Maimonides, the Christian Artist, and the Censor: The Story of a Revolutionary Manuscript

Cairo, Provence, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Jerusalem: a long and winding journey was taken by the extraordinarily beautiful manuscript now displayed in the National Library of Israel’s permanent exhibition in Jerusalem. This is the story of one of the rarest, and likely the most magnificent, copies of "Mishneh Torah" by Maimonides, among the most important works in the Jewish literary canon, and one that received dazzling and highly unconventional artistic treatment.

Miryam Zakheim | 14.01.26

Image: A manuscript of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, circa 1350, from the National Library of Israel’s collection, Ktiv Project. Left: a portrait that has come to be associated with Maimonides, copied from a 19th-century manuscript.

He was not yet thirty years old. This is perhaps the first astonishing fact about the man who single-handedly joined parchment to parchment to compose a work of immense scope, one that would forever change the way Jews transmitted Torah from generation to generation. The second astonishing fact is that he knew exactly what he was doing, and that the revolutionary result was precisely what he intended.

He arrived in Fustat (Cairo) together with his father, his brother, and other family members, but without a wife. Egypt was the final stop in a journey of flight and wandering that had stretched across two decades and three continents.

Maimonides— Rabbi Moses ben Maimon — often known as the Rambam among his own people, or Abu ʿImrān Mūsā ibn Maymūn ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qurṭubī al-Isrāʾīlī among Muslims, was born in the first half of the 12^th century in Córdoba. Today part of Spain, the city was then the capital of al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled region of the Iberian Peninsula.

28c00066181d3f50e46d98c9fd51bc43 — Image: Statue of Maimonides in Córdoba, his birthplace

He was only ten years old when the Almohads from North Africa invaded Córdoba and forced his family to flee for their lives. Even then, he was already more learned than most adults of his generation, both in Jewish law and in what were then considered the “external sciences”: mathematics, philosophy, and even medicine.

For two decades, the family wandered in search of a safe place to settle, first within the Iberian Peninsula, and later across the Mediterranean, in Morocco, before reaching the Land of Israel, and finally Egypt.

By the time Maimonides arrived in Egypt, his reputation had already spread as an inter-regional halakhic authority whose influence was felt far and wide. He maintained extensive correspondence with distant Jewish communities and leading rabbis around the world. In the midst of flight and upheaval, he had also composed a comprehensive commentary on the six orders of the Mishnah. In Egypt, he was almost immediately appointed Raʾīs al-Yahūd — “Head of the Jews” — and for a moment, it seemed that he had finally attained a measure of stability and comfort.

He was twenty-nine years old.

Freed, at least temporarily, from the burden of wandering, as well as from financial worries (his merchant brother supported the extended family), Maimonides embarked on a new literary project, even as his Mishnah commentary was already beginning to circulate.

Dedupmrg1101483504 Ie13126450 Fl13335842 — Image: A page from Maimonides’ *Commentary on the Mishnah*, written in Judeo-Arabic in his own hand, preserved at the National Library of Israel

The goal of this new project was ambitious: to gather all components of the Oral Torah that had been committed to writing up to his time — the Mishnah, the Talmud, and their commentaries by the Tannaim, Amoraim, Geonim, and early Rishonim — into a single book. A work that would not only organize the vast body of material by subject, but arrange it according to practical categories, rule decisively between conflicting opinions, and in effect establish binding halakhah — codified Jewish law.

His intentions were entirely explicit, and he declared them clearly in the title he gave the work: Mishneh Torah, meaning “review/repetition/restatement of the Torah”.

Therefore, I have called this text, Mishneh Torah [with the intent that] a person should first study the Written Law, and then study this text and comprehend the entire Oral Law from it, without having to study any other text between the two.

(Introduction to Mishneh Torah)

At the same time, Maimonides continued to serve as leader of Egypt’s large Jewish community, as a halakhic judge, and as an advisor to Jewish communities throughout the world.

But the stability he had built did not last long. About five years after beginning work on Mishneh Torah, his beloved brother, who was also his source of livelihood, perished when his merchant ship sank in the Indian Ocean.

Maimonides did not receive this news lightly. For a full year, he later testified, he “fell ill and was confined to bed.” Yet this was not the end. He recovered, returned to his communal responsibilities, and continued writing. Now forced to support himself, he added yet another demanding occupation to his already crowded schedule: the practice of medicine. He quickly became one of the finest physicians in Egypt, respected both within the Jewish community and among the Muslim population.

