THE FIRST RABBINIC BIBLE - 1517

Our time in Germany was beginning to come to a close. I had been getting strong signals from home, particularly from my Father, who was weakening every day, that we had been away long enough. "Two years over there is enough. Come home and finish it in Canada." This was a very troubling message from someone I loved very much. It disturbed us for days.

We had another severe problem. Each of our children had been making the best of it in German schools. The schools were prepared to have foreign students with them for a year - and in most cases in the U. S. and Canada if a student has been having a "foreign experience" for one year they can fit back into their grade without much disturbance, and with a few catch-up courses.

But we had been away already two years. In some cases their teachers wanted them put back one year, feeling they hadn't learned much because of their lack of German. I think that did not happen, but they were all making progress at varying rates depending upon age and inclinations.

If they were doing well, as some were, we were bothered by the fact that they would be so accustomed to the German school system that they might have trouble being fitting into the Canadian system again. If they weren't doing well, we were worried about the level in Canadian schools when they returned.

All in all we felt that two and one-half years was maximum. When we announced that to our kids we all had a goal within reach. If we could only hang on and do what we had to do for the remaining months.

I was given advanced warning of my Father's failing health and I flew home for one week. In fact my Father died when we were in Germany. That was the only return flight during our time in Germany, and I was the only one of seven who had that experience.

The push was on to finish the work which would absolutely require the continental libraries and collegial resources.

Finding the First Rabbinic Bible

I wanted to be able to demonstrate ways that the commentaries of David Kimhi could have been read by Reformers in the 1520's and 1530's.

My attention became focused upon a very particular Bible called the First Rabbinic Bible. This Bible has virtually disappeared from history - it was so strange and had such an odd purpose.

Felix Pratensis had been a Jew, and was baptised as a Christian. He used his Jewish scholarship to provide a Bible for Christians in the form and with the features of a Jewish Bible. The First Rabbinic Bible was published by Daniel Bomberg in Venice in 1517. It was dedicated to Pope Leo X and was clearly intended for Christians. Few copies of this bible are available to be seen today.

C. D. Ginsburg, the author of a book published in 1897, informed the reader that he knew of only two copies of this bible in existence - one was in the British Museum and the other he possessed himself.

What drew my interest was Ginsburg's translation of the table of contents of this book - "The Psalms with the Targum of Rabi Joseph and with the Commentary by R. David Kimchi.." It appeared that David Kimhi's commentaries on the psalms were included. I wanted to see those commentaries, particularly to see how Felix Pratensis handled Kimhi's "anti-christian" comments.

But how was I to see this Bible? By correspondence with the British Museum I found they had the Bible. I was able to order a microfilm of the psalm commentary. From another source I hunched that there might be a copy of the Bible in the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. I wrote a letter to them, telling them of the critical nature of this for my dissertation. They sent back a photocopy of the psalms with David Kimhi's commentary. In neither case did it seem to me that the anti-christian materials were included. It seemed that the commentary stopped short.

But I wanted to see that Bible for myself.

I enlisted the assistance of one of my Professors who was involved in the Bible Society in Stuttgart. He thought he remembered seeing a copy there. So with the help of the supervisor in the Tübingen Library and who had become a personal friend of Marilyn [for books on weaving and lace] and me - a trip was arranged to the provincial library in Stuttgart. This was only a day trip and Marilyn came to help me make the most of it. The Stuttgart Library had been forewarned by the supervisor in the Tübingen Library. We were treated as visiting scholars and given first class treatment by the Head Librarian. He gave us our own room in the stacks and brought cartloads of books as we ordered them.

It was wonderful; but they had no First Rabbinic Bible!

It was now November and we were leaving in December. I still wanted to see that Bible before returning to Canada.

I enlisted the help of another colleague who had a collection of early Hebrew Grammars. He suggested I write to four libraries - The University of Zürich, the University of Geneva, the Provincial Library in Munich, and the University Library.

Within days I received the first letter back - from the University Library in Munich. "Yes, we have it. Yes, you may see it in our special reading room any weekday after 8 am."

