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The ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’ (Halper 331): The Seleucid era and sectarian Jewish calendars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2021

EVE KRAKOWSKI  and
SACHA STERN
EVE KRAKOWSKI
Affiliation:
Princeton [email protected]
SACHA STERN
Affiliation:
University College [email protected]
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Abstract

Halper 331 is the fragment of a codex that has been styled the ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’. It preserves the opening of a Jewish legal document dated to the year 1182 (Seleucid era), which appears to have been copied into this codex, probably as a formulary, not long after this date, in the late 9th century. In this article, the text of this fragment, in Aramaic and Hebrew, is edited, and its identification as the beginning of a marriage contract (ketubbah) is evaluated. Its Egyptian provenance is questioned, partly because the earliest evidence for the introduction of the Seleucid era by Jews in Egypt dates from the mid-10th century. The article surveys the history of Jewish dating methods in early medieval Egypt and the Near East, in an attempt to clarify this question. The specific date of the document deviates from the rabbinic calendar, but agrees with that of the contemporary Jewish Near Eastern sectarian groups of Abū ʿImrān al-Tiflīsī and Ismāʿīl al-ʿUkbarī; this document could thus uniquely attest one of these sectarian Jewish calendars.

Keywords

Cairo GenizahketubbahSeleucid eraJewish calendar
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 617 - 634
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society

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References

1 This article engages with a few of François de Blois's many intersecting academic interests: Aramaic language, the early medieval Near East, and calendar and chronology. Particularly relevant, in this context, has been François's work since 2010 in the Leverhulme and ERC research projects at UCL on ancient and medieval calendars, in which he researched, inter alia, some Muslim, Arabic-language treatises on the Jewish calendar. As François has shown, the earliest of these treatises, by the mathematician and scholar Muḥammad b. Mūsā al-Khuwārizmī, was composed apparently in 823/4 ce and represents the earliest evidence of the rabbinic calendar in its final, fixed form (see Blois, F. de, ‘Some early Islamic and Christian sources regarding the Jewish calendar, 9th to 11th centuries’, in Stern, S. and Burnett, C. (eds.), Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition, (Leiden, 2014), pp. 65-78Google Scholar. It remains unclear, however, to what extent this calendar was accepted and used in this period as definitive; the Exilarch's letter of 835/6, for example, indicates that this fixed calendar was not always heeded (reference below, n. 6). This present document, from the later 9th century, may shed further light on this little known period in the history of the Jewish calendar. Research towards this paper was carried out by Sacha Stern in the framework of the ERC project ‘Calendars in Antiquity and the Middle Ages’ at UCL. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an ERC team meeting, and a later draft was read by Nadia Vidro; Gideon Bohak subsequently provided helpful advice. We are grateful to these colleagues for their comments.

2 https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9934790513503681. A good quality image of the fragment can be viewed at http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0002/html/h331.html and https://medium.com/@judaicadh/10-marriage-contracts-from-penns-cairo-geniza-collection-14ae241fd5ec (accessed 1 July 2018). An edition and brief commentary on our fragment was published by Goitein., S. D. ‘Four Old Marriage Contracts from the Cairo Geniza’, Lĕšonénu: A Journal for the Study of the Hebrew Language and Cognate Subjects 30:3, 1966, pp. 197–216, on pp. 199-200Google Scholar [Hebrew].

3 B. Halper, Descriptive Catalogue of Genizah Fragments in Philadelphia, Philadelphia: The Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1924, p. 175.

4 Ibid., pp. 9-10. He goes on to explain that Amram's collection was purchased by the Dropsie College, presumably at some point before the 1920s. The Herbert D. Katz Center is the successor to Dropsie College and now owns its library. We are grateful to Arthur Kiron and Bruce Nielsen, Librarians at the Katz Center, for checking the library archives and verifying this information.

5 For an apt survey up to his time of writing, see Hopkins, S., ‘The Oldest Dated Document in the Geniza?’, in Morag, S., Ben-Ami, I., and Stillman, N. A. (eds.), Studies in Judaism and Islam Presented to Shlomo Dov Goitein on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1981, pp. 83-98Google Scholar; and more recently, Olszowy-Schlanger, J., ‘Les plus anciens documents datés de la Guenizah du Caire: lectures et relectures’, Livret-Annuaire de l'EPHE, Sciences Historiques et Philologiques, 20 (2004-5), pp. 47-50Google Scholar.

