Kennicott Bible from 1485 help needed

[Chris Watts]

https://archive.org/details/bodleian-li ... ew=theater

I have given up after an exhaustive search, I usually manage but this one bible beats me. I am looking for the start of Lamentations in this bible. Below are the page numbers I have found:

450 = Isaiah 1:1
496 = Jeremiah 1:1
556 = Ezek 1:1
606 = Hosea 1:1
616 = Amos 1:1
774/778 = Towards End of psalms approx
780 = Proverbs 1:1
798 = Job
824 = Song of Solomon
828 = Eccle 3:2
842 = Ester 3:8
846 = Esther 9:7
848 = Daniel

The usual order of Tanach is Song of Solomon - Ruth - Lamentations. I can not find Ruth??? or Lamentations????, I searched for some index at the libraries but their coding system is, as I often find, meaningless to most people except the scholars who do research I imagine.

Help?

Chris watts

[Chris Watts]

Found it - Page 836 Lamentations.

[talmid56]

I found Ruth. it begins in the top right column, p. 820, left side. The right side of the page is the end of Job. Slide the page over to the left to see the first part of Ruth.

[Jason Hare]

You guys are real sleuths!

[talmid56]

Well, it wasn't easy. First, I've only had limited experience looking at manuscripts (pictures, not actual MSS). Second, it appears that in this Bible a scriptio continua approach is used--no spaces between letters or words. Then, unlike pics of Greek MSS I've seen, I didn't spot any titles for books in the text.

So I checked WLC (on BibleGateway, since I was doing it on lunch break at work) for the last sentence and first sentence in each book to narrow it down. This was for the books I was hunting (Ruth and Lamentations) and for the books just before them in the MS. Luckily, I was able to determine the order of the hunted books from the Bodleian Library website page which featured this Bible, https://hebrew.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manuscript_2.

These clues, and some patience, paid off. It was challenging, but fun.

It was worth the effort. This Bible is absolutely gorgeous to look at. I have tremendous respect for the skills and devotion of both the scribe and the artist. I certainly hope the patron was appreciative and paid them well. Also, that he actually made use of the work and didn't just let it gather dust.

I plan to do some more MSS browsing when possible. It's quite an adventure.

[talmid56]

Of course, a lot of Greek MSS are written with no spaces between letters or words also.