuch was to be read. It was 
 subdivided into daily lessons. Such a system of read- 
 ing extending over the whole year, and following the 
 order of the Parashiyot or weekly lessons, and con- 
 taining portions from the Law, the Prophets, the Holy 
 Writings, Mishna, Talmud, Midrash, and Zohar has 
 been elaborated by Portaleone in his Shilte Haggibborim, 
 Part III, f. 1 336-1 70a, for every night of the year ; and 
 in the Hok Le Yisrael, by Ishak Barukh, each Parash 
 is so arranged in daily readings that it is completed in 
 the week in complete accordance with the statement 
 of the Talmud. Each day contains lessons from the 
 Law, the Prophets (Hebrew and Targum), the Holy
 
 66 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 Writings, Mishna, Halakha, Zohar, and in later editions 
 Mussar, providing thus a complete cycle of lessons for 
 every day of the year. 
 
 The private reading was not confined to the house. 
 Reading and study go hand in hand, for it was a reading 
 with the object of imbibing the eternal truths of the 
 Holy Writ. The Bible formed the basis of all education, 
 and what was done at home was merely a reflex of what 
 was done at school or the continuation of the education. 
 The daily lesson was given at school, whilst the daily 
 reading was afterwards continued at home, and it 
 must have been the endeavour of the teacher, as it has 
 been for so many centuries, to keep pace at school with 
 the service in the synagogue, and to teach the boys 
 always the Parasha of the week, so that they might be 
 well prepared to follow the reading in the synagogue and 
 to benefit by the homiletical interpretation which 
 followed the public reading. The weekly portion must 
 therefore have been divided into smaller sections for 
 each day of the week, coinciding more or less with the 
 private reading. It would be difficult to establish exactly 
 these divisions for the reading and study. The arrange- 
 ments of Barukh and Portaleone are of too late a date, 
 and seem to be of too artificial a character to be a guide 
 for that purpose. We may be able to find some traces 
 later on for some such division of a purely homiletical 
 didactic nature not liturgical ; but it is first necessary 
 to establish the fact that in addition to the division 
 into Parashiyot, there was also another division which 
 respected and preserved the older division into small 
 sections, but divided the text according to its own needs 
 and for its own purpose. 
 
 A name has come down to us for such a division 
 which has often been misinterpreted. I mean the 
 name Piska or Pasuk, the former the Aramaic, 
 the latter the Hebrew term. This name changed 
 in the course of time according to the new practice 
 to which it had been put owing to the develop-
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 67 
 
 ment of the Massora. A new meaning had been given 
 to it at a much later period, just as was the case with 
 Perek and even with Parasha ; and the word Pasuk was 
 identified with " verse." It has been shown above 
 that the real name for verse in the Talmudic period 
 was Kera or Katub. At a later time the word Pasuk, 
 when its real meaning had been forgotten together with 
 the use to which it had been put in the older schools, 
 became obsolete, and, as it meant division, it was taken 
 over by the Massorites to denote the verse. It cannot 
 originally have meant " verse," because the Bible was 
 not yet divided into Massoretic verses, and it is the 
 exact word corresponding with the Samaritan Kissa, 
 division or section. There are many indications that 
 the original meaning of the word was a section. It 
 would explain what has hitherto remained somewhat 
 of a riddle, and which had been taken as a proof for the 
 very great antiquity of the Massoretic division of the 
 text into verses. When we find in the Talmud (Hag. 
 15a), or even later, that Aher the scholar, or Neron the 
 Emperor, or Haman are said to have asked the boy 
 coming home from the school to recite his Pasuk, 
 hitherto translated verse, considering that the reply 
 was seldom limited to one verse, and that the pupils 
 were not expected to study in school only one verse 
 during the day, the old interpretation cannot be correct ; 
 but if it is understood that the boy was to quote some- 
 thing out of the Piska, of the section or daily lesson which 
 he had studied, the difficulty is removed. And again, the 
 Pissuk te'amim mentioned in the Talmud, which has 
 been taken to mean the division according to accents, 
 though such accents had not yet been invented, will 
 now be fully explained : for it means a division of the 
 text according to its contents, according to the Taam, 
 in complete agreement with the definition of the word 
 "taam" contents used throughout in the Talmudic 
 literature. This corresponds with the principle of the 
 division of the Bible described before, guided by the
 
 68 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 " contents " of the text. We shall now better under- 
 stand the meaning of Pesikta, to which reference has 
 already been made above ; and the reason why in 
 some of the ancient Halachic and Midrashic works the 
 section finished with the words Selik Piska. This agadic 
 interpretation refers not to one verse, but to the whole 
 section, of which only the first verse is quoted. 
 
 From the minute examination of the word Seder and 
 of the use of it from a palseographical and philological 
 point of view, as well as from the relation between a 
 supposed different division of the Law, called Sedarim, 
 and the ancient Midrashim as well as from the practice 
 and use of the synagogue, the house, and the school, 
 it is evident that a division such as is identified with 
 Sedarim did not exist up to a very late period. On the 
 other hand, it is perfectly clear that the practice of 
 private study and homiletic interpretation brought 
 about a subdivision of the text quite independent of 
 the liturgy and public reading. It is then, no doubt, and 
 that at a very late period, that probably the word 
 standing as a kind of abbreviation for Seder hapara- 
 shiyot, the " order " of the Parashiyot, or Seder 
 Ha-limmud, the " order " of study, was used to denote 
 these divisions of the text into three weekly portions. 
 Such a division must have been originally identical 
 with the Piska, but as that word had already assumed 
 a different meaning, rather that of verse than section, the 
 other short expression Seder probably took its place. 
 This division for purely homiletical and didactic pur- 
 poses is preserved more or less clearly in the Later 
 Midrashim, such as Yelamdemi, Tanhuina, and Rabbot. 
 It must be clearly understood that though there is a 
 close connection between these Midrashim and the sub- 
 division or the larger subdivision of the weekly Parasha, 
 that does not prove that it stood in any connection 
 whatsoever with the public reading of the Law. It is 
 obvious that the homiletical interpretation could not 
 cover, in any one week, the whole of the weekly lesson.
 
 No preacher could explain more than one small text, 
 and no audience could be found to listen to an exposition 
 going on for hours. There is no Parasha in these Mid- 
 rashim which it would not take a long time to read, and 
 much more time would be required to fully expound and 
 explain by word of mouth all that is condensed in the 
 written record. A division of the material was an 
 obvious necessity, and the agadist or the interpreter 
 the preacher started as a rule from one of the smaller 
 Parashiyot (the closed or open section) with which the 
 Sedarim in most cases coincide. On other and rare 
 occasions he started with a verse which is now marked 
 as a Seder. Even as late a compilation as the Agadat 
 Bereshit shows still some independence of the division 
 into Sedarim, for it just as often agrees with that divi- 
 sion as it disagrees, and when it agrees in most cases 
 " seder " and " parasha " are co-equal terms. The 
 word seder or sedarim, therefore, denotes the agadic or 
 didactic division of the Pentateuch. In fact, we find 
 that the school is called Sidra, and the term in Leviticus 
 Rabba, Resh Sidra, as head of the school, corresponding 
 to the later Resh Metibta and Resh Kallah, fully bears 
 out this interpretation. Looked upon from this point 
 of view many of the difficulties which these Sedarim 
 present, if taken as the weekly lesson, would instantly 
 disappear. We shall then be able to understand better 
 the peculiar discrepancy in the size of these Sedarim, 
 to which reference has already been made. Why should 
 certain Sedarim be limited to seven or eight verses and 
 others be as long as two or three chapters ? Then why 
 should some of these Sedarim begin in the middle of a 
 Parasha ? It arises from the permission granted by 
 the sages to the teacher to start his Piska, or Seder, 
 wherever it suited him best, and as for the length, it 
 will be observed that those chapters of the Bible which 
 are either lessons for special Sabbaths, Festivals, or 
 Holy Days, and therefore the subject of a special 
 homiletical interpretation, e.g. the Pesikata, were no
 