After roughly four more years — during which he continued to serve as rabbi, halakhic authority, and physician — he completed the longest Jewish work ever written by a single individual: Mishneh Torah. Fourteen “books,” divided into laws by subject, comprising one thousand chapters. Today the work is usually printed, nearly a millennium later, in seven or fourteen volumes.

Dedupmrg1082104975 Ie19138642 Fl191522791 — Image: Decorated page from the *Book of Knowledge*, one section of Maimonides’ *Mishneh Torah*. Manuscript dated circa 1350, the Ktiv Project, National Library of Israel

Maimonides’ contemporaries did not rush to embrace the work. His method of codifying halakhic rulings was entirely new, unlike anything that had preceded it, and he was soon inundated with waves of criticism from nearly every Jewish community in the world.

Rabbi Abraham ben David of Posquières, known as the Raavad, compiled many of his objections, often sharply worded, into a separate work titled Hasagot ha-Raavad.

Some of the critiques were accepted by Maimonides himself. In fragments discovered in the Cairo Genizah, one can see his own deletions, corrections, and expansions within the manuscript. One of the central criticisms concerned the absence of source citations: how, critics asked, could one debate a ruling without knowing upon what sources it rested?

In one letter included in The Letters of Maimonides, addressed to Rabbi Pinḥas the Judge, Maimonides acknowledges the difficulty:

“A judge came to me with pages from my book in his hand, from Hilchot Rotzeach. He showed me a section and said, ‘Read this.’ I read it. I then said to him, ‘What is your question?’ He responded, ‘Where do these words come from?’ I said to him, ‘They are found in the relevant section, either from Eilu Hen Ha-Golin or from Sanhedrin.’ He responded, ‘I already looked through all of these and I could not find it.’ I said to him, ‘Perhaps it was in the Jerusalem Talmud?’ He responded, ‘I already searched in the Jerusalem Talmud and the Tosefta and did not find it.’ I said to him, ‘I remember that at a certain place in Gittin these ideas were set forth.’ I pulled out a Gittin and I searched and could not find it. I was really puzzled… Finally, after he left, I remembered! I sent a messenger and brought him back and I showed him the matter explicitly in Yevamot, mentioned as an aside…”

“I am always worried when people come to me and ask, ‘Where were these things said?’ Sometimes I can answer the questioner immediately: ‘In this place.’ Other times I cannot say and I cannot remember the source without searching. I am greatly pained by this. I say to myself: If I am the author and the source escapes me, what about the rest of the people?

Later in the letter, he writes that he intends to correct this flaw by publishing a separate volume of sources, but this plan was never realized.

Screenshot 2026 01 05 210041 — Image: Tombstones in the Jewish cemetery of Fustat, Egypt, where Maimonides lived. From Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Institute (Israel Revealed), the Jewish Synagogues and Cemeteries in Egypt Collection. This item is part of the Archive Network Israel project and is made available through the collaboration of Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the Ministry of Heritage and the National Library of Israel.

Much later in life, Maimonides would again find himself at the center of fierce controversy. He would marry, father a beloved only son, be appointed personal physician to the ruler of Egypt, write and publish additional works, most notably Guide of the Perplexed. and become one of the most influential figures in the development of Jewish thought.

But today, we are telling the story of Mishneh Torah.

Unlike his other works, Maimonides wrote this book in Hebrew — not biblical Hebrew, but the clearer, more accessible language of the Mishnah. One of his aims was to reach as many Jews as possible, in the most intelligible language available. Over time, however, no complete copy of his original manuscript survived, aside from fragments discovered in the Cairo Genizah.

As a result, differences between versions became a major scholarly concern. Competing copies claimed greater authority, whether they had been reviewed by Maimonides himself or copied from manuscripts he had “approved.” One copy preserved at Oxford even bears a signature on its final page: “collated against my book, I, Moshe bar Maimon.”

The magnificent manuscript now held by the National Library of Israel was likely copied in the first half of the 14^th century in Provence. It appears to have been created from the outset as an illuminated manuscript: wherever Maimonides had included illustrations in the original. especially in Laws of the Chosen House, depicting the Temple and its vessels, blank spaces were deliberately left so that an artist could execute the images with maximum precision.

Dedupmrg1082104975 Ie19138642 Fl19153158 — Two types of decoration. From *Mishneh Torah* by Maimonides. Manuscript dated to c. 1350, the Ktiv Project, the National Library of Israel

The work of illumination seems to have begun at the hands of a Spanish artist, but very early on the manuscript was transferred to Italy. There, the task was entrusted to a Christian illuminator, Matteo di Ser Cambio, whose exquisite craftsmanship, rich in gold and vibrant color, can be seen throughout the opening section of the book. Though he did not understand the language of the text, he was clearly working from detailed instructions regarding what the decorations should include.

