Endnote 19 – The Abisha Scroll—3,000 Years Old?

The standard edition of the tashqil cryptogram is probably that published by Castro in Sefer Abisa, p. XL. He indicates the text to be “I am Abisha the son of Phineas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron, the High Priest, upon them be the favor of the Lord and His glory. I wrote this sacred book at the entry to the Tent of Assembly on Mount Gerizim, Bethel, in the thirteenth year of the rule of the Israelites in the land of Canaan and all its surrounding borders. Thanks to God. Amen.”

In a letter to Moses Gaster (Appendix IV in Gaster’s The Samaritans), the Samaritan high priest, Jacob ben Aaron, set out the tashqil but omitted the words “and all its surrounding borders” and changed the word “rule” to “settlement.” The word “all” in the phrase “all its surrounding borders” is omitted by several readers. The differences between Castro’s and Gaster’s versions are highlighted by all transcriptions. (See the long discussion of the form of the tashqil in Ben Zvi, Sefer Hasomronim [Tel Aviv, 1935], pp. 233–250.) It is clear that the disputed words cannot be read, but can only be guessed at.