6 Bill of manumission: T-S J 3.16 + T-S NS 211.1, (ed.) Margoliouth, M., Hilkhot Ereṣ Yisra'el min ha-Genizah (Jerusalem, 1973), 27-31Google Scholar. Exilarch's letter: T-S 8 G 7.1, (ed.) Stern, S., Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar, 2nd century bce – 10th century ce, (Oxford, 2001), pp. 277-283CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bill of divorce: T-S NS 308.25, (ed.) Margoliouth, ibid., p. 121. Partnership contract: T-S C 2.17, (ed.) Weiss, G., ‘A Testimony from the Cairo Geniza Documents: Son-in-Law, Mother-in-Law Relations’, Jewish Quarterly Review, 68(2), 1977, pp. 99-103Google Scholar, in p. 99 and n.1. Another ketubbah, composed in Iraq, may date from the late 9th century: T-S Ar. 38.11. Hopkins (‘The Oldest Dated Document in the Geniza?’, pp. 92-93) thought that this ketubbah might have predated Halper 331; but Olszowy-Schlanger (‘Les plus anciens documents datés de la Guenizah du Caire’) showed that this was based on a misreading of its date, which is 13th century se, thus between 889 and 988 ce (on this document, see also Golb, N., ‘A Marriage Deed from ‘Warduniā of Baghdad,’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies 43.2 (1984), pp. 151-156CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

7 As Goitein noted in his edition of the document. No one has yet conducted a full paleographic analysis of these fragments. Preliminarily, however, Halper 331 may readily be compared, for example, to several other documents in the same collection: Halper 33, 39, 46, 70. References to many of these papyri are collected in Sirat, C., Les papyrus en caractères hébraïques trouvés en Egypte (Paris, 2001)Google Scholar.

8 The reading of these two words is uncertain (in particular, the letters resh and zayin) and yields a problematic text, since it makes little grammatical sense for the scribe to have spelled קרן plene in this way; but it is the only possible reading. Goitein reads: בין כאן בין [.]פה, which makes little sense in Hebrew or in context (in spite of Goitein's attempt to explain it as an extension of the introductory blessings to other parts of the world), and is not the correct reading of the manuscript; Goitein misread, in particular, the letters qof. The phrase בקרן זקופה is attested in liturgical poetry (Shelomo ha-Bavli, Yotzer (Zulat) for Passover – later 10th century), whilst the fuller phrase קרן זקופה ומזל גבוה appears in the opening of a legal query addressed to Shemarya b. Elḥanan (Fustat, ca. 980-1011: T-S Misc. 35.17r l.2; erroneously transcribed in Simḥa Assaf, Teshuvot ha-Ge'onim, Jerusalem 1942, pp. 113-115).

9 The Hebrew opening stops here; the body of the contract or deed, in Aramaic, begins from this point.

10 The ayin is closed at the top, but this appears to be the reading. The last letter is taw (pace Goitein), even though a heh is expected (his reading). Goitein suggests that the scribe first wrote שבסר, as is normal in Aramaic for ‘seventeen’, but then changed it to a form closer to Hebrew and Arabic. We do not see evidence of this conjecture.

11 An error for שוכין, plene spelling of שכן (see Psalms 135:21). The scribe's disposition for plene spelling is also evident in line 4 of the main text, with the word כין, and possibly also in line 2 (see above). As noted above, the word הללויה in the marginal text is out of place and belongs at the end of the verse.

12 So Goitein; for שלשנת.

13 Halper (Catalogue) reads ירושלום(!), but this is unjustified.

14 ותמנן: the penultimate nun is pointed with a Babylonian qamatz (as Gideon Bohak pointed out to us). ותרתן: so Goiten; this seems like the only possible reading, although most of the resh is faded, and the final nun remains very uncertain and could be missing altogether from what remains of the fragment; if it is there, it would be on the fragment's very edge (I have examined the original, and have not been able to ascertain this). Halper reads ותלת, ‘and three’, though acknowledging that the word is ‘slightly obliterated’, and expressing the view that this ‘is immaterial to the ascertaining of an approximate date’. Halper's reading would date the contract to one year later, i.e. 1183 SE, as is also assumed in the catalogue entry quoted above; but this reading is incorrect, as the base of the third letter does not have the shape of a lamed, and there is no trace of its ascender.

15 i.e. a favourable astrological sign.