 70 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 longer made the subject of the regular Sabbatical 
 homiletical interpretation. The agadist could be satis- 
 fied to pass it over almost entirely, and the teacher 
 could equally deal with it almost at one stretch, for 
 these chapters were also the special readings in the 
 service of the festive seasons. Other small chapters 
 contain certain biographical details which became the 
 centre and nucleus of a large cycle of legends. They 
 stood by themselves, as it were, and a small section 
 like that in Genesis xxn. would suffice for an agadist 
 for more than one homily if necessary. It will be re- 
 membered that when discussing the Mekhilta, I drew 
 attention to the difference in the size of the various 
 Masekhtot, some of which were very small. The prin- 
 ciple in both cases is exactly the same. The explana- 
 tion given for the difference in the size of the Sedarim 
 holds good also for that of the Mekhilta, with which 
 it runs parallel. We shall therefore be able to under- 
 stand better the number of the Sedarim for the whole 
 of the Bible : for they must be taken as a whole 
 together. Unfortunately the markings of the divisions 
 in the Midrashim of the prophetical books and of the Holy 
 Writings seem to have been obliterated. In our manu- 
 scripts and printed editions they are made to coincide 
 with the divisions of the Bible, even with the latest. Just 
 as there is no fixed tradition about Parashiyot in the 
 Prophets and Hagiographa, so there is no tradition 
 affecting the Midrashim based upon these texts. But 
 we cannot fail to recognise in the figures preserved to 
 us as to the number of the Sedarim the same division 
 of the whole Bible for a threefold weekly study as is 
 preserved in the Agadat Bereshit. The whole of the 
 Bible is divided into 462 Sedarim, that is three times 
 three readings a week, each consisting of three portions, 
 Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa. In this calculation, 
 of course, we have to reckon also the Leap Years, which 
 have four weeks more, and for which provision had to 
 be made, hence the fluctuation in the number assigned
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 71 
 
 to the Pentateuch. It will be found thus that the real 
 origin of the Sedarim must be sought in the school- 
 room rather than in the synagogue. With this agrees 
 also the late appearance in our literature of the word 
 Sedarim with this meaning, which owes, no doubt, its 
 origin to the Massoretic school that was anxious to 
 find a word to designate this general division of the 
 whole Bible. The word then appears for the first time, 
 as far as I have been able to trace it, in the treatise 
 Soferim (xvi. 10). The connection in which it appears 
 is highly instructive. 
 
 The incident related in the Jer. Talmud of Rab. 
 Joshua b. Levi (v. above) finding in a book of 
 Agadah that the Law was divided into 175 Parashiyot, 
 is here repeated, but enriched by the additional 
 words, " and for this reason we have fixed them 
 as Sedarim." It was in a book of Agadah (i.e. of 
 homilies) that R. Levi found the Law divided into 175 
 sections, and to these sections at a late period the name 
 Sedarim was given. The whole rests on a homiletical 
 and agadic incident, and the explanatory gloss in Soferim 
 comes, no doubt, from the School of the Massorites. 
 Another reference to the Sedarim is alleged to have 
 been found in the passage in the Sheeltot, chapter I., 
 and is contained, let it be noted, also in a legend or 
 agadah referring to the punishment of the wicked in 
 Gehinnom during the week. It is said that the Sabbath 
 rest of the wicked finishes at a certain period " when 
 the Israelites completed their Sedarim " ; and this word 
 has been taken to refer to the peculiar division of the 
 Bible identified with that name. Anyone who had 
 glanced at the passage in the Sheeltot would have found 
 that nothing could be stranger than such an inter- 
 pretation ; for the author continues to explain : " when 
 the Israelites had reached the Sedarim of the going out 
 of the Sabbath/' meaning thereby the last verses of Psalm 
 xc. and the whole of xci., which precede the Kiddusha 
 De Sidra, i.e. the Kiddusha in Uba Le Sion. But this
 
 72 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 legend does not stand alone. There are many parallels 
 to it, one incomplete in Sanhed. 656, another more 
 complete in Tanhuma Exodus Ki Tissa, paragraph 33, 
 and a much more archaic and complete form in my 
 Exempla of the Rabbis, No. xv., pp. 13 and 14, where 
 the real translation of the passage reads : " when the 
 Israelites finished the order (seder) of the service, in- 
 cluding prayer, lessons, reading, and homilies. " The 
 reference to Job x. 22, taken from the Talmud Sotah 
 49a, is merely an allegorical interpretation, or a play 
 upon words. The fact that this homiletical interpreta- 
 tion occurs already in the Talmud shows that there is 
 not the slightest reference to any Bible lessons, and 
 those who have based their argument on the Sheeltot 
 have undoubtedly gone astray. It is not until we reach 
 the En Hakoreh, a Massoretic grammatical treatise of 
 the fifteenth or sixteenth century (South Arabian), 
 that we find, and perhaps there alone, a clear identi- 
 fication of the title Sedarim with the division of the 
 Bible in lessons arranged to suit a three-year cycle.* 
 
 A long space of time, however, had intervened between 
 the Sheeltot and this other passage ; and before leaving 
 the historical investigation of the Sedarim it is worth 
 while pointing out further changes which have taken 
 place in the use of this term. It must be mentioned 
 that Ben Asher, the famous Massorite, the author of 
 the model codex on which Maimonides relied, who is also 
 the author of the oldest Massoretic treatise, DiJcduJce 
 Hate'amim, does not use the word Sedarim, as, in fact, 
 no one did until the time of the " En Hakoreh " and 
 Jacob ben Hayim (sixteenth century). Meanwhile, a 
 certain confusion had arisen through the promiscuous 
 use of the various terms for denoting divisions of 
 the Bible ; especially when each of the seven portions 
 of the weekly lesson was also called Parasha. This 
 word, then, had a threefold or fourfold meaning : 
 
 * I must add that I have searched in vain for the statement in the 
 edition of Derembourg. I have not found the passage ; only Giusburg 
 gives it in his Introduction to the Bible (page 32).
 
 CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 73 
 
 the general division according to subject ; the small 
 division into open and closed sections ; the larger divi- 
 sion into weekly portions or lessons ; and again, the small 
 divisions of the weekly portion. The technical use in the 
 legal compilations was reserved to the scholar, but for 
 the popular use some arrangement had to be made, 
 and whilst the Sephardim have kept the name Parasha 
 for the weekly lesson, among other sections of the 
 Jewish nation the name Seder or Sidra, practically an 
 abbreviation of Seder Haparashiyot, became the common 
 name for the weekly lesson. Parasha was then used for 
 each of the seven sections of the Seder, and to this day 
 the Sedra is the only name by which the weekly lesson 
 is known among the Ashkenazic Jewry. 
 
 Before dealing with the supposed three-year cycle 
 with which the Sedarim were alleged to have been 
 identified or connected, it is advisable to recapitulate 
 briefly the results which I have thus far obtained, for, 
 if there is neither a palaeographical trace of an ancient 
 division of the Law into Sedarim, if there are no rules 
 for the writing, if the name of Seder or Sedarim is on 
 no occasion used in any other meaning but " order," 
 especially " order of reading " and " order of study/' 
 if the ancient Midrashim were shown to be entirely 
 independent of any such division agreeing with the 
 Sedarim, if the division refers merely to the later 
 practice of school reading and homiletical exposition, 
 there is no room in the liturgy for such a division, and 
 there has never been any connection between this 
 division of a purely Massoretic and late origin with 
 any public reading of the Law on Sabbaths and fixed 
 seasons. Far from being an ancient division preceding 
 that into weekly lessons, it was very late and of an 
 ephemeral character. Nothing can therefore be based 
 on this modern division to prove the existence of a 
 three-year cycle, still less that it has ever been counte- 
 nanced in Palestine over a large area, in great com- 
 munities, and for a long period of time.
 
