Zabelin’s Set: The Early Unknown Cluster of the Old Ruthenian Biblical Translations from Hebrew Sources (by the Manuscript from the 17th Century)

Abstract

The paper presents and publishes the cluster of the early unknown Biblical texts translated from Hebrew sources into Old Ruthenian, which was found by the author in the Miscellany No. 436 in the Collection of Ivan Zabelin, the second quarter of the 17th century, deposited in the State Historical Museum, Moscow. The Miscellany contains scholia on the Song of Songs, fragments Num 24:2–25, 23:18–19, Isaiah 10:32–12:4, and Proverbs 8:11–31. Zabelin’s Set has a textual connection to the translations of the Vilna Biblical Collection, the Museum copy of the Church Slavonic Song of Songs, and the Cyrillic Hebrew Manual, the second copy of which – also early unknown – comes before the Set. The author hypothesizes that Zabelin’s Set belongs to the activities of the late medieval East Slavic Christian Hebraists.