An Enigmatic Aramaic-Hebrew-Greek Glossary of The Jerusalem Talmud

Abstract

This article deals with one manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, discovered in the Cairo Genizah (שבתא in Ginzei Yerushlami). About 30 notes were identified in the margins of this volume, written in Hebrew and Greek. Researchers have considered these notes but have not yet understand their content. This is largely because of their unusual form of writing: the Hebrew notes were written from left to right, while the Greek ones—in most cases—were written from right to left. This paper shows that the notes are interpretive glosses that translate rare words written in the Talmudic text.