 74 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 I turn now to the evidence which has been adduced 
 to prove the existence of such a cycle. It will be found 
 that there is only one reference in the whole of the 
 Talmudic and Rabbinic literature to a supposed cycle 
 of three years. In the Babylonian Talmud (Megilla 
 29a) a discussion is carried on as to the way in which 
 the portion of Shekalim should be read at the beginning 
 of the month of Adar. Rab. Tobi (Tobias) says the 
 people of Ma'araba (B'nei Ma'araba) finish the Law in 
 three years. It is doubtful whether Ma'araba as has 
 hitherto been assumed means always only Palestine 
 and the whole of Palestine. The real meaning of the 
 word is the " west/' and it may just as well apply to 
 any locality between Babylon and Jerusalem. It is 
 well known that profound differences existed in many 
 ways between almost every one of the large centres of 
 Jews in these places, even between towns so close 
 together as Sura, Pumpadita, and Nehardea. In Babylon 
 itself various schools existed which differed on legal 
 and, later on, on Massoretic questions, each one 
 having its own teachings and traditions, even in matters 
 Biblical. Equally profound are the differences between 
 the various Massoretic schools in Galilee (Tiberius). 
 The statement of Rab. Tobi is a mere obiter dictum of 
 a man living at a great distance from Palestine. He 
 himself may not have seen the practice at all, and he 
 was telling it either from mere hearsay or in reference 
 to one or another of those scattered Minhagim, which 
 flourished so abundantly among the Jews of Palestine 
 and Babylon. It was the very soil from which numerous 
 Jewish sects sprang. They already existed there from 
 olden times, and became more prominent later when 
 the Karaite movement assumed such large proportions. 
 We dare not, therefore, put into a single statement of 
 this kind more than the author may have meant, as all 
 the evidence adduced hitherto points to the contrary 
 conclusion, and no other is found to support the 
 former. Such an isolated statement is just as little proof
 
 A CHAPTER ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 75 
 
 for the general practice as, for example, the passage 
 quoted by Muller (note 25 to Soferim x. 8), that accord- 
 ing to the statement of " Rabbotenu Shebe-Ma'araba," 
 " seven or eight persons are sufficient for Minyan at 
 Barekhu and Kaddish," a practice of which nobody has 
 ever heard and of which no other trace is found. What 
 is further very interesting is that even for this alleged 
 three years' cycle there is no uniformity. According 
 to the Hilluf Minhaghn a very late compilation of 
 uncertain date in which the differences between 
 Babylon and Palestine are set down, it is expressly 
 stated that they used to read the Torah not in three 
 years, but in three and a half years, and that they 
 celebrated Simhat Torah on whatever Sabbath the 
 finishing of the reading of the Law happened to occur. 
 Moreover, it is stated that the custom of one village 
 was not the custom of another village. This reminds 
 one very strongly of the Mohammedan calendar, accord- 
 ing to which the Ramadan is continually shifting 
 through all the months of the year. The statement of 
 a three and a half years' cycle runs counter directly to 
 the statement in the Talmud, where Rab. Tobi speaks 
 only of a three years' cycle, and let it be noted in addi- 
 tion that the mention of the three and a half years' 
 reading dates probably from the ninth or tenth 
 century, when almost every community was split up 
 into warring sects, each with its own tradition and 
 Minhag. 
 
 Thus far the three or three and a half years' cycle 
 rests on doubtful references. The commentaries of Rab. 
 Hananel and Rashi throw no further light on the 
 passage in the Talmud. As commentators they merely 
 endeavour to explain the meaning of the text without 
 questioning its authenticity ; but the words of Rab. 
 Hananel are very instructive. He says that " they 
 divide the weekly Parasha into three sections," and he 
 uses the word " posekin," that is, they make three 
 Piska (or Pisikata) of each portion. He does not mention
 
 76 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 Sedarim, and the actual division of the Sedarim cer- 
 tainly does not agree with such a division of the weekly 
 lesson into three equal portions. The only one who 
 refers to the practice more positively is Benjamin of 
 Tudela, who says that in Cairo there existed two 
 synagogues, one of the people of Palestine and one of 
 the people of Babylon. The latter read the Law once 
 during the year, and the other read it in three years, 
 but on Shabuoth and Simhat Torah the latter joined 
 the former in the service in the synagogue. This is 
 again a new version contrary to the Hilluf , and bearing 
 out the peculiar vagaries of the Jewish communities at 
 that time. Benjamin does not describe it as an eye- 
 witness, he merely relates what he was told. I do not 
 wish to imply that no such practice existed in a solitary 
 synagogue. My contention is that it was only an 
 isolated practice and certainly of a late date. It was 
 not a generally recognised practice among the Jews of 
 Palestine. This very statement of Benjamin proves it to 
 have been a solitary instance, for Benjamin had just 
 travelled throughout the length and breadth of Pales- 
 tine. He describes the local customs very minutely and 
 all the institutions he had visited. He is one of the 
 oldest travellers who visited the Samaritans in Nablus, 
 and gives us a vivid description of their synagogue and 
 their life. If therefore it had really been a Palestinian 
 custom he would have dealt at some length with it in 
 his description of Palestine, or at least referred to it, and 
 would not have mentioned it as a curiosity in one of the 
 synagogues of Cairo. Cairo, it must be remembered, 
 was the centre where many sects of Jews, Samaritans, 
 Karaites, nondescripts lived together and often fought. 
 No wonder if among them one synagogue existed with 
 its own peculiar ways. But of how they divided and 
 how they read the Bible no trace has been left. 
 
 Maimonides, who lived soon afterwards in Cairo, 
 refers also to this custom rather contemptuously in 
 Hilkut Tefilah, chapter xin., paragraph 1, where he
 
 A CHAPTEK ON BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY 77 
 
 simply says after stating that the annual cycle was 
 the only established custom throughout Jewry that 
 there are some who read the Torah in three years, but 
 this is not an accepted custom. He, of course, chronicled 
 and tabulated whatever was found as a definite state- 
 ment in the Talmud ; but though he records it, he 
 none the less adds to it the qualifying statement that it 
 was not a Minhag Pashut. He, moreover, may have 
 heard of it as a local custom in Cairo ; he does not even 
 refer to the place where it was done, and simply mentions 
 it to condemn it. It is sufficient, then, to point to the 
 way in which Abraham, the son of Maimonides, refers 
 to the people who follow such a practice as ignorant, 
 arrogant men who deliberately alter the Law.* We 
 have reached now the last evidence, and the only one 
 in which the Sedarim are mentioned in connection with 
 this supposed three years' cycle the reference in the 
 En Hakoreh. This is a grammatical treatise preceding 
 some of the manuscripts written in Yemen. 
 
 A careful examination of the work will reveal the 
 fact that the author shared in the veneration of Mai- 
 monides with the Jews of Yemen. He simply copies the 
 word from Maimonides, and he uses the same vague 
 phraseology (" There are some who read the Bible once 
 in three years ") without saying who these people were, 
 without referring to Palestine as the home of this 
 practice, without any hint as to how or where this 
 practice obtained. He does not even mention Cairo, 
 although the Jews in Yemen stood in close contact with 
 the Jews of Cairo. Moreover, the Yemenite MSS., to 
 which this treatise serves as an introduction, though 
 they mark the Sedarim on the margin like so many 
 other Massoretic signs, divide the text into perikopes 
 in accordance with the annual cycle ; and no notice is 
 taken of any other system of reading the Bible but the 
 annual cycle through the rest of this Biblical treatise. 
 It is clear that the author of the En Hakoreh simply 
 
 * v. Biiclxler in J.Q.R., Vol. V, 1893, page 420.
 
 78 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS 
 
 refers to the Massoretic notice, which he interpreted in 
 his own way, forgetting that the rest of the Bible is 
 also divided by the Massorites into Sedarim without 
 any reference whatsoever to any liturgical use. Now 
 this is the sum total of the entire tradition in the 
 whole of the Jewish literature for the existence of the 
 so-called three years' or three and a half years' cycle. 
 We can see now that it may have been a custom prac- 
 tised in sporadic synagogues and among Jewish sec- 
 tarians who flourished down to the thirteenth or 
 fourteenth century. The so-called Zadokite documents, 
 published recently by Dr. Schechter, in addition to the 
 testimonies of Seadyah in his Emunoth Ve-deoth and 
 Shaharastani, give us an insight into Jewish sectarial 
 life, of which those who believe that the development 
 of Judaism has been running on smoothly like an un- 
 disturbed stream have scarcely been aware. To such 
 a sect many vagaries may have commended them- 
 selves, but, basing our investigation upon the clear 
 evidence of facts, there is not a single proof that a 
 three years' cycle had ever been the practice in Pales- 
 tine, or that it had been known in antiquity. That the 
 Bible had ever been divided to serve such a purpose is 
 nothing but pure imagination, and the study of the 
 Sedarim themselves disproves the possibility that they 
 represent such a division used for liturgical purposes. 
 The whole tradition is unanimous that the Law had 
 been read once a year, that the basis of the weekly 
 perikope rests upon a very old division of the text which 
 has been retained throughout the ages. It has been 
 preserved in the Hebrew, Greek, and Samaritan Bible, 
 and the annual cycle is the only one recognised by 
 Jews, Samaritans, Karaites, and Christians alike. Any 
 deviation from this ancient and time-hallowed institu- 
 tion would be an arbitrary enactment, for which no 
 justification can be claimed in tradition and practice.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE SAMARITAN CALENDAR 
 
 I AM publishing here for the first time a complete Samaritan 
 Calendar. From Scaliger in the sixteenth to de Sacy in 
 the nineteenth century many attempts have been made to 
 obtain a complete copy of the Samaritan Calendar, but all 
 in vain. Various astronomical tables have found their way 
 into the Crawford Collection now incorporated with the 
 Rylands Library in Manchester, and a few more similar MSS. 
 are to be found in my collection. But these do not give us a 
 clue to the actual religious calendar. 
 
