Die Kanaan-Karten des R. Salomo Ben Isaak (Raschi) – Bedeutung und Gebrauch mittelalterlicher hebräischer Karten-Diagramme

AbstractR. Shlomo Yitṣḥaki (Hebrew: שלמה יצחקי), generally known by the acronym Rashi, was a medieval French rabbi who lived between 1040 and 1105 in Troyes (Champagne). Rashi was the author of two comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and on the Tanakh. His commentary on the Talmud, which covers nearly all of the Babylonian Talmud (a total of 30 tractates), has been included in every edition of the Talmud since its first printing by Daniel Bomberg in the 1520 s. His commentary on the most books of the Tanakh – especially on the Chumash – is still an indispensable exegetical tool to almost all students of the Hebrew Bible. This perush al ha-Torah supplemented almost all printed Hebrew Bibles or Chumash Editions and initiated more than 300 super-commentaries, which analyze and elucidate Rashi’s choices of exegesis, grammar, variant readings, Masora and midrash citations. The manuscript editions of his commentary were augmented with various map diagrams of Erets Israel, which disappeared in the printed editions of the Rashi commentary. Abraham Berliner mentioned this loss and recent scholarship is rediscovering these Rashi diagrams and maps. This paper elucidates the so-called Numeri 34 map-diagrams in the oldest extant manuscripts of the Rashi commentary, and their refinement and recycling within the Masora (figurata) of Ashkenazi bible manuscripts.