Multiple Hands in the Marginal Annotations of the Hebrew Bible Codex Madrid M1: (Biblioteca Historica Marques de Valdecilla, BH MSS1)

The annotations that appear next to the text of the Hebrew Bible in the margins of most of the extant medieval Hebrew Bible manuscripts, referred to as Masora, have been almost exclusively studied for their textual content.1 The assumption that one single Masora was transmitted orally until it was written down in lists and later added in the margins of the manuscripts in a single act of copying has deterred scholars from investigating and exploring the copious evidence of later additions made by various hands that can be seen with the naked eye in the annotations contained in most medieval Hebrew Bible manuscripts.2 The few scholars who have recognized and worked with these annotations have focused on their content, on corroborating that they were correct from a textual point of view, and on checking the agreement between the annotations and the biblical text to which they are connected.3 This is the common way to approach any Masoretic annotation: whether added later or not, only the textual information is important and any other elements are ignored. [...]the existence of marginal annotations written by hands other than that of the principal scribe in the Pentateuch has been indicated in the ongoing edition of the Masora of this manuscript.5 Manuscript Description Ml contains the Hebrew Bible in its entirety (apart from six missing folios ranging from Exodus 9:33 to 24:7).6 It consists of340 unpaged, large-format folios (31.2 x 27 cm). The ruling-with horizontal lines and vertical boundary lines-and the doublemargin pricking are visible; the space for the text and the Masora is marked.7 The biblical text is arranged in three columns of thirty-two lines each (fig. 1), except for the poetical portions of the Pentateuch (Exod. 15:1-19; Deut. 32:1-43), Judges (5:1-31; fig. 2), and Samuel, both of which are written in specially prescribed lines, as well as the poetical books (Psalms, Job, and Proverbs), which are distinguished by a hemistichal division.8 The order of the biblical books is that prescribed in the Babylonian Talmud.9 The text is written in Sephardic square script with Hebrew Tiberian punctuation. A summary with the total number of the verses, letters, and so on appears in a decorated rectangular frame at the end of each biblical book, except for the books of Isaiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Ruth, Job, Lamentations, and Nehemiah-which have been cut off and are missing-and the book of 1 Chronicles, as the two books of Chronicles are treated as a si