Why the project was never completed remains unknown. Only the opening pages of the manuscript, out of more than 400 in total, were illuminated, and the instructional diagrams that were meant to accompany the text were never drawn.

Dedupmrg1101981012 Ie19138642 Fl191541391 — The censor’s signature on one of the final pages of the manuscript. From Mishneh Torah by Maimonides. Manuscript dated to c. 1350, from the National Library of Israel collection, the Ktiv Project, the National Library of Israel

Artistry was followed by censorship. In the 16th century, several passages were erased from the manuscript, and at the bottom of one of the final pages the censor’s signature appears, along with the date of the deletion: 1574.

“Even Jesus the Nazarene, who imagined that he would be the Messiah and was executed by the court,” Maimonides writes in passages that were later censored, “was already foretold by Daniel, as it is said: ‘the children of the violent among thy people shall lift themselves up to establish the vision; but they shall stumble.’ And is there a greater stumbling block than this? For all the prophets spoke of the Messiah as one who would redeem Israel and deliver them, gather their dispersed, and strengthen their observance of the commandments. Yet this [belief] brought about Israel’s destruction by the sword, the scattering and humiliation of its remnant, the distortion of the Torah, and the misleading of much of the world into worshiping a god other than the Lord.”

Dedupmrg1101981012 Ie19138642 Fl191541392 — One of the pages from which text was erased by the censor.
From *Mishneh Torah* by Maimonides. Manuscript dated to c. 1350, from the National Library of Israel collection, Ktiv Project.

Despite such interventions, Maimonides’ influence only deepened after his death. He became one of the most consequential figures in Jewish history and thought. His writings are today an integral part of the Jewish canon, and his philosophical and medical works also secured him enduring recognition beyond the Jewish world.

The manuscript itself passed through many hands across Europe, from the library of an Italian marquis to a Jewish family in Frankfurt between the two World Wars, before ultimately reaching safe preservation at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. Today it is displayed in the National Library of Israel’s permanent exhibition, where visitors can encounter it in person.

By Daniel Lipson

The “Commentary on the Mishnah” (Pirush HaMishnah LaRambam) is considered Maimonides’ first complete and mature work. The great Jewish rabbi, philosopher and doctor began working on it when he was only 23 years old, and completed the text at the age of 30 in the year 1161. Maimonides’ work most likely began when he was living in Morocco. He and his family soon fled east, shortly after the Almohad conquest of Southern Spain, and the Commentary was completed while Maimonides served as rabbi and leader of the Jewish community in Egypt.

The Commentary seeks to explain the intricacies of the Mishnah with reference to Halakhic law. Parts of it are considered to be important philosophical texts in the realm of Jewish thought, like the introduction to “Pirkei Avot” (Chapters of the Fathers) and the introduction to the chapter known as “Helek”, part of the Tractate Sanhedrin.

Maimonides quoted the Mishnah itself in the original language (Hebrew or Aramaic), while the commentary was written in Arabic using Hebrew letters. It was translated into Hebrew several times and often appears in print alongside the Mishnah and in most editions of the Gemara.

Maimonides’ family preserved the Commentary manuscript (along with other writings by their father) and even added their own notes to it. On most of the pages of the manuscript kept at the National Library of Israel we can see the handwritten notes of Rabbi Abraham, the son of Maimonides, as well as those of another descendant, Rabbi David Hanagid. This same David eventually immigrated to Syria, taking the manuscript with him. His family settled in the city of Aleppo.

The manuscript is mentioned as residing in Aleppo in Rabbi Yosef Karo’s book “Avkat Rochel” from the 16^th century. At some stage Maimonides’ family apparently split apart. It is likely that the famous patriarch’s relatives all wanted a souvenir of his, and it was decided to divide the manuscript into six sections, in accordance with the six orders of the Mishnah on which the Commentary is based.

Later on, at the beginning of the 17^th century, at least one segment of the manuscript – the “Nezikin” section that deals with civil and criminal law (and apparently the “Kodashim” order as well, dealing with sacrificial rites and dietary laws) – ended up in the hands of the wife of Abraham HaCohen Diknis. On the manuscript’s last page, she dedicated the text to the memory of her husband and their son Itzhak.

כתב יד הרמבם — Abraham Hacohen Diknis’ wife dedicated the “Nezikin” section of the Commentary to her husband and their son on its last page. Kept at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

We know that same Abraham lived in the 17^th century as he is noted as the owner of an unrelated manuscript from 1611 which is kept at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. We also know that he was dead by the 1730s, as the manuscript had changed hands by then.

