II. TRANSMISSION OF THE WRITINGS OF THE KIMHIS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The commentaries and grammatical works of the Kimhis were born in the era of manuscripts, well over 200 years before the advent of printing.

Even after Gutenberg (ca. 1455) the laborious copying of manuscripts continued. Some thought printing would be a passing fad. Others were convinced that manuscripts were a truer and finer method of reproduction. Type faces for the Hebrew characters were not immediately available to the printers. In general, however, the advent of printing terminated the era of the production of manuscripts.

Manuscripts varied in quality according to the authenticity of the material being copies and according to the fidelity of the copyist. Many were literally works of art, often containing elaborately-drawn letters coloured in vivid hues. Usually the manuscript would contain a beautifully designed 'word-picture' (called a "colophon", telling the history of its copying and ownership.

Preservation of the manuscripts was difficult in the turbulent Middle Ages, particularly if the manuscript contained material considered offensive by the authorities. Such was the case with most manuscripts containing Jewish materials whose owner lived in a Christian nation, especially if the material was considered "anti-Christian". Preservation of manuscripts was made more difficult by not only the obvious problems of deterioration and water damage, loss and theft, but by censorship.

Censorship began long before the printing era and was particularly pernicious regarding Jewish works. The thirteenth century Inquisition left its mark on Jewish literature, particularly in France and Spain. The first public burning of Jewish works in the Inquisition was at Montpelier in southern France. Burning of Jewish works was common in the succeeding centuries and became the issue in the famous "Battle of the Books" (1511-1520) between the humanist Johannes Reuchlin, who wanted to save all Jewish books, and Johannes Pfefferkorn, a converted Jew who, supported by the Dominican Monks of Cologne, Germany, wanted to destroy many types of Jewish works. For all these above-mentioned reasons, research into the transmission of Jewish materials in the Middle Ages is frustrated to a great extent by the loss of manuscripts, unintentionally or intentionally.

Many Manuscripts did, however, survive the turbulent conditions of the Middle Ages, as attested to by the number of manuscripts retained today in the great libraries of Europe, Asia and North America. Every important library in Europe has some Hebrew manuscripts from the Middle Ages.

However finding the manuscripts is only the beginning of the problem. One encounters another aspect of censorship, the altering or expurgation of the material, the effects of which may be obvious or entirely hidden. If the copyist was under orders to delete particular passages of the material or to alter it in some particular way there is no evidence in the manuscripts itself that the text is in any way impaired. If, on the other hand, the expurgation was performed after the manuscript was written the effects are obvious. The 'offensive' passage were simply cut out, blacked out, or crossed out. In many cases the 'offensive' material is legible today, because the crossing out was ineffectively performed in the first place.

The biblical commentaries and grammatical works of the Kimhis were circulated and copied widely in manuscript form from the time of their writing until the age of printing. Kimhi manuscripts have turned up in libraries from one side of Europe to the other. Many, of course, have migrated with their owners to America and Israel.

The Bodleian Library, Oxford, England has a large collection of Hebrew manuscripts, which includes fifty manuscripts or fragments of David Kimhi's biblical commentaries, six of Sefer Miklol and thirteen of Sefer Hashorashim. The dates of the manuscripts are from the 1200's to the 1600's, the most common being in the 1400's.

The Bodleian library has two examples of the Mahalak Shebile Ha-daat of Moses Kimhi, as well as three of his commentaries and fourteen works of Joseph Kimhi.

The Bibliotheque Imperiale of Paris contains one entry for Joseph Kimhi, five for Moses Kimhi and fifty-three entries for David Kimhi (including eighteen examples from his grammatical works). Included are ten examples of David Kimhi on Psalms: entries number 107, 114, 201 and 207-213. The following excerpts from the catalogue descriptions illustrates aspects of the problem of censorship:

• "The anti-Christian passages of the commentary are deleted, like in most of the manuscripts of this work." (Number 107)

• "The pages containing anti-Christian passages have been slit or torn off." (Number 201)

• "Several anti-Christian passages have been deleted." (Number 207)

• "In the anti-Christian passages the name of Jesus alone is deleted." (Number 208)

• "Several anti-Christian passages have been deleted." (Number 211)

• "The anti-Christian passages are not effaced, but they are refuted in the margin, in Hebrew, by a Christian. The text is very much abridged." (Number 212)

• "An abridged example, in which all the passages against Christianity have been cut out. (Number 213)

Of the ten examples, seven have been censored in some way. The variety of the methods of censorship are especially interesting.