 The religious year was not the object of those investigations, 
 nor do the astronomical tables contain the slightest hint as to 
 the manner in which the Festivals are kept, or the liturgy 
 arranged. 
 
 Codd. Harl. 5481, Harl. 5495 of the British Museum, is also 
 of no help in either of these directions. It deals neither with 
 the principle of the astronomical calculations of the Samaritans, 
 nor with the religious divisions of the time. It contains mostly 
 chronological indications with introduction taken from old 
 liturgical hymns. Not one, in fact, as far as I am aware, has 
 hitherto had access to such a Samaritan Calendar arranged for 
 practical purposes and on the lines of the usual calendar. 
 
 At my request such a Calendar for the year 1329 of the 
 Hegira (Mohammedan Era), which corresponds with August, 
 1910,-July, 1911, was prepared for me by the High Priest. In 
 addition to this Manuscript, Cod. 1150, of my collection I have 
 another Calendar (Cod. No. 858) arranged only for nine months, 
 with somewhat more ample rubrics referring to the religious 
 ceremonies. A third one (Cod. No. 857) is arranged for fifteen 
 months, but is very brief ; a mere pocket edition with the scantiest 
 possible information. A number of other MSS., with astrono- 
 mical tables such as Codd. 820, 1148, 1149, complete my 
 collection of Samaritan calendars and astronomical tables. 
 
 The principle according to which the Calendar is calculated 
 by the Samaritans is considered to be a " mystery " (just like
 
 80 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 the Jewish Sod Ha'ibbur) revealed by God to Adam, and then 
 transmitted by Adam to Noah, the Patriarchs and Moses. It 
 was then handed on to Pinehas the High Priest, son of 
 Eleazar, who calculated it on the meridian of Sichem, and 
 has thenceforward been preserved as a mystery by the successive 
 High Priests unto this very day. The tradition is found in the 
 closing chapter of the Samaritan Book of Joshua, edited by 
 me, and in the oldest Chronicle, the Tolidoth ed. Neubauer. 
 
 No European scholars seem to have elucidated the Samaritan 
 Calendar. Among my MSS. there is the Arabic work of Jakub 
 ibn Ishak ibn Jakub ibn Abulfaraj (Cod. 1147), a writer of 
 uncertain date (sixteenth to seventeenth century), who deals 
 exhaustively with the Heshban Kushta, the true calculation as 
 they call their calendar. In the first part he gives the tra- 
 ditional history of the Samaritan Calendar and in the second 
 the theory and the practice of its calculation. 
 
 It is not here the place to follow these points further up. I 
 mention them only to show to those who are interested in the 
 history of the Samaritan Calendar and the comparative study 
 of these systems that new and, to my mind, ample materials 
 are now within easy reach. 
 
 One cannot speak of the Calendar of the Jews, Samaritans 
 and other sects without being reminded of the extraordinary 
 importance attached to these calculations. They are the 
 corner stone, nay, the pivot round which all the heresies 
 revolve. The fundamental differences between the sects turn 
 mostly round the Calendar, and the history of the first centuries 
 of the Christian Church knows equally fierce battles waged 
 round the fixing of dates and settling of the Calendar. With 
 these we have, however, now nothing to do here. The object of 
 publishing this Calendar is principally to exemplify the division 
 of the Law by the Samaritans into Weekly Lessons, and to show 
 the exact manner in which the reading of the Bible had been 
 adjusted by them to the seasons of the year, how the Festivals 
 fare, and incidentally how the annual cycle works out on Samari- 
 tan ground. Other details of importance have been included. 
 I therefore reproduce the Calendar practically in its entirety. I 
 have only omitted the intermediate counting of the days of the 
 weeks, which are of no importance whatever and can easily 
 be supplied by any intelligent reader. The Sabbaths are 
 indicated by w. With the exception of these figures every 
 other item found in the Calendar has been reproduced. The 
 MS. is of small size, but calligraphically though minutely
 
 APPENDIX 81 
 
 written. The facsimile represents the exact size of the two 
 pages 3 and 4. The Calendar is arranged according to the 
 Mohammedan months, no doubt for practical purposes. Living 
 among the Mohammedans their Calendar is for the Samaritans 
 their Civil Calendar ; they must regulate their daily life in 
 accordance with it. The heading therefore contains the 
 astronomical determination of the Mohammedan New Moon 
 and the corresponding date of the Greek or Christian Calendar 
 is given, and curiously enough in accordance with the Old, i.e. 
 the Julian style. The Gregorian Calendar or New Style is 
 added. The former is called Kumi, that is the Byzantine or 
 Greek and also the Old Style, and the other is called the New 
 or modern calculation (Hesban) or Style. 
 
 The Samaritan month is not mentioned by name but by the 
 numeral, whilst the usual Hebrew names are used by the 
 Samaritans to denote the months of the solar year. As I 
 am dealing with these points elsewhere it is sufficient to have 
 mentioned them for the understanding of the Calendar. I 
 have transliterated the Calendar in its entirety from the 
 Samaritan characters into the Hebrew, and I have reproduced, 
 first, all the headings, then the dates being arranged in four 
 columns. I have on each occasion given all the four figures : 
 1st, the day of the week (Sunday, Monday, etc.) ; 2nd, the 
 Mohammedan date of the month, which day in the month it 
 was; 3rd, the date according to the Old Style the Julian; 
 4th, the date of the New Style the Gregorian. The compari- 
 son between these dates is thus made easy. 
 
 In addition to these four columns there is in the MS. a 
 large space devoted to entries affecting the religious life of 
 the Samaritans. The lessons of the Sabbaths, the dates of the 
 Festivals, the New Moons and other important items bearing 
 on their religious conceptions and practices. All these entries 
 have been faithfully reproduced. "We can see here week by 
 week how they divided the Law and also the occasions on 
 which the weekly Perikope was omitted and other Lessons 
 substituted. 
 
 I have also reproduced all the astronomical entries about the 
 New Moon, when it happened, at which hour and what fraction 
 of the hour and the day it happened. I shall not dwell on 
 these, for they offer quite an unexpected problem. It will be 
 seen, namely, that the proclamation of the New Moon is made 
 at the time of the fall inoon. A curious passage in Josephus, 
 Antiqq. III., x. 5, may thus appear in a new light. 
 G
 
 82 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 The Calendar has been literally translated so as to make it 
 accessible to a wider circle interested in the numerous problems 
 connected with these calendars. The readings of the Sabbaths 
 have been of course fully reproduced. They form the most 
 important part, as it is for the sake of the Sabbatical Lessons 
 that this Calendar is being published. In the translation the 
 references to the chapters and verses of the Pentateuch have 
 been added to each of these lessons. In order to show the 
 exact relation between the Biblical Lessons of the Samaritans 
 and those of the Jews, I have added to each of these Bible 
 Lessons the corresponding Lessons read by the Jews on each of 
 the Sabbaths of that year. 
 
 Short notes added to the translation explain more fully some 
 of the difficult points. In order to make the list of the Samaritan 
 Bible Lessons more complete as found in actual life I have 
 added also the list from the Calendar (Cod. 857) showing the 
 permanency of the Institution and the manner in which these 
 Lessons are read during the year. This Calendar starts with 
 the eighth month and finishes with the ninth. It shows also 
 slight discrepancies which are due to additional Sabbaths when 
 the Parashiyot had to be subdivided. These I left untranslated 
 as the references to the chapter and the verse of the Bible 
 have been added, which make these divisions perfectly clear.
 
