Parshat Terumah - Exodus 26:2-6 with Targum Onqelos

This fragment is an exceptionally early witness to the transmission of the Torah. Several conservative palaeographical markers support a proposed dating of this leaf to the turn of the first millennium (c. 975–1100 CE), namely, the justification technique: the scribe utilises letter elongation (dilatation) to achieve left-margin justification, strictly avoiding the use of partial or "filler" letters. This specific scribal habit heavily favours a regional origin in North Africa or Babylonia over Egyptian or Palestinian traditions. Also, the scribal orthography: the archaic structure of the sof pasuq (verse ender) markers and the specific morphology of the characters point to a transition period in Oriental scripts. The lack of a formal Masorah (marginal notes), combined with the highly competent but personal execution, suggests this may have been an owner-produced codex, written by a scholar for private study rather than a community synagogue scroll.

The manuscript captures a vital section of Parshat Terumah, detailing the exact dimensions and construction of the Tabernacle's curtains. Crucially, the text alternates seamlessly between the original Hebrew and the classical Aramaic translation, Targum Onqelos. The earliest surviving witnesses to the Targum Onqelos appear on two 5th–7th century CE incantation bowls discovered at Nippur, Babylonia, but this fragment is among the very earliest manuscript witnesses dating from the 10th–11th centuries, broadly contemporary with those earliest codices.

While the Hebrew alignment with the standard Masoretic text is precise, the Aramaic portions yield compelling textual variants when compared against the standard Comparative Aramaic Lexicon (CAL) text:

• Exodus 26:2 (recto): Variant vocalisation/spelling of אָרְכָּא (orka) for "the length of", contrasting with the more common אוּרכָּא (urka).
• Exodus 26:4–6 (verso): Distinct orthographic variations in prefixing, notably utilising די in place of the standard ד.

Unlike the vast majority of surviving medieval Hebrew paper fragments, this leaf most likely does not originate from the Cairo Genizah. Physical evidence shows that the leaf was secondarily trimmed with aggressive disregard for the margins. This cropping is the classic signature of a binder's waste recovery. Following the expulsion or migration of Jewish communities, this codex was plausibly scavenged by a late-medieval bookbinder, cut down, and pasted inside the spine or boards to reinforce another book. This preservation matrix suggests a provenance line entirely separate from Near Eastern Genizah discoveries, for example, having been scavenged by a late-medieval bookbinder in the Mediterranean basin or Southern Europe, consistent with the known migration patterns of Jewish communities.

Beyond its scholarly biblical value, this leaf represents one of the earliest surviving uses of paper for writing outside of East Asia. The technology of papermaking, captured by the Abbasid Caliphate from China in the late 8th century, transformed the Islamic world. By the late 10th century, it enabled the rapid dissemination of Jewish scholarship across the Mediterranean. This fragment stands as a tangible survivor of that technological and spiritual leap—an artefact bridging the Geonic era and the golden age of Mediterranean Jewish scholarship.