Artibus et Historiae no. 17 (IX)

1988, ISSN 0391-9064

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URSULA SCHUBERT - The Rabbinical Conception of the Showbread Table and the San Isidoro de Leon Bible, 960 A.D. (Real Colegiata, cod. 2, fol. 50r)

In contrast to the portrayal of the showbreads in two rows next to each other in the Codex Amiatinus (Northumbria, seventh century), in the Spanish Hebraic manuscripts of the Late Middle Ages the showbreads are arranged on the table in two rows on top of each other. The portrayal was not supplied by the corresponding chapters in Exodus and Leviticus, but instead, above all, by the pertinent considerations of the rabbinical scholars in the Mischna, Menahot XI. A completely unexpected parallel to the portrayal of the showbreads arranged on top of each other on the showbread table is found in the San Isidoro de Leon Bible, 960 A. D., and in both extant copies of this manuscript of 1162 A. D. and the beginning of the thirteenth century, respectively. The high priest Aaron, shown together with sacred objects within the holy tabernacle, is surprisingly portrayed in the garb of a high priest in the same context in both the Dura Europos synagogue (mid-third century A. D.) and the Regensburg Pentateuch (Bavaria, ca. 1300). In addition, in the latter the showbread table has the same misleading appearance as in the Christian Bible of 960, in which it is designated as "labrum" and is therefore undoubtedly misunderstood. Such "misunderstandings", together with the unusual position of the showbreads on the table, for which only rabbinical scriptures could be the source, support the belief that the suspected fifth-century prototype for the Bible of 960, at least for the portrayal of fol. 50r, was based on a late classical Bible illumination of Jewish origin.