 APPENDIX 83 
 
 T ?W3 ^ann tnn nvn ;x3yp tznn p3p [P. i] 
 nan p DV "Jo bx piran : n&wn w p nip^pn 
 DV Dnt^n inx Mvn n^ann DV win itrx : nanp 
 
 n vn }x3y# vnn w IBDB : 
 3x Pin ]D : na 11 3ffnB3 nn : naip at^na 
 
 : \Kiyv KVT np^onn t!>in i n ,n ja , ,1 
 
 IBD in ^K i?y^8 p om's p nis ^ () 
 
 o^iann n^K p nis a () 
 
 : naip pna ix tznn KI ,T> , / ,N 
 
 nti : IK^ ^ bx ma 1 ? wi p nane ia (K>) 
 
 nh^b ]a ,2,x Sy wann nn n^ip ,XD ,n ,p ,K 
 
 onx ^ bx -JK^ ^ p nans "O (^) 
 
 in *i ,K .cr ,na ,n 
 
 p nans u ({i>) 
 
 yti>2 ^n inn im pvan nn p^p [P. 2] 
 p : 33 ^x pitan nan DV p np^pn d 
 nnx ini mn DV wi IPK : naip 
 
 J 
 
 t^in t^xi ni ,1 ,33 , , 
 
 : DDK o^a p ntr^s 13 () 
 : nanp p^na ^^ 
 np^ ^ ^x D^BSW p 
 ' 1 '? p ,m ,a ^ ^tz> 
 : nn ovn SK nK ^^x np^ ^ 
 
 nrn ovn ja n^ns u ,x ,m ,na ,T 
 
 [P. 3] 
 
 ^ IB ,3 bx |Duan ^n DV ]a np^pn D^ 
 
 : naip 
 
 j ,3 ,x ,3 
 13 () 
 
 I S .3 1 ,03 / ,n 
 : nanp pn3 nn nn u>xi ,T ,x ,3^ ,1 
 nnx ^x -x s 3 s S 3 n\m p n&ns 13 ()
 
 84 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 iwn : mson Jin nyiD ,n n ,i& ,3 
 : ,1 j QV p ,ns ,n ty wtpn nn riMip ,t^ ,1 .* ,T 
 :nnB 13 t^ N'T mson Jin >DV nysr nst? (#) 
 
 JD ,' ,NS ,M 
 
 Mini myp^M ^ u>nn pap [P. 4] 
 ID ,3 SK pntfin ^^in n^ 1 ? p np'pn o^ani n 
 DV I^NI IM : nonp 
 
 ,a ,a , ,T 
 -a () 
 
 : i 1 ? ^V f?M "a^ ^x |D n^ns -a () 
 : nmp p^na ptwnD in MI n s , ^ ,3 
 : ,n DV ID ,n ,n *?y ^^Dt^n t^nn nMip .f ,1 ,ra .n 
 
 : D13K \T<I ^x -]b i 1 ? p n-is 13 (t?) 
 : nps nin^i SN DISK MM p 
 
 tnn Mim njn'jx tj>in fup [P. 5] 
 p DV itt>jfi yti>n iji^ : ^^n n^^ p (!) 
 
 DV 
 
 Mini v^nn ti>in MI ,3 .ta 1 " ,K ,1 
 : |pr (!) D^SK *?M nps nin^i ne>iB is () 
 : pnr mbin n^Mi ^K |pr DHISNI p nt^ns is () 
 
 p ,no ,n 
 
 ^N pnr mSin n^M p nis is () 
 
 ^x i^jii spy s M^I | rims is (u>) 
 
 spy! ^M nn xvni p n^iB is () 
 
 ti>nn Mini nina t^in pisp [P. 6] 
 nytys : bttyftw ns^QD 1 ? SI^MI nixo 
 : ,ts ^nn KIHI : ns^n DV p nip^pn 
 ]snns D^DS ti>in p D 
 nnM Mini [win]
 
 APPENDIX 85 
 
 : piD 11 |a#na nans &nn PNII cina nn 
 
 :IT^ spi'Si *? inn epv p nans is (0) 
 : rvvan pv xa^i b IT^ spi^i p nans is () ,T ,N ,T . 
 
 : naip jan^ WB nn iwm 
 ,* rM p ,1 ,n by *vtw Pin nxip .IB ,a ,IB , 
 *?N *? nn^n epi* na^j p nis ia () 
 *IBD *in b ^H nxii n S p nuns ia (^) 
 
 [P. 7] 
 
 ID DV nt!>j; va^ iA ^t^n Di 11 |0 np^pi 
 nn Kim naiwi oi 11 WKI *IK : 
 
 p nans ia (u>) 
 : niaoon npn nat!> nt IIHK bw bit ian s ^ p HIB ia () 
 
 : ,a DV p ,ID,I ^y wy nn Pin ntop ji .nf? ,IB ,3 
 : nonp ppna aaty t^in ^K*I .1^ ,K .TB j 
 tnna b pn 'TNI p nana ia (^) 
 
 : nosn 
 tznna p nis ia () 
 
 ,na ,IB b j 
 
 pap [ [P. 8] 
 
 ^ ID np^pn 
 
 Kini n^ttfn nv WKI i Jaaiy &nn p 
 nDDa J njty s tm nann : yam 
 
 : iann nn b* nann ^ inp^i p H*IB ia 
 :nD ^K |rpi Sx lain nn p nt^is ia 
 
 j ,1 n^ p ,a ,1 v *wy D S ^ in nxip .IB 
 5 o^ipn nx ty^i ^ nt^a 1 ? im p nti>iD ia (u>) 
 ISD nn ^K o^ipn n ^ v i p nis ia (ti>) 
 
 enn xini ^t^n y^ai t^in pap [P. 9] 
 av NVTI ^^ann nv p 
 IPK nn it>in p 
 nosn ivia ia : D
 
 86 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 wo K mp*i p rwifi 13 t no* ptfns p'u Bnn ffm . ,B S ,3 ,t 
 
 : Stntt^ -^3 DM 'iv bK 
 bx 'iv |D ntene 13 () 
 
 nosn nyio DV ,n^ ,K ,IB ,1 
 : ,1 ,n D^ ]D ,T ,a Sy jwion nn nip 
 
 nt 
 
 V ,3 , ,3 ,n 
 
 p niB u rnnaipn y3 p 
 
 Him : p *nn IND^ 2>nn p isp [P. 10] 
 S^ p np^pi D^aini wan 
 ov wi IK : ]D^ u>in p DV 
 
 nnx ^ 
 
 D3YYP31 K nn p nffis 13 
 oaTVpai p nis 13 
 : nonp prna "IN^N t!nn i 
 DK ^ nyiD p nis 13 
 nnx 1 ? ^nipna DN p n"is 13 
 
 [P. 11] 
 
 i^S mn rh^b p np^pn iy o^en *iy 
 mn DV IKI n IN^K ti>in p DV 
 
 DV ,133 ,TB ,3 ,3 
 in ICJ^D DV ,K^ .n 11 ,n ,n 
 \yo trnn w*i , .D 1 " ,n ,n 
 : nin3t!>n yzv nonn ^^^n n3n (ty) 
 : <IDV n^Dn pnso ID^SK nann my3n Jn I^ID ,1 ,33 ,n ,K 
 : KI n NBU SK S ^D 131D3 p nans 13 () 
 : ,3 rM p n .3 bv wbvn vin nip ,3 s ,S ,TB ,3
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 87 
 
 bx 131 Sx KI nx w p ntsns 13 
 : DHWK "i 1 ? nb# ^K pnK bK iai p nans 13 
 
 DV xini ^iwi DV p npipi 
 DV WK*I i ]a s D u>nn p m s ivy 
 
 s DV owbv Ki 
 
 [P. 12] 
 
 : a^i Kim v^ain in KI ,a ,1^ ,K j 
 p ntzns lai : nn 11 pna non nn 
 : nip np^i bx (!) 
 
 0) nip ,n ,aa ,ta ,r 
 
 K nip np^i p nt^is ia (tr) 
 
 DV p ,D ,1 ^N ^^ain ^in nKip ,y ,vi jo ,? 
 
