Jewish Exemplars and Hebraist Copies of Hebrew Manuscripts

Paratexts of Hebrew manuscripts that German monastic scholars copied by their own hand for their own use around 1500 offer valuable insight into their methods of working. In these paratexts, Christian copyists not only commented on the Jewish texts they copied, but also provided information about their textual exemplars. The emphasis placed on the exemplars may have been caused by the copyists' growing awareness of each copy being different necessitating efforts to make the chain of succeeding copies retrievable. However, the practice of referring to Jewish manuscripts used as exemplars brings with it more diverse issues, such as the status of originals and the processes of authentication of the copies, as well as the question of the Christian copyist's own role in transmitting Jewish texts to the Christian audience.