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A 14th-century Karaite view of Jewish history and philosophy of religion 15*

nonetheless disputed and which exists in various additional recensions by
later medieval authors.4

Yefet b. Saghir’s Book of Commandments is well-attested in manuscript
collections in Russia, and is also found in collections in Western Europe and
the United States. The Moscow Günzberg manuscript (No. 1021, 262 ff.,
15th–16th c.) is probably its most complete rendition.5 The book contained ten
treatises (maqālāt),6 the first of which was entitled ‘On required principles
and on circumcision, since it is the first of the commandments’. The first
five chapters ( fuṣūl) of this first treatise offer a comprehensive and at times
surprising reconstruction of both Jewish-Karaite history and philosophy
of religion.

Yefet structures the first faṣl (f.1v–2r) around a trilogy: the Sender
(rāsil = God), the Messenger (rasūl = Moses),7 and the divine Message

4 M. Steinschneider, Die arabische Literatur der Juden (Frankfurt a.M.,
1902), §185. Cf. F. Astren, Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004), 185–192, and the
appendix, 283 ff., where a version of The chain of tradition is given in
translation. The same data appear in F. Skolnik, ed., Encyclopaedia Judaica
(Jerusalem – Detroit: Keter – Thomson Gale, 2007), vol. 11, 86.

5 Microfilm 47888 of the Institute of Hebrew Microfilmed Manuscripts at the
National Library of Israel, Jerusalem. D. Sklare notes the existence of this
work in manuscript collections around the world in “A Guide to Collections
of Karaite Manuscripts,” in Karaite Judaism: A Guide to its History and
Literary Sources (ed. M. Polliack; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 893–924; on the
Günzberg manuscript in particular, see 900.

6 The titles of the ten treatises are as follows, according to their reconstruction
by Dr. David Sklare:
‫א' פי אצול אלמחתאג אליהא ופי אלמילה לאנהא אקדם אלפראיץ'; ב' פי אלסבת ואולא פי‬
;‫תקאסים אלאזמנה והי ל'ו' פצלא; ג' פי עלאמאת רווס אלשהור ואלסנין אעני אלהלאל ואלאביב‬
;‫ד' פי אלמועדים ובין הערבים ואלצומות ואלשמטה; ה' פי מא תעלק באלכהנים ואללוים ואליובל‬
'‫ו' פי אלמאכלות ואלטמאות; ז' פי וג'וב אלצלוה ושרוטהא ופי בקייה עשרת הדבר' ואלציצית; ח‬
.‫[פי הלכות שונות]; ט' פי אלעריות; י' פי אלירושות‬

7 Moses is consistently referred to as al-rasūl in Judaeo-Arabic tradition,
among Rabbanites and Karaites alike: cf. J. Blau, A Dictionary of Mediaeval
Judaeo-Arabic Texts (Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language –
The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2006), 248, where ‫ רסול‬is
glossed simply as ‘the prophet Moses’.