In an introduction to the first part of the Commentary manuscript, Rabbi Solomon, one of Maimonides’ great-grandchildren, dedicated the text to the Heavenly Name and to the past and future generations of his family, up until the coming of the Messiah.

The dedication by Rabbi Solomon, a grandson of Maimonides, found in the “Commentary on the Mishnah” manuscript kept at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library .

Rabbi Solomon noted that all who wished to read the text were welcome to do so, as that was the wish of the author, but “he who commits the offense of selling or loaning with deposit, will be damned by the G-d of Israel”.

"ארור הוא לאלוקי ישראל" — “..damned by the G-d of Israel” – found in the “Commentary on the Mishnah” manuscript kept at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library .

We don’t know exactly who was cursed with eternal damnation, but one thing is certain: the manuscript was sold. Edward Pococke served as the priest of the English community in Aleppo during the years 1630-1634. While there he purchased the “Nezikin” and “Kodashim” (Holy Things) sections of the manuscript, taking them with him when he returned to England. He would later publish some of the material in a book in 1655.

Robert Huntington served in the same role as Pococke in Aleppo later that century. He managed to acquire the “Zeraim” (Seeds) section of the Commentary dealing with prayer and agricultural laws. Huntington sold this segment to the University of Oxford in 1693, which also purchased Pococke’s collection during the same year, meaning the university was now in possession of three of the six orders of the Mishnah with commentary by Maimonides in his own handwriting. We know nothing of the “Tohorot” (Purities) section of the manuscript, which vanished somewhere in Syria and was lost to the mists of time.

In the early 20th century, Rabbi Ya’akov Moshe Toledano purchased the “Moed” (Festival) and “Nashim” (Women) sections of the manuscript from a “simple Jew” in Damascus. He sold them in 1908 to the famous collector David Solomon Sassoon. Sassoon’s impressive collection of Jewish manuscripts and books gained fame throughout the research world. In the 1970s his descendants decided to sell parts of the collection and in 1975, the two Commentary sections were put up for sale at a Sotheby’s auction in Switzerland. While the National Library had great interest in the purchase, the set price was too high. The Israeli Minister of Education at the time, Aharon Yadlin, called on volunteer groups, philanthropists, Jewish representatives from abroad and the general public to contribute to the purchase of the manuscripts from the Sassoon collection. Eight items were purchased, among them the handwritten Maimonides Commentary sections which were transferred to the National Library of Israel for safekeeping.

So how do we know that the manuscript was written by Maimonides himself? Perhaps it is a later copy made by a student or relative?

Maimonides’ handwritten “Commentary on the Mishnah” (The “Moed and “Nashim” sections”), kept at the National Library.

First of all, the handwriting in the manuscript is identical to examples of Maimonides’ handwriting which appear in the famous Cairo Genizaי. Another clue is the fact that the text is full of erased words and corrections. Who is the one person in the world who would dare to correct the words of Maimonides? That would be Maimonides himself, of course.

תיקונים בכתב היד של הרמב"ם — Corrections in Maimonides’ handwriting from the manuscript kept at the National Library.

Therefore, it must be Maimonides’ personal first version. It includes corrections on almost every page.

תיקונים בכתב ידו של הרמב"ם מכתב היד השמור בספרייה הלאומית — Corrections in Maimonides’ handwriting from the manuscript kept at the National Library.

Over the years Maimonides updated the manuscript many times. After studying various sources he chose to erase certain parts and make corrections. He even added bibliographic references to external texts that he had written himself. In a letter to one of his students, Rabbi Yosef Bar Yehuda, Maimonides admitted that he was capable of mistakes and always sought to correct his own thought and work once new knowledge was gained.

In another case, a group of students pointed out a certain contradiction between the text of Maimonides’ Mishnah Commentary and his later work, the Mishneh Torah. Maimonides responded by noting that the students had seen one of the earlier versions of the Commentary and that he himself had changed his mind and corrected the text later on. Now that this very text is kept at the National Library, we can see Maimonides’ own internal deliberations and decisions as they are expressed in the manuscript.

This treasure is today preserved in the National Library’s rare book collection, its long journey home now complete.

Click here to view Maimonides’ original manuscript, preserved at the Naitonal Library of Israel

and click here to take a journey around the world with Maimonides!

A Peek into Paradise: What Can Medieval Manuscripts Teach Us about Adam and Eve?

