'World's oldest Torah' scroll found in Italy

[n2doc]

The University of Bologna in Italy has found what it says may be the oldest complete scroll of Judaism's most important text, the Torah.

The scroll was in the university library but had been mislabelled, a professor at the university says.

It was previously thought the scroll was no more that a few hundred years old.

However, after carbon dating tests, the university has said the text may have been written more than 850 years ago.

The university's Professor of Hebrew Mauro Perani says this would make it the oldest complete text of the Torah known to exist, and an object of extraordinary worth.


more

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22697098

[NYC_SKP]

1. Interesting place, Bologna and the University there. World's oldest university.

And the city is splendid, with it's terra cotta roofs and porticoed sidewalks.

And the towers from when the richest families each built their own as protection from potential attacks.

[hrmjustin]

2. K and R!

[edhopper]

3. It will be interesting when they

compare this to modern Torahs.

A find like this should be scanned and made available to all scholars.

[dimbear]

4. More here......

http://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/2013_05_26_archive.html#8704971472139505215

Makes the point that there are older complete Torah codices, but this may be uniquely old as a scroll.

More links at this link.