16 As for example in Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, vol. 2 no. 17, and in Hebrew, no. 50; these phrases are very common in the dating formulas of contracts and other documents.

17 The catalogue entry, quoted above, refers to this large margin on the right as ‘on interior side’, but it is more likely to be the outer side, given that the flap is on the left.

18 As is the norm for entries of marriage and other contracts in later Genizah court registers, including the earliest known exemplar, from 933 in Damascus; see the next note.

19 The earliest court notebooks preserved from Fusṭāṭ date from the early 11th century, and it is not clear whether there were standing Jewish courts there before this period; Eve Krakowski is currently working on a larger study devoted to this question. However, fragments do survive of an earlier court register from Damascus, produced in 933 and apparently devoted specifically to matrimonial contracts. See Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, nos. 53-55.

20 See above, n. 6.

21 This depends on which era from Creation was assumed. According to the ‘western’ or Palestinian reckoning (which is in dominant use today), the year 4635 would have corresponded to 874/5 ce. According to the ‘eastern’ or Babylonian reckoning, as first attested in the Babylonian Talmud, bAvodah Zarah 9b, the year 4635 corresponded to 875/6 ce.

22 This identification was made by Halper, Descriptive Catalogue, p. 175, and taken for granted by Goitein, ‘Four Old Marriage Contracts’, as well as in the UPenn catalogue.

23 The phrase ‘a good sign for all Israel’ is found, however, in early rabbinic sources, with slight variations and in a variety of contexts (none of which, however, are documentary or legal): Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Baḥodesh 4; Genesis Rabbah 6:2 (ms Vatican Ebr. 30 fol. 7v); Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 89a; and JTS ENA 1745, fol.1v (on the latter see Stern, S., ‘New light on the primitive rabbinic calendars: JTS ENA 1745’, Journal of Jewish Studies 69 (2018) pp. 262-279CrossRefGoogle Scholar, arguing for an 8th-century dating). The phrase is then used in liturgical contexts in later medieval sources, already in tractate Soferim 19:10 (whose provenance and date are unclear).

24 The few exceptions from the first half of the tenth century follow the Palestinian-Rabbanite tradition and thus, as will be detailed in the following paragraphs, do not contain parallel features to our document. These include the court record of betrothals and marriages from Damascus, 933, and the ketubbah produced in Qugandima in 945; see above, n. 19, and below, n. 54.

25 The first and third of these have received detailed scholarly attention in M. A. Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine (which focuses on Palestinian-Rabbanite ketubbot and other marital contracts) and J. Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents in the Cairo Genizah (which focuses on Qaraite marital documents, including betrothal contracts as well as ketubbot). In contrast, very few of the Iraqi-Rabbanite ketubbot have been published.

26 E.g., Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.49v-50r (a Qaraite formulary, (ed.) Olswozy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, no. 52); T-S 8 J 1.14 (text of an Iraqi-Rabbanite ketubbah from Fusṭāṭ, 1094, written as a draft or writing exercise).

27 See Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, pp. 91-96; Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, 135-138. Some Palestinian-Rabbanite ketubbot contain minor variations, including Ezra 6:14 in place of II Chron. 14:6; see Friedman, ibid., p. 94.

28 A few feature additional biblical verses and two later ketubbot (both from the 1080s) include lengthier preambles; see ibid., p. 95.

29 Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, p. 140.

30 On the nasi clause, see ibid., pp. 153-154. In two Qaraite ketubbot from Egypt, written in 1036 and 1045, this series of ‘lifetime’ clauses begins with a protective formula declaring that the marriage will occur at a propitious time: בשעת רצון מאל עליון בחיי אדנינו הנשיא … נתחיל ובחיי הארוש והארושה ובחיי כל עדת ישראל (‘let us begin at an hour of (good-)will from God the (most) High, in the lifetime of our lord the nasi…and the lifetime of the groom and bride, and the lifetime of the entire community of Israel’). Ibid., no. 5, and cf. no. 52. For other documents written before 1050 (or that are undated) and that include some version of this ‘all Israel’ clause, see ibid., nos. 4, 5, 8, 13, 51, and 54.

31 This formula appears in dozens of unpublished ketubbot. See, e.g., T-S 16.245 (1015), Bodl. Heb. a. 2/4 (1029), and T-S 20.7 (1050).

32 This formula is less common than טבא נחשא, etc., but appears in around a dozen ketubbot known to us. See, e.g., T-S 16.78, Bodl. Heb. b. 12/22.