A cold, early morning trip to Munich

Munich was a five hour drive from Tübingen, and our car had lost its heater. But we had to go to Munich - the seven of us!The car heater was broken, and it was a very cold November day, so we took our sleeping bags and bundled everyone up in our 9 passenger Volkswagen van, and headed at 3 a.m. for Munich.

I can't quite remember why we took the whole family to Munich, except that they would have come home to an empty house otherwise. I remember a sense of excitement, and realizing the urgency of the trip and the short time remaining for us in Germany we felt it was best to keep them out of school and take them with us. It a VERY bad thing to do in Germany, taking children out of school, even for one day.

We arrived shortly before 8 a.m. and the family was to look around Munich especially the fine Museums and Art Galleries. While I was in the Library the family whiled away the time, because they had found out that everything was closed on Mondays. The boys were accosted by policemen for being out of school. Then we had a great treat: Whimpy's hamburgers.

Meanwhile I was sitting in the Special Reading Room of the University of Munich, waiting for them to deliver to me the First Rabbinic Bible.

Touching pages 450 years old

When it arrived I had the wonderful sensation I have always had in actually touching the pages of a book over 450 years old. But this particular Bible was more precious because of the scarcity of the copies today.

The First Rabbinic Bible is all in Hebrew and Rabbinic Hebrew. The psalms are arranged with the Hebrew text on the page, and under it the commentary of David Kimhi, all in Rabbinic Hebrew.

With the help of the texts I had brought with me I could follow through the various Psalms and see that the Commentary was indeed, David Kimhi's commenary. It appeared true what the few authorities had said about this Bible, that the "anti-Christian polemics" of David Kimhi were omitted.

This made sense, of course. Felix Pratensis as a baptized Jew was preparing this Bible for Christians to learn Jewish lore. Why would he also want them to have to read "anti-christian" materials? Still, I had hoped, in the interest of scholarship and truth, that he might have left them in.

Once I flipped through the pages of all the Bible and then examined the psalms as carefully as I could, I was assessing what kind of microfilms to order for myself.

And then it happened:

For reasons I cannot explain, I scanned the whole of the psalm commentary to the end of Psalm 150 looking for the transition into the next book, which in the Hebrew Bible is Proverbs. And I saw an intervening page which I could not understand. Printed both sides, all in Rabbinic Hebrew, it was very strange. It taxed every ability I had at that moment to read any of it.

It gradually emerged for me that it said something about David Kimhi on the Psalms.

And then in large print it said The Christians - (the nozrim - - like Nazarines - the same word I had remembered from translating psalm 110)

And then I saw what followed was the excerpted "anti-Christian polemics" from each of the psalms "In Psalm 2 (and there followed the complete text of the "polemic") - and in Psalm 19 --- and in psalm 110: there was the whole text of the "polemic"!

In other words there was nothing excised from the text. The reader simply had to read the commentary on Psalm 110 as it surrounded the Psalm and the balance of it on the page between Psalms and Proverbs.

When we arrived back in Tübingen I received the letters back from the other Libraries I had selected. Zürich and Geneva both reported to have the Bible as well. So now began another collection - a collection of the libraries who have a copy of the First Rabbinic Bible.

A further Mystery!

In the process another unusual fact became clear. Not every Bible had the strange page between Psalms and Proverbs!

In some of the Bibles the page was missing, and showed no signs of being extracted.

In some cases the page seemed to be a slightly smaller size. It was almost seeming as if you could order this Bible bound 'with' or 'without' the page of "anti-christian polemics" of David Kimhi!

I sent letters to a number of continental University libraries, asking them if they had the Bible, and also whether their copy had the page or not!

So far I have found 22 Bibles, including a few in North America, and the number that have "the page" is about equal to the number which do not have the page.

What I have just told you appears to be a small historical glitch which was my own discovery. None of the "authorities" who have written about the First Rabbinic Bible have mentioned this fact. They have only reported that the "anti-Christian polemics" were omitted.

There is some significance to this discovery, which I will explore as my work continues to be added in HTML form. The significance has to do with whether the Reformers had at their disposal the complete text of David Kimhi's commentaries on the Psalms. [The Story pauses at this time, although it is not complete!]