The Bibliothecae Apostolicae in the Vatican has twenty three works of David Kimhi and four works of Moses Kimhi.

According to a 1965 catalogue of manuscripts in Germany, very few of the works of the Kimhis have survived in that country in manuscript form.

The advent of printing (Gutenberg, 1455) provided a tremendous advantage to the Jewish community, situated as it was in small centres spread throughout Europe, requiring biblical, historical and devotional materials of all types in the Hebrew language. Jews were among the first to establish printing presses, although they were persecuted in many countries by laws denying them the right to own printing establishments. Jews often held the position of type-setter or proof-reader in a Christian establishment. In many instances Jewish printers migrated to countries where laws were less severe.

During the early decades of printing, Jewish printing presses flourished in Spain, Portugal and Italy, but with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 came a corresponding concentration of printing in Italy, particularly in Venice. There were twenty-two Jewish presses prominent in the 15th century: 12 in Italy, 9 in the Iberian Peninsula and one in Constantinople. In terms of number of books printed, the most outstanding family was the Soncinos.

Joshua Solomon migrated from Speyer, Germany to the Italian town of Soncino, changed his family name to the name of his new home, and founded a printing establishment. Together with his nephews Moses and Gershom, Joshua printed many Jewish books of fine quality in Soncino, Brescia, Naples and Pesaro in the years 1485 to 1517.

The first books printed up to the end of the 15th century were called 'Incunabula' or 'cradle books'. The Incunabula period was rich with the printing of great Jewish works, including various biblical texts often with commentary of a famous Rabbi, such as Rashi, David Kimhi or Abraham Ibn Esra, the Targums, the Babylonian Talmud, and some grammatical and devotional materials.

David Kimhi's Sefer Hashorashim was amongst the first books to come off the Jewish press (1469 - 1472) and was reprinted at least twice before 1500. Reference: Early Printing of Kimhi Grammars and Lexicons

David Kimhi's Sefer Miklol was printed at least once before 1500 (in 1490) and many times in the 16th century, beginning in 1529. Moses Kimhi's Mahalak Shebile Ha-daat was printed in 1488, 1508 and many times thereafter. The first commentary of David Kimhi was on the Psalms, printed in 1477, which was also the first printing of the biblical text of the Psalms in Hebrew.
David Kimhi's Psalm Commentary

David Kimhi's psalm commentary was printed again in 1487 (Naples, Jakob Aschkenasi), in the First Rabbinic Bible (Venice, Felix Pratensis, 1517), and in 1522, (Saloniki, Rabbi Jos Chivan). David Kimhi's commentaries on the former and latter prophets were printed many times in Hebrew beginning in 1481. See Early printings of Kimhi Commentaries

It is important to realize that Jewish works initially were printed only for the eyes of Jews, since very few Christians had yet come to see any value in the Hebrew language, the biblical text in Hebrew or the commentaries of the Rabbis. Unaware, as Christians generally were, of the workings of the Hebrew language, the Hebrew and rabbinical Hebrew characters would have been indecipherable to them.

Did Christians see only censured versions of the Kimhi Commentaries or did they see the commentaries complete? Many authors maintain that the commentaries of David Kimhi in the First Rabbinic Bible, on the Psalms, for instance, had been stripped of their "anti-Christian polemics". However, the fact is that the commentaries were gathered together on one page, front and back, and were bound in some of the Bibles.

The humanist, Johannes Reuchlin, was one of the forerunners of Christians in learning the Hebrew language. Reuchlin possessed grammars and commentaries of the Kimhis by 1498 works which he used in the preparation of de rudimentis hebraicis (1506). Reuchlin loaned Conrad Pellican a German translation of Moses Kimhi's Mahalak Shebile Ha-daat for use in writing his grammar de modo legendi et intelligendi hebraeum (1504). The interest in the Hebrew language at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century began slowly, but then picked up momentum quickly.

In the second decade of the sixteenth century a number of Hebrew grammars appeared. The Table of Early Printings of Hebrew Grammars indicates that while there were only six Hebrew grammars for Christians before 1510, there were at least twelve published in the second decade, many of which were distributed widely. The increase is seen particularly in the years 1516 and 1518. By 1520 there were many Christian theologians reading Hebrew texts with remarkable ability.