Study a manuscript
Choose a manuscript to examine its contents, page sequence, textual coverage, cataloguing information, and reviewed sources. Pages remain in their physical order, including non-biblical and damaged surfaces.
The collection
The manuscripts behind the text
Masoretica uses computational analysis and scholarly review to organize approximately 70,000 digitized pages, and counting, from ancient and medieval biblical manuscripts. It identifies which biblical passages appear on each page—even when the source is obscure or fragmentary—and indexes the material verse by verse, as well as by textual tradition, date, manuscript type, and other features. This turns a vast and scattered body of images into a resource that can be searched and compared with ease.
The collection includes Hebrew, Samaritan, Aramaic Targum, and Greek biblical texts; some manuscripts preserve more than one of these. It ranges from complete codices and scrolls to composite manuscripts, single leaves, and small fragments.
Masoretica opens an entirely new way to study the evolving biblical text through the manuscripts that preserve it. For the first time ever, scholars can view and compare the same passage across innumerable original manuscripts, rather than relying on the necessarily selective, second-hand representations of manuscript evidence in critical editions.
How it is used
A manuscript or a passage
Study a passage across manuscripts
Choose a book, chapter, and verse to locate the corresponding passage in manuscripts containing Hebrew, Samaritan, Aramaic Targum, and Greek biblical texts, and compare their images side by side.
Source material
Direct access to the manuscripts
Viewing the manuscript pages themselves reveals features that transcription alone cannot capture, including layout, vocalization, corrections, marginal notes, damage, and the spatial relationships among texts on the page.
Passages are located through a combination of reviewed mappings and automated text recognition. When the evidence allows, the exact passage is highlighted; otherwise, Masoretica shows an approximate location. Every manuscript includes information about its origin, rights, catalogue record, and recommended citation.
Sources & methodProject