Images of Codex Valmadonna I: SIG.MS.000858 courtesy Museum of the Bible, The Signatry Collection. All rights reserved. © Museum of the Bible,
2024.
Valmadonna I represents the Western tradition of Targum Ruth. The colophon in the scribe’s hand reads: “Finished the Hebrew Humash, Targum, Haftorot, Hamesh Megillot and Job on the 15 Tammuz 4949,” that is 9 July 1189 CE. The manuscript “contains the Pentateuch, with each verse followed by the Targum of Onkelos, Haftarot, the Five Scrolls, including the Targum, and, following the book of Esther, the long midrashic Targum of Esther (Targum Sheni).”1 Valmadonna 1 is also the oldest known Hebrew/Aramaic manuscript of any kind produced in England. TgRuth is pages 356-357 in the MS.
- Malachi Beit-Arié, The Only Dated Medieval Hebrew Manuscript Written in England (1189 Ce) and the Problem of Pre-Expulsion Anglo-Hebrew Manuscripts, (London: Valmadonna Trust Library London, 1985), 10. ↩︎