 : iryK p onrsj N JWD nM p n^isj ia 
 M S< I ^K on^a p
 
 88 
 
 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 List of Parashiyot from Samaritan Calendar (God. 857). 
 
 As actually read. 
 The Calendar contains 14 months, i.e. from the 8th of the previous to the 9th of the next. 
 
 p. 
 
 jn 
 
 prw ?M 
 
 mp np^i 
 ntPD nbw 
 p DWB 
 
 26,3 JpTBjn* :vnpna DK 
 : nmpD ^ : nSnp ^D 
 
 Numbers 
 1,1 
 
 4,1 
 
 P. 9. 
 
 8/2 
 13,2 
 16,1 
 20/14 
 26/11 
 
 p. 10. 
 31/32 
 
 D cuter on : 
 1/1 
 4/5 
 7/1 
 
 P. 11. 
 
 11/31 
 16/18 
 22,13 
 26/16 
 
 P. 12. 
 
 (!) [: nvSon 
 30/1 
 
 nten vn 8 
 
 na] 
 
 D'BBW 
 
 < np^ ^ 
 
 ntn ovn 
 
 niaon ^n 
 
 1,1 
 
 p. is. 
 
 DiKm 
 
 ?K 
 ^ 
 
 p. u. 
 
 17/1 
 21,1 
 24/1 
 25/19 
 
 \T>1 
 
 P 
 
 m^n 
 
 Genesis. P. 1. 
 
 4,1 
 
 8/2 l(b) 
 12,1 
 17,1 
 21,1 
 
 P. 2. 
 
 24,1 
 25,19 
 29,1 
 34/1 
 
 P. 3. 
 
 39,1 
 
 43,26 
 48,3 
 
 Exodus. 
 1/1 
 
 7,9 
 12,1 
 
 P. 5. 
 
 19/1 
 
 25,2 
 29/4 
 31,18 
 36,20 C 
 
 Leviticus. P. 6. 
 
 111 
 
 6/2 
 9,22 
 
 DIN yn s 
 ^ b* 
 
 D1JSK 
 IpB 
 
 1P 
 
 HJH 
 
 9 
 10 
 
 Tlin )DV1 11 
 
 ev^ I 2a 
 
 P. 4. 
 
 1HN 
 
 pnn 
 
 nonn 
 nof? 
 
 pnn 
 
 13 
 
 P. 7. 
 
 13,38 
 16,1 
 19/9 
 23,2 
 
 nnsn 
 
 4 
 5 
 
 6a 
 6b
 
 APPENDIX 89 
 
 Cod. 1150 
 (Page 1) 
 
 Conjunction of the month Shaban, which is the Fifth Month 
 hour 10 minutes of the sixth day, which happens to be on 
 the 23rd Tammuz according to the Old Style, whose first is on 
 Thursday and which is of 30 days. 
 
 (The four columns are marked as follows.) 
 
 1. The day of the week. 2. The number of days of the 
 month Shaban, which according to the Mohammedan Calendar 
 is the seventh. 3. This column is the month of the Eumi 
 [according to the Eastern Calendar (Old Style)] and the 4th is 
 the modern calculation (New Style). This is here the month 
 of Ab. [In the Jewish Calendar it was the month of Tammuz.] 
 
 Friday. 1. 23. 5. This is the beginning of the month 
 which is Shaban, the 5th August, 1910. 
 
 Sabbath. On it the Parasha from Pinehas the son of 
 Eleazar until the end of the book Bemidbar. (They read here 
 evidently the whole of the rest of the Book of Numbers. 
 Numb. 25, 11. to end. The Jews read on same Sabbath (August 
 
 6, Ab. 1) Masse. Numb. 33, 1. to end of the book.) 
 Sabbath. On it the Parasha from " Ele ha-debarim " (Deut. 
 
 1, 1.) until " behold I have taught you " (Deut. 4, 5.). (August 
 13th, Jewish Lesson, Deut. 1, 1-3., 22.). 
 
 Sabbath. The Parasha from "behold I have taught you" 
 (Deut. 4, 5.) to "when he will bring thee" (Deut. 7, 1.). 
 (August 20th, Jewish Lesson, Deut. 3, 22-7., 11.). This Sabbath 
 is the Samot of Succoth. (Note. Samot, a peculiar calendar- 
 istic term used by the Samaritans for a festive season, or 
 rather a special Sabbath before the two festive seasons Succoth 
 and Pesach, each time six weeks before the festival. They have 
 special collections of prayers for these Samot (junction), but 
 they do not seem to know the origin and true meaning. It is 
 not here the place to discuss these Samot.) 
 
 Sunday. 17. 8. 21. Proclamation of the New Moon (i.e. 
 Full Moon) of the Fifth Month for Sunday and Monday from 
 the night of Sunday. [August 21st.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " When he will bring thee " (Deut. 
 
 7, 1.) till "for ye are passing" (Deut. 11, 31.). (August 
 27th, Jewish Lesson, Deut. 7, 12. to 11, 25.) 
 
 Thursday. 28. 19. 1. New Moon of Elul according to New 
 Style. [September 1st.]
 
 90 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "for ye are, etc." (Dent. 11, 31.) to 
 "ye are sons" (Dent. 14, 1.). (September 3rd, Jewish Lesson, 
 Deut. 11, 26-16, 17.) 
 
 (Page 2) 
 
 Conjunction of the month Kamadan, which is the Sixth 
 Month on the llth hour 56 minutes of Sabbath, which corre- 
 sponds to the 22nd Ab according to Old Style, whose first is 
 on the Sunday and is of 31 days. 
 
 The beginning of the third year of Shemittah. 
 
 Sunday. 1. 22. 4. New Moon of the Sixth Month. (Jewish 
 Elul. The Jews have two days New Moon, Sunday and 
 Monday ; the Samaritans only Sunday.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "ye are sons "(14, 1.) to "judges 
 and officers " (16, 18.). (September 10th, Jewish Lesson, Deut. 
 16, 18-21, 9.) 
 
 Wednesday. 11. 1. 14. First of the month of Elul Old 
 Style. 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "judges and officers" (16, 18.) to 
 "let a man take a wife" (22, 13.). (September 17th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Deut. 21, 10-25, 19.) 
 
 Monday. 16. 6. 19. On it is the proclamation of the New 
 Moon, 9 hours 58 minutes of the 2nd night. 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " let a man take a wife " (Deut. 
 22, 13.) to "this day" (Deut. 26, 16.). (September 22nd, 
 Jewish Lesson, Deut. 26, 1-29, 9.) 
 
 Sabbath. 28. 18. 1. Parasha from " this day " (Deut. 26, 16.) 
 until "when it will come upon thee" (Deut. 30, l.). a (October 
 1st, Jewish Lesson, Deut. 29, 10-30, 20.) 
 
 \_ a Note. This is evidently the Samaritan reading of Deut. 30, 1.] 
 
 And this is the first day of Tishri according to the New 
 Style. [October 1st.] 
 
 (Page 3) 
 
 The conjunction of the month Shawwal, the Seventh Month 
 2 hours 42 minutes of Monday, corresponding to the 20th 
 of Elul, Old Style, whose first is Wednesday and is of 30 days. 
 
 Monday. 1. 30. 3. The beginning of the First Festival of 
 the Seventh Month. This is Shawwal. [October 3rd.] (The 
 Samaritans were one day before the Jewish Rosh Hashanah, 
 for Jewish Rosh Hashanah was on October 4th.) 
 
 Sabbath. No Parasha. It is the Sabbath of the ten days of 
 Penitence. (October 8th, Jewish Lesson, Deut. 31, 1-31, 30.)
 
 APPENDIX 91 
 
 Wednesday. 10. 29. 12. The great awe inspiring Day of 
 Atonement, the day of chastisement of the soul. [October 12th.] 
 
 Friday. 12. 1. 14. First day Tishri, O.S. [October 14th.] 
 
 Sabbath. The Parasha from " when it will come upon thee " 
 (Deut. 30, 1.) to the end of the Law. (October 15th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Deut. 32, 1-52.) 
 
 Monday. 15. 4. 17. The Festive Season of the Feast of 
 Tabernacles. The beginning of the Seven Days. [October 17th.] 
 
 Wednesday. 17. 6. 19. The proclamation of the New 
 Moon of the Seventh Month is 8 hours 29 minutes of the 
 night of Tuesday to Wednesday. [October 19th.] 
 