33 The earliest examples known to us are T-S 12.98 (dated sometime between 1058 and 1067) and Bodl. a.3/38 (1067). CUL Or. 1080 J 260 (dated between 1068 and 1079) and later ketubbot include a longer version:

הקהילה ולכל ולכלה לחתן שאלה כל ומילוי וגילה וחדוה וצהלה ושמחה מהוללה ועונה מעולה בשעה, ‘at an exalted hour, at a glorious time, (with) joy, shouting, rejoicing, gathering, and the fulfillment of every request for the bride and groom and the whole congregation.’ In the twelfth century, versions of this prologue began to include a rashut formula acknowledging the authority of the Head of the Jews, similar to the earlier Qaraite nasi clause; see Mark Cohen, Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt, pp. 266-267.

34 CUL Or. 1080 13.52, (ed.) Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, no. 51, which contains a marginal notation instructing scribes to begin a ketubbah written for a Levite with this verse.

35 The fact that Palestinian-Rabbanite and Qaraite ketubbot both begin with an invocation of God's name is likely incidental, since this practice was extremely widespread in Egypt and Syria beyond the context of Jewish documents; see below, at n. 42.

36 Karaite Marriage Documents, pp. 131-134. As M. A. Friedman has pointed out, however, they include some elements characteristic of Palestinian-Rabbanite ketubbot: see idem, ‘On the Relationship of the Qaraite and the Palestinian Rabbanite Marriage Contracts from the Genizah,’ Te‘uda 15 (1999), pp. 153–156 [Hebrew].

37 See, e.g., the examples cited in Sabar, S., ‘Words, Images, and Magic: The Protection of the Bride and Bridegroom in Jewish Marriage Contracts,’ in Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History, (ed.) Boustan, R. et al. (Philadelphia, 2011), pp. 102-132Google Scholar.

38 See above, n. 6. There are also Iraqi gaonic ketubba formularies, but they omit the document prologues that are our focus here, likely because these were not considered integral to the contract's legal efficacy. See R. Brody and M. Ben-Sasson, Sefer ha-Shetarot le-Rasa'g (forthcoming); Assaf, S., Sefer ha-Shetarot le-Rav Hayya ben Sherira Ga'on (Jerusalem, 1930)Google Scholar.

39 Excepting the use of Hebrew verses in Palestinian-Rabbanite ketubbah prologues.

40 Qaraite betrothal contracts: these are included in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents (see, e.g., ibid., nos. 4, 5, and 6). Iraqi-Rabbanite betrothal and other pre-marital contracts, which date only to a later period (beginning in the early twelfth century), occasionally feature a short prologue (or versions of similar formulae included at the end of the contract), but these are not standard. See A. Ashur, ‘Engagement and Betrothal Documents from the Cairo Geniza’ (Hebrew. PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2006), p. 46.

41 See the recent survey, including references to past studies, in Berkes, L., ‘Writing Exercises from Early Islamic Bawit,’ in New frontiers of Arabic papyrology: Arabic and multilingual texts from early Islam, (ed.) Sobhi, S. et al. (Leiden, 2017), pp. 32-34Google Scholar.

42 Jewish legal documents from the classical Genizah period do occasionally include a basmala, but this is rare and idiosyncratic. In contrast, Genizah letters and petitions often begin with a basmala, as do contemporary literary texts.

43 T-S 12.710, (ed.) P. Ackerman-Lieberman, ‘A Partnership Culture: Jewish Economic and Social Life Seen Through the Legal Documents of the Cairo Geniza’ (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2007), pp. 114-116.

44 T-S A 42.2.

45 The phrase ‘in an exalted season,’ which is absent from Halper 331, appears in at least one much later ketubbah preserved in the Genizah: T-S 18 J 1.4, dated 1094.

46 It begins: ופי אלסבת יקול הנח לנו כי אבינו אתה (‘And on the Sabbath he should say: Grant us rest, for you are our father …’). On the Iraqi-Rabbanite prayer הנח לנו כי אבינו אתה, see S. Reif, Jewish Prayer Texts from the Cairo Genizah (Leiden, 2016), p. 126.

