Some further Data on Rashi's Diagrams to his Commentary on the Bible

scholar and most problems linked to it have been evoked.1 So was the question of the diagrams and the illustrations which are found in several 13^ and 14 th century copies of his Commentary on the Bible. The subject has already been treated, in 1974 by T. Metzger, who described the illustrations of cod. hebr. 5 of Munich,2 a compilation of biblical commentaries, among which those of Rashi, and which is the earliest dated illuminated ashkenazi manuscript; in 1983 by Bezalel Narkiss, who analyzed the two maps of the Land of Israel visualizing the commentary on Numbers 34 in the same manuscript.3 During the commemorations, both scholars gave a general survey of the illustrated copies of Rashi's commentary, B. Narkiss at the Congress of the European Association of Jewish Studies in Troyes, T. Metzger at the Congress of the CNRS in Paris. These two lectures dispense us from enumerating all the illustrations found in the manuscripts of the Commentary and allow us to deal only with two basic problems which deserve to be elaborated on, namely: a) Does any of the illustrations found in early manuscripts of Rashi's Commentary belong to the original recension of the text? b) Was any of these illustrations known outside the circle of Jewish scholars?