Sacred TreasureThe Cairo Genizah: The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic

Indiana Jones meets The Da Vinci Code in an old Egyptian synagoguethe amazing story of one of the most important discoveries in modern religious scholarship.

In 1896, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, and there found the largest treasure trove of medieval and early manuscripts ever discovered. He had entered the synagogues genizahits repository for damaged and destroyed Jewish textswhich held nearly 300,000 individual documents, many of which were over 1,000 years old.

Considered among the most important discoveries in modern religious history, its contents contained early copies of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, early manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, and other sacred literature. The importance of the genizahs contents rivals that of the Rosetta Stone, and by virtue of its sheer mass alone, it will continue to command our attention indefinitely.

This is the first accessible, comprehensive account of this astounding discovery. It will delight you with its fascinating adventure storywhy this enormous collection was amassed, how it was discovered and the many lessons to be found in its contents. And it will show you how Schechters find, though still being unpacked today, forever transformed our knowledge of the Jewish past, Muslim history and much more.

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