47 On this manuscript's palaeography, see Olszowy-Schlanger, J., ‘The Anatomy of Non-biblical Scrolls from the Cairo Geniza,’ in Jewish Manuscript Cultures: New Perspectives, (ed.) Wandrey, I. (Berlin, 2017), p. 78Google Scholar. The colophon and two liturgical notations are on the page of the shelf-mark labelled “1r” by the holding library. The talmudic paraphrase appears on 2v. It closely parallels bBava Batra 15a, a famous passage ascribing the authorship of various biblical books to specific biblical figures.

48 bBava Batra 60b.

49 The era of Destruction (see below) would take us to the 13th century ce, which is palaeographically excluded.

50 T-S NS 246.26.2, a fragment of Bible (the end of the book of Nehemiah) with Babylonian pointing, with a dated colophon. Although the year is not explicitly stated as of the Seleucid era, on palaeographic and historical grounds this seems like the only possible interpretation; the date is therefore equivalent to 903/4 ce (see Rüger, H. P., ‘Ein Fragment der bisher ältesten datierten hebräischen Bibelhandschrift mit babylonischer Punktation’, Vetus Testamentum 16 (1966) pp. 65-73Google Scholar; Beit-Arié, M., Sirat, C., and Glatzer, M., Codices Hebraicis litteris exarati quo tempore scripti fuerint exhibentes, vol.1, (Turnhout, 1997), no. 2, pp. 40-41Google Scholar. This fragment has been claimed as the ‘oldest dated medieval Hebrew manuscript’ (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-NS-00246-00026-00002, accessed 20 July 2018) – a claim that may well be justified. Another Bible manuscript (of the latter Prophets), Ms St Petersburg RNL EVR.II B 100, has a colophon (on fol. 50v) dated year 1205 ‘of the Greek reckoning’ (= 893/4 ce) and located in ‘Egypt’ (presumably Cairo), but this colophon is surely a forgery. The manuscript itself, which is not listed or even mentioned in Beit-Arié et al., Codices Hebraicis, is evidently late (as has been confirmed to us by Judith Olszowy-Schlanger on palaeographical grounds, and by Ben Outhwaite on orthographic and textual grounds); and the colophon's reference to Saadya Gaon is blatantly anachronistic.

51 Coptic calendar text: T-S Ar. 29.56 recto right (N. Vidro and S. Stern, ‘A tenth-century Jewish correction of the Easter calendar’, forthcoming). The earliest legal documents written in Fusṭāṭ and dated by the Seleucid era are: 1. T-S 20.85, 126? se (948-959 ce); 2. Bodl. MS Heb. b. 12.6 + b. 12.29 (ed. S. Assaf, ‘Old Genizah Documents from Palestine, Egypt and North Africa’, in Tarbiz 9 (1937) pp. 11-34 [Hebrew], no. 14; 959 ce); 3. T-S 12.539 (965 ce); 4. T-S 12.462, a late 10th or early 11th-century endorsement of a deed of sale of a property in Fusṭāṭ that was dated Monday 22 Tevet, 1277 SE (= 18 December 965 ce). 5. T-S 12.515, an acknowledgment of debt in Fusṭāṭ dated Thursday 12 Siwan, 1278 (presumably SE, = 23 May 967ce). The earliest marriage contracts from Fusṭāṭ with Seleucid era dates are dated 1297 SE (= 986 ce: T-S 16.105) and 1306 SE (= 994/5 ce: T-S 16.70). Another marriage contract from Fusṭāṭ, T-S 16.189, may be earlier and closer in time to ours, as what remains of its date indicates the 13th century of the Seleucid era, thus any date between about 890 and 990 ce; it is edited by Goitein, ‘Four Old Marriage Contracts’, pp. 213-215.

52 This statement is attributed to Rav Naḥman (3rd century ce, Babylonian); whilst the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud is generally dated to no later than the 6th century. This passage has no parallel in Palestinian rabbinic sources.

53 bRosh ha-Shanah 23b: ‘the ‘Exile’ – this is Pumbaditha’.

54 Exilarch's letter: reference above, n. 6.

55 Bagnall, R. S. and Worp, K. A., Chronological systems of Byzantine Egypt, 2nd edition., (Leiden, 2004), especially pp. 43-35Google Scholar (regnal years), 88-98 (consular years), 63-87 (era of Diocletian), 300 (Hijri era) and on indications, pp. 7-35.

