Magische Texte aus der kairoer Geniza, vol. 1.

• Author: Fox, Harry

This publication of new magical texts from the Cairo Geniza was undertaken by a highly competent research team and resulted in an excellent edition of fascinating texts. The transcription, based on the published plates, is highly accurate, the translation reliable, and the notes useful and copious. The bibliography, the various indices, and the pleasing presentation of these in a well-bound book are a credit to both the editors and the publisher.

M. Margalioth in his edition of Sefer ha-Razim opens his study with the following remarks (translated): "I never had use for the esoteric" (p. ix). He then goes on to show how the discovery of page after page of the magical treatise he publishes and other texts of similar nature disturbed, amazed, and finally captivated the author. One can easily see why. Previous similar publications included such useful texts as magic formulas for repelling insects or incantations for opening locks. The newly published texts add more of the same. We have here recipes to grow hair and other tips for hair care (pp. 122-23), cures for tapeworm (p. 122), means to detect thieves and theft (p. 136), love charms (pp. 161-64), and fragments of magic manuals (pp. 47-50, 57-59). The creative variety is astounding and presents a daunting task in reading texts. Just one brief text, on medicaments (pp. 121-23), requires knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Persian, as well as historical medical literature, from Dioskurides' De materia medica to Maimonides' glossary of drug names, to mention only the more easily accessible references (cf. Muwaffaq's Liber fundamentorum pharmacologiae).

Given the difficulty of the material, it does not diminish the achievement at all if even a quick reading results in alternative suggestions, interpretations, and evaluations.

P. 85. The text has a title, and the photographs provided (pp. 270, 272) allow for an improved reading to the one suggested on p. 99, 1. 1: [Hebrew Text Omitted]

P. 87, 1. 18. The first word should read [Hebrew Text Omitted], based on the photo, on p. 271.

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