 Sabbath. That of the Seven Days of Tabernacles. On it 
 no Parasha. [October 22nd. The Jews also no Parasha.] 
 
 Sunday. 21. 10. 23. First day Tishri, N.S. [October 23rd.] 
 
 Monday. 22. 11. 24. The Eighth Day of 'Aseret. [October 
 24th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " In the beginning " (Gen. 1, 1.) to 
 "Adam knew" (Gen. 4, 1.). (October 29th, Jewish Lesson, 
 Gen. 1, 1-6, 8.) 
 
 Tuesday. 30. 19. 1. First day Marheshban, N.S. [Novem- 
 ber 1st.] 
 
 (Page 4) 
 
 Conjunction of the month Dul Kaddar, the Eighth Month 
 6 hours 56 minutes of the night of Wednesday, corresponding 
 to the 20th Tishri, O.S., whose first is Friday and is of 31 days. 
 
 Wednesday. 1. 20. 2. New Moon of Kada which is the 
 Eighth Month. [November 2nd. This is the first of the two 
 days New Moon of the Jewish Month Marheshvan.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and Adam knew " (Gen. 4, 1.) 
 until "unto his heart" (Gen. 8, 21b). (November 5th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Gen. 6, 9-11, 22.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "unto his heart" (Gen. 8, 21b) to 
 "now the Lord said .... get thee out" (12, 1.). (November 
 12th, Jewish Lesson, Gen. 12, 1-17, 27.) 
 
 Monday. 13. 1. 14. First day Marheshban, O.S. [Novem- 
 ber 14th.] 
 
 Thursday. 16. 4. 17. The proclamation of the New Moon 
 of the Eighth Month 5 hours 4 minutes of Thursday. [October 
 17th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " now the Lord said . . . get thee 
 out" (Gen. 12, 1.) to "Abraham was" (17, 1.). (November 
 19th, Jewish Lesson, Gen. 18, 1-22, 24.)
 
 92 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and Abram was " (Gen. 17, 1.) to 
 " and the Lord remembered " (21, 1.). (November 26th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Gen. 23, 1. to 25, 18.) 
 
 Thursday. 30. 18. 1. First day Kislem, N.S. [December 
 1st.] 
 
 (Page 5) 
 
 Conjunction of the month Hijja, the Ninth Month 2 hours 
 26 minutes* of the night of Friday, corresponding to the 19th 
 Marheshban, whose first is Monday and is of 30 days. 
 
 Friday. 1. 19. 2. The beginning of the Ninth Month. 
 This is the month Al Hijja. [December 2nd.] (New Moon of 
 the Jewish month Kislev.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and the Lord remembered " (Gen. 
 21, 1.) until " and Abraham was old " (Gen. 24, 1.). (December 
 3rd, Jewish Lesson, Gen. 25, 19-28, 9.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and Abraham was old " (Gen. 24, 
 1.) to " and these are the generations of Isaac " (Gen. 25, 19.). 
 (December 10th, Jewish Lesson, Gen. 28, 10-32, 2.) 
 
 [Note. It is to be noted the Parasha read to Jewish bride- 
 groom on the Sabbath started from Gen. 24, 1.] 
 
 Wednesday. 13. 1. 14. The beginning of the month 
 Kislem, O.S. [December 14th.] 
 
 Friday. 15. 3. 16. The proclamation of the Tenth (? Ninth) 
 Month 4 hours 48 minutes of Friday. [December 16th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " these are the generations of Isaac " 
 (Gen. 25, 19.) to "and Jacob lifted up his feet" (29, 1.). 
 (December 17th, Jewish Lesson, Gen. 32, 3-36, 43.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and Jacob lifted up his feet " (Gen. 
 29, 1.) to "and Dinah went out" (34, 1.). (December 24th, 
 Jewish Lesson, Gen. 37, 1-40, 23.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and Dinah went out " (34, 1.) to 
 " Joseph went down " (39, 1.). (December 31st, Jewish Lesson, 
 41, 1-44, 17.) [This is the first of the two days New Moon of 
 the Jewish month Tebet.] 
 
 (Page 6) 
 
 Conjunction of the month Muharram, the Tenth Month, the 
 year 1329 of the Mohammedan rule, 10 hours 4 minutes of 
 the day of Sabbath, and that is mouth (written by mistake) 
 corresponding to the 19th Kislem, O.S., whose first is Wednes- 
 day and has 31 days. 
 
 * Written day instead of minutes in MS. by mistake.
 
 APPENDIX 93 
 
 Sunday. 1. 19. 1. Beginning of the month Muharram. 
 Beginning of the month Tebet, N.S. [January 1st, 1911.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "and Joseph went down" (39, 1.) 
 to "unto Joseph were born" (41, 50.). (January 7th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Gen. 44, 18-47, 27.) 
 
 Sabbath. 14. 1. 14. Parasha from "unto Joseph were 
 born" (41, 50.) until "and Joseph came into the house" (43, 
 26.). (January 14th, Jewish Lesson, Gen. 47, 28. to end of 
 Gen.) The first of the month Tebet, O.S. 
 
 Sunday. 15. 2. 15. The proclamation of the Tenth Month 
 6 hours 6 minutes of the night of Sunday. [January 15th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and Joseph came into the house " 
 (Gen. 43, 26.) until "The god Shaddai appeared unto me" (48, 
 3.). (January 21st, Jewish Lesson, Ex. 1, 1-6, 1.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "The god Shaddai appeared unto 
 me " (48, 3.) unto the end of the Book of Genesis. (January 
 28th, Jewish Lesson, Ex. 6, 2-9, 35.) 
 
 (Page 7) 
 
 The conjunction of the month Saffar, that is the Eleventh 
 Month 3 hours 56 minutes of the day of Monday, corresponding 
 to the 17th day of Tebet, whose first is Sabbath and has 31 
 days. 
 
 Monday. 1. 17. 30. The Eleventh Month. This is the 
 beginning of the miracles. This is the month Saffar. (This 
 is the name of the month in which the portions of the Bible 
 are read containing the miracles in Egypt.) [January 30th.] 
 (Jewish month Shebat one day New Moon.) 
 
 Wednesday. 3. 19. 1. Beginning of the month Shebat, 
 N.S. [February 1st.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "and these are the names" (Ex. 1, 
 1.) until "and when Pharaoh will speak unto you" (7, 8.). 
 (February 4th, Jewish Lesson, Ex. 10, 1-13, 16.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and when Pharaoh will speak 
 unto you" (Ex. 7, 8.) until "and unto Aaron" (12, 1.). And 
 this is the Sabbath of Mesabot. (February llth, Jewish 
 Lesson, Ex. 13, 17-17, 16.) 
 
 Monday. 15. 31. 13. The proclamation of the New Moon 
 of the Eleventh Month 4 hours 46 minutes of Monday. 
 [February 13th.] 
 
 Tuesday. 16. 1. 14. Beginning of the month Shebat, O.S. 
 [February 14th.]
 
 94 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and unto Aaron " (Ex. 12, 1.) until 
 "on the third month" (19, 1.). (February 18th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Ex. 18, 1-20, 26.) This is the Sabbath of the Samot 
 of Pesach. 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "on the third month" (Ex. 19, 1.) 
 to "and they shall take unto me a heave offering" (25, 1.). 
 (February 25th, Jewish Lesson, Ex. 21, 1-24, 18.) 
 
 Tuesday. 30. 15. 28. A half and a quarter. It means a 
 half day and a quarter day to complete the solar year. 
 [February 28th.] This is the first of the two days New Moon 
 of Adar. 
 
 (Page 8) 
 
 The conjunction of the month Kabi I, which is the Twelfth 
 Month, and is on the 5th hour 42 minutes of the night of 
 Wednesday, which is the 16th of the month of Shebat, whose 
 beginning is on Tuesday, which is of 28 days and a half and a 
 quarter. The conclusion (!) of the third year of the Shemittah. 
 
 Wednesday. 1. 15. 1. Beginning of the Twelfth Month 
 Hadar, N.S. [March 1st.] (This is the second day New Moon 
 of the Jewish month Adar.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "and they shall take unto me a 
 heave offering" (Ex. 25, 1.) until "this is the word" (29, 1.). 
 (March 4th, Jewish Lesson, Ex. 25, 1-27, 19.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " this is the word " (Ex. 29, 1.) until 
 " and he gave unto me " (31, 18.). (March llth, Jewish Lesson, 
 Ex. 27, 20-30, 10.) 
 