56 Marriage contract of Antinoopolis: C. Sirat, P. Cauderlier, M. Dukan, and M. A. Friedman, La Ketouba de Cologne. Un contrat de mariage juif à Antinoopolis (Papyrologica Coloniensia 12), (Cologne, 1986). The Sabbatical cycle year is used in the contemporary (late 4th – early 6th centuries) funerary inscriptions from Zoar (Palestina Tertia): see Y. E. Meimaris and K. I. Kritikakou-Nikolaropoulou, Inscriptions from Palaestina Tertia, vol. ic: The Jewish Aramaic Inscriptions from Ghor Es-Safi (Byzantine Zoora) (Meletemata, 73; Athens: National Hellenic Research Foundation), 2016.

57 A possible example of early Jewish use of the Hijri era is p.Ragab 34, a deed of sale of a mule belonging to a Jew, apparently dated 144 ah (= 761/2 ce): A. Hanafi, ‘Two unpublished paper documents and a papyrus’, in P. A. Sijpesteijn and L. Sundelin (eds.), Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt, Leiden: Brill, 2004, pp. 45-61, on pp. 56-60. The designation of the owner as ‘Jew’ suggests that the purchaser was non-Jewish, which may explain in this case why the Hijri era was used. Hanafi takes the absence of the basmala as an indication that the author of the document may have been Jewish, although this is not conclusive.

58 T-S 12.154: Goitein, ‘Four Old Marriage Contracts’, pp. 208-213; Friedman no.14 (ii. 165-175). It appears not to have been noted that this date is problematic, as according to the rabbinic calendar, 16 Av 4705 AM fell not on a Thursday but on a Tuesday, 29 July 945 ce. A two-day error seems unlikely, but I have no other way of accounting for it. It cannot be explained, for example, if we assume that the ‘eastern’ or Babylonian era of Creation, with an epoch in 3760 bce, was used.

59 From Tinnīs (east of the Nile Delta): Bodl. MS Heb. a.2.3 a-c, 989 ce. From Bunā (Nile Delta): T-S 16.132, 998 ce, with both the Creation and the Seleucid eras.

60 The only examples I know from Fusṭāṭ in the 10th century (last two decades) are documents that were possibly written by the same scribe: T-S 16.221 and T-S NS 323.34, dated by both the era of Creation and the Seleucid era, 986 ce; T-S 16.175, both eras, 990s ce; and T-S AS 145.52 verso, era of Creation only, 994 ce. On this scribe (‘Scribe IV’), see Olszowy-Schlanger, ‘On the graphic cultures’ (n. 62 below). But the use of both the Seleucid and the Creation eras becomes common in Hebrew documents from Fusṭāṭ in the early 11th century (e.g. T-S 24.11, from 1002 ce); whereas Judeo-Arabic documents continue to be dated by the Seleucid era only. The subsequent history of these eras in Fusṭāṭ is yet to be charted.

61 Yeivin, Z., ‘Susiya: The Synagogue’, in Stern, E. et al. (eds.), New Encyclopaedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 4 vols., Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993, iv, pp. 1417–1421Google Scholar. The inscription is difficult to date, because only the number 4000 is preserved, but the synagogue as a whole was built and repaired in several stages between the 4th and 8th centuries, so this inscription could be quite early. The sabbatical cycle year also appears in this inscription.

62 T-S A42.2; see Beit-Arié et al., Codices Hebraicis, no. 4, pp. 48-52. This document just postdates the period, in 922-3 ce, when Babylonian and Palestinian Rabbanite calendars differed.

63 MS Manchester John Rylands University Library, Gaster Genizah 2; Beit-Arié et al., Codices Hebraicis, no. 9, pp. 80-81.

64 See above, n.52. The era of Destruction is also attested in several early 9th-century Hebrew funerary inscriptions in Venosa, Italy (most recently re-edited by Leonard Rutgers and Ortal Paz-Saar, https://diaspora.sites.uu.nl/projects/3d-pilot-project-in-venosa/, accessed 9 August 2018). Its use in Egypt, in the 10th century and later, remained however sporadic.

65 See for example Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 21-30.

66 Olszowy-Schlanger, J., ‘On the graphic cultures of the beit din: Hebrew script in legal documents from Fustat in the early Fatimid period’, in Salvesen, A., Pearce, S., and Frenkel, M. (eds.), Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period, (Leiden, 2020), pp. 489–513Google Scholar.

