Geniza fragment: The Song of the Sea in Christian Arabic

THE GENIZA FRAGMENTS BLOG: Q&A Wednesday: Christian Arabic Canticles, with Nick Posegay (Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Nick Posegay).

Nick, you’ve recently published an article about a Bible fragment.

That’s right. Two fragments in fact: T-S NS 305.198 and T-S NS 305.210. They join together to make a single bifolium from an Arabic psalter manuscript. So, a book of Psalms and other liturgical songs that would’ve been sung in Arabic church services. This page is the beginning of the ‘canticles’, a selection of songs from other parts of the Bible that Orthodox churches included at the end of their psalters. The first canticle here is from Exodus 15:1–120 [Sic - read 15:1-12]. It’s known as the ‘Song of the Sea’, the song which the Israelites supposedly sang after escaping from Pharaoh’s army in Egypt.

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For PaleoJudaica posts on the Arabic Bible, see the links collected here.

For two other early copies of the Song of the Sea, apparently both from the Cairo Geniza, see here and links (especially here and here), plus here.

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