14 DAY TRIAL // A Jewish prayer book that was discovered in Jerusalem and which is now part of a private collection could be the oldest of its kind.
Scholars who have had the chance to examine the book say that it measures 3 inches (10 centimeters) in width and that it is roughly 4 inches (11 centimeters) tall. It has some 50 pages, all of which are beige.
Scholars say that it is split into six different sections, each of which deals with another topic. Two of these topics are the End of Times and the Passover Seder.
Carbon tests and other investigations carried out thus far indicate that this book was made in the 9th century, probably around the year 840, Daily Mail reports.
If this is indeed the case, the book is at least four centuries older than the earliest Torah scrolls thus far documented by historians. Thus, these scrolls “only” date back to the 12th and the 13th century.
“The artifact may well be the earliest connection today’s practicing Jews have to the roots of their modern-day rabbinic liturgy,” the Green Collection, i.e. one of the world's largest collections of rare biblical texts and artifacts, explained in a press release.
“This find is historical evidence supporting the very fulcrum of Jewish religious life. This Hebrew prayer book helps fill the gap between the Dead Sea Scrolls and other discoveries of Jewish texts from the ninth and 10th centuries,” Dr. Jerry Pattengale of the Green Scholars Initiative also stated.
The specialists saying that the prayer book dates back to the 9th century base their claims on the fact that the texts included in it are written in Hebrew script so old that it incorporates Babylonian vowel pointing.
By the looks of it, the book will be put on display in a museum set to open in Washington in early spring 2017.