 Tuesday. 14. 1. 14. Beginning of the month of Hadar, O.S. 
 [March 14th.] 
 
 Wcdmsday. 15. 2. 15. The proclamation of the Twelfth 
 Month, 4 hours 32 minutes of the Wednesday. [March 15th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and he gave unto me " (Ex. 31, 18.) 
 until " and he gave the boards " (36, 20.). (March 18th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Ex. 30, 11-34, 35.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and he gave the boards " (Ex. 36, 
 20.) to the end of the book Shemot. (March 25th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Ex. 35, 1-38, 20.) 
 
 (Page 9) 
 
 The conjunction of Eabi II, which is the First Month on the 
 6th hour 46 minutes of Thursday and it is the 6th day, which 
 is the 18th day of the month of Hadar, whose first is the
 
 APPENDIX 95 
 
 Tuesday and which is of 31 days. In this is the feast of 
 the blessed Pesah.* 
 
 Friday. 1. 18. 31. New Moon of the First Month, and it 
 is Eabi II. [March 31st. This is the second day of New 
 Moon of the Jewish Month Nissan.] 
 
 Sabbath. 2. 19. 1. Beginning of the month Nissan, N.S. 
 Parasha from " and he called unto Moses " (Lev. 1, 1.) until 
 "command the children of Israel" (6, 1.). (April 1st, Jewish 
 Lesson, Lev. 1, 1-6, 7.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " command the children of Israel " 
 (Lev. 6, 1.) until "and Aaron took" (9, 22.). (April 8th, 
 Jewish Lesson, Lev. 6, 8-8, 35.) 
 
 Thursday. 14. 31. 13. The day of the slaughter (of the 
 Paschal Lamb). [April 13th.] 
 
 Friday. 15. 1. 14. The day of the feast of the blessed 
 Pesah. First day Nissan, O.S., the proclamation of the First 
 Month is 9 hours 4 minutes from Thursday to Friday. [April 
 14th.] 
 
 Sabbath. This is the Sabbath of the seven days of un- 
 leavened bread (Massot). [April 15th.] 
 
 Sunday. 17. 3. 16. The first day of the 'Omer. [April 16th.] 
 
 Thursday. 21. 17. 20. The feast day of the festival of 
 Massot. [April 20th.] 
 
 Sabbath. The first Sabbath of the seven Sabbaths. Parasha 
 from " and Aaron took " (Lev. 9, 22.) until " man or woman " 
 (13, 38.). (April 22nd, Jewish Lesson, Lev. 9, 1-11, 47.) 
 
 (Page 10) 
 
 The conjunction of Djumada I, which is the Second Month 
 2 hours 46 minutes on the day of Sabbath, corresponding with 
 the 16th of the month of Nissan, whose first was on a Friday 
 and is of 30 days. 
 
 Sabbath. 1. 16. 29. Beginning of the Second Month. 
 Parasha from "man or woman" (Lev. 13, 38.) until "after the 
 death "(16, 1.). (April 29th, Jewish Lesson, Lev. 12, 1-15, 
 33.) [This is the second day New Moon of the Jewish Month 
 lyyar.] 
 
 Monday. 3. 18. 1. Beginning of the month lyyar, N.S. 
 [May 1st.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " after the death " (Lev. 16, 1) to 
 
 * Meaning the calculation is from 6 in the afternoon, evidently when 
 according to the Jewish calculation the night of the 6th day had begun.
 
 96 THE BIBLICAL LESSONS: 
 
 "and when ye reap the harvest" (19, 9.). (May 6th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Lev. 16, 1-20, 27.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " and when ye reap the harvest " 
 (Lev. 19, 9.) until "feasts" (23, 1.). (May 13th, Jewish 
 Lesson, Lev. 21, 1-24, 27.) 
 
 Sunday. 16. 1. 14. Beginning of the month of lyyar, O.S., 
 and the proclamation of the Second Month 1 hour 24 minutes 
 of the second day. [May 14th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " feasts " (Lev. 23, 1.) to " if in my 
 statutes " (26, 3.). (May 20th, Jewish Lesson, Lev. 25, 1-end 
 of the book.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " if in my statutes " (Lev. 26, 3.) to 
 the end of the book. (May 27th, Jewish Lesson, Numb. 1, 
 1-4, 20.) 
 
 (Page 11) 
 
 Conjunction of Djumada II, the Third Month 11 hours 12 
 minutes of the Sunday corresponding to the 15th of the mouth 
 lyyar, whose first was on Sunday and it is of 31 days. 
 
 Sunday. 1. 15. 28. Beginning of the Third Month, which 
 is Djumada II. [May 28th. This is the first day New Moon 
 of the Jewish month Sivan.] 
 
 Monday. 2. 16. 29. The day of the Gathering. [May 29th.] 
 
 Wednesday. 4. 18. 31. The day of the standing before 
 Mt. Sinai. [May 31st.] 
 
 Thursday. 5. 19. 1. Beginning of the month of Siban 
 N.S. [June 1st.] 
 
 Sabbath. The Seventh Sabbath, the conclusion of the seven 
 Sabbaths. [June 3rd. Jewish Feast of Weeks, Friday and 
 Saturday.] 
 
 Sunday. 8. 22. 4. The Feast of the Festival of the 
 Weeks, the conclusion of the 'Omer at the going out of the 50 
 days. [June 4th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " in the wilderness of Sinai " (Numb. 
 1, 1.) to " take the sum of the sons of Kehat" (Numb. 4, 1.). 
 (June 10th, Jewish Lesson, Numb. 4, 21-7, 89.) 
 
 Monday. 16. 30. 12. The proclamation of the Third 
 Month 3 hours 4 minutes of the night of Monday. [June 12th.] 
 
 Wednesday. 18. 1. 14. Beginning of the month Siban., 
 O.S. [May 14th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Paraslia from " take the sum of the sons of Kehat " 
 (Numb. 4, 1.) until "speak unto Aaron" (6, 22.). (June 17th, 
 Jewish Lesson, Numb. 8, 1-12, 16.)
 
 APPENDIX 97 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "speak unto Aaron " (Numb. 6, 22.) 
 until " said " (13, !.) (June 24th, Jewish Lesson, Numb. 13, 1. 
 to 15, 41.) 
 
 (Page 12) 
 
 The conjunction of the month Kajab, which is the Fourth 
 Month 6 hours 54 minutes of Monday, which is (really) Tuesday, 
 corresponding to the 14th day of the month Siban, whose first 
 is Wednesday and has 30 days. 
 
 Tuesday. 1. 14. 27. Beginning of the Fourth Month and 
 it is Rajab. [June 27th. This is the second day New Moon of 
 the Jewish month Tammuz.] 
 
 Sabbath. 5. 18. 1. Beginning of Tammuz, N.S: Parasha 
 from "speak unto the head " [this is here a mistake in MS., should 
 be " said "] (Numb. 13, 1.) to " Korah took " (16, 1.). (July 1st, 
 Jewish Lesson, Numb. 16, 1-18, 32.) 
 
 Wednesday. 9. 22. 5. Proclamation of the New Moon 
 (rest missing, left incomplete, evidently started by mistake, v. 
 below). [July 5th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " Korah took" (Numb. 16, 1.) until 
 " Moses sent messengers " (20, 14.). (July 8th, Jewish Lesson, 
 Numb. 19, 1-25, 9.) 
 
 Wednesday. 16. 29. 12. The proclamation of the Fourth 
 Month 6 hours 26 minutes from Tuesday to Wednesday. 
 [July 12th.] 
 
 Friday. 18. 1. 14. Beginning of the month of Tammuz, 
 O.S. [July 14th.] 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from "Moses sent messengers" (Numb. 
 20, 14.) until " Pinehas " (25, 11.). (July 15th, Jewish Lesson, 
 Numb. 25, 10-29, 40.) 
 
 Sabbath. Parasha from " Pinehas " (Numb. 25, 11.) to " and 
 the booty was " (31, 32.) [In some MSS. there is a Parasha 
 marked also at 27, 1.] (July 22nd, Jewish Lesson, Numb. 30, 
 1. to end of the book.)
 
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