67 Another feature of our ketubbah that identifies it as ‘Babylonian’ rather than ‘Palestinian’ or western is that the day of the month is given before the name of the month (whereas in Palestinian ketubbot, the month name is mentioned first: Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, i.102-107; Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, pp. 160-163). The Seleucid era was similarly alien to the Palestinian tradition, and Palestinian marriage contracts continued, in the 11th-12th centuries, to be dated according to the eras of the Destruction or of the Creation, often together with the sabbatical year (Friedman, ibid.; Olszowy-Schlanger, ibid.). However, even within the Palestinian tradition, the Seleucid Era made significant inroads from the late 10th century onwards. Thus, the colophon of a manuscript written in Jerusalem by a Maghrebi scribe is dated 1300 ‘of the kingdom of the Greeks’ (988/9 ce: Ms St Petersburg RNL EVR.II B 39, fol. 156v, Beit-Arié et al., Codices Hebraicis, no.12, pp. 88-97); and several 11th century and later Palestinian-type ketubbot from outside Palestine, in particular from Damascus, are dated by the Seleucid era (Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, i.106 and n.34, ii. nos. 27 and 56). The only attested Palestinian-type ketubbah that was written in Fusṭāṭ, in 1007 ce, is dated by both the era of Creation and the Seleucid era (T-S 18J1, fol.3; ibid. ii. No. 50, pp. 376-383). The use of the Seleucid era was also prominent among the Qaraites from the late 10th century onwards (Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, pp. 160-163).

68 Halper's reading of ‘1183’, which has been dismissed above as incorrect, does not afford a solution, as in that year too 17 Tishri fell on a Saturday.

69 This rule is attested already in the Palestinian Talmud (late 4th century), and by the 9th century was very well established in the rabbinic calendar. See Stern, Calendar and Community, pp. 166-167, 171, 194-195. This rule is taken for granted, for example, in the Exilarch's letter of 835/6 ce (ibid. pp. 277-283, and see above, n. 6). See further above, n.1.

70 If our document is a ketubbah, it would also be pertinent to note that marriages on Friday were unusual (Friedman, Jewish Marriage, vol.1, p. 99, n. 6); and moreover, it is strange for a marriage to have been scheduled in the middle of the festival season of Tishri.

71 In order to match a Friday, there are actually not many options available within the month of Tishri 870 ce, as many of the other Fridays in that month coincided with festivals (2 Tishri, 23 Tishri) or with the eve of the day of Atonement (9 Tishri), which were equally unsuitable for marriage or for writing contracts. The only option would be Friday 30 Tishri, the last day of the month. It is almost inconceivable that 17 was substituted by mistake for 30.

72 Jacob al-Qirqisānī, Kitāb al-anwār wa-al-marāqib, 1:15-16, in English translation in Nemoy, L., ‘Al-Qirqisānī's account of the Jewish sects and Christianity’, Hebrew Union College Annual 7, 1930, pp. 317-397, on pp. 388-389Google Scholar; text in id., Kitāb al-anwār wa-al-marāqib: Code of Karaite law, by Ya'qūb al-Qirqisānī, New York: Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, pp. 1939-1943. Qirqisānī defines the molad as the time of the moon's ‘separation’ from the sun; this definition is unusual, but Qirqisānī probably means the end of the moon's conjunction with the sun.

73 Ismāʿīl al-ʿUkbarī: ‘at the time of’; Abū ʿImrān Al-Tiflīsī: ‘on the day of’ (al-Qirqisānī, ibid.).

74 Ms St Petersburg IOS, B051, fol.36r, as transcribed by Zawanowska, M., The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben Eli the Karaite on the Abraham Narratives (Genesis 11:10–25:18), (Leiden, 2012), pp. 102-103Google Scholar and n. 36 (the English translation of the Judeo-Arabic, however, is inaccurate):פמנהם מן ג̇על אצל חסאבה עלי אלאג̇תמאע והו אבו עמראן אלתפליסי ואצחאבה. ואלב׳ חסאב אלרבאנין והו חסאב מבני עלי אלמילאד

75 Ms St Petersburg RNL, Evr.-Ar. I 73, fol. 99v (a manuscript copied in 594 ah, 1198 ce). Later text witnesses include ms London BL, Or.2518, fol. 5r.

76 Doubts can also be expressed as to the Cairo Genizah provenance of this fragment, as has been pointed out above.

77 See Rustow, M., ‘The Qaraites as sect: the tyranny of a construct’, in Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History, (ed.) Stern, S. (Leiden, 2011), pp. 149-186Google Scholar.