Was the serpent originally a form of ape? What fruit did the first sinners eat? And how does Lilith figure into the story? These intriguing questions have stirred the imaginations of illustrators of Hebrew manuscripts throughout history

Chen Malul | 08.11.21

Biblical Stories Deciphering Jewish Manuscripts Jewish Art Jewish Manuscripts Medieval Jewish Culture

The Temptation of Adam and Eve, an illustration from the Kaufmann Mishneh Torah

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves girdles. (Genesis 3:6–7)

The year was 1296. Maimonides had been dead for nearly a century, but his groundbreaking writings were still making waves, his unique voice echoing across the Jewish world. In northern France, one of the greatest works in the history of Hebrew manuscript illumination was being copied and illustrated: a manuscript of the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides’ great halakhic work, also known as Sefer Yad ha-Hazaka (“Book of the Strong Hand”). In the 19th century, Prof. David Kaufmann, the head of the Jewish Theological Seminary in Budapest, purchased the manuscript, which is today preserved, together with his entire library, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.

The title pages of each of the manuscript’s 14 sections are adorned with delicate floral ornaments as well as a rectangular cartouche featuring the opening word of the text in large letters. Some of the pages’ lower margins are decorated with drawings related to the text. Most of the illustrations in the manuscript depict familiar biblical scenes. For example, Samson killing the lion, David and Goliath, the binding of Isaac and Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. Aside from these, there are also illustrations of medieval knights and hunters. The prevailing hypothesis is that the illustrator was Christian.

A knight, decorated with gold leaf, the Kaufmann *Mishneh Torah*

The manuscript’s final illustration (Book 13, vol. IV, fol. 70) shows Adam and Eve standing on either side of the Tree of Knowledge. Most intriguing is the shape of the snake, which has arms! What’s more, the snake bears more than a passing resemblance to… a monkey.

The final illustration in the Kaufmann *Mishneh Torah*, featuring Adam and Eve

Another question with regard to the Kaufmann Mishneh Torah illustration is why Adam and Eve are already depicted covering themselves with fig leaves if they are only now eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. How are they already aware of their nakedness?

Detail, the Temptation of Adam and Eve, the Kaufmann *Mishneh Torah*

The four chapters of the Bible dedicated to the story of Adam and Eve before their expulsion from the Garden of Eden left future generations with much material for thought and creative expression. While the Jewish sages and later commentators repeatedly discussed various and bizarre questions related to humanity’s original ancestors, the illustrators of Hebrew manuscripts over the generations concentrated almost exclusively on a particular dramatic moment in the story: the eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and the destructive consequences of violating the divine proscription.

The Comic Strip in the Sarajevo Haggadah

Several decades after the decoration of the Kaufmann Mishneh Torah, Adam and Eve appear again, this time in the work known as the Sarajevo Haggadah. Today, this Haggadah is displayed in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, hence its name. However, it is thought that the magnificent Haggadah was actually written and decorated in Barcelona, around the year 1350.

Unlike the usual focus on the scene of the Temptation, the Sarajevo Haggadah actually shows Adam and Eve in a variety of scenes. After two pages of illustrations depicting the creation of the world, we are introduced to the couple. The panels are reminiscent of a comic strip that reads from right to left and top to bottom. We first see Eve being formed from Adam’s side (or rib) and immediately after, Adam and Eve are seen eating from the forbidden tree while the snake watches them. In the bottom illustration on the right, the couple realize they are naked and cover themselves with fig leaves, and at the left, we see them banished from Paradise. Both are now clothed and Eve is spinning wool while Adam works the land by the sweat of his brow.

Four scenes featuring Adam and Eve in the Sarajevo Haggadah

Now let us return to one of the most intriguing details in any illustration of Adam and Eve – the shape of the serpent. In the Sarajevo Haggadah, the serpent appears in its familiar form, according to the biblical curse: “Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou from among all cattle, and from among all beasts of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” (Genesis 3:14). In the illustration at the top, the limbless snake coils around the Tree of Knowledge, and in the illustration below it is slithering on its stomach. Eve, apparently having learned to be wary of it, looks as if she might use her spindle to rap the snake on its head.

In the bottom right scene, rays of light appear over the tree on the left. According to the Bible, Adam and Eve “heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden toward the cool of the day.” “Where art thou?” God asks Adam, who immediately justifies himself and explains: “I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Why? “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” (Genesis 3:7–12). The anonymous illustrator of the Sarajevo Haggadah imagined God as rays of celestial light, a familiar visual tactic for representing the image of God, and especially the divine voice.

“The voice of the LORD God walking in the garden toward the cool of the day,” the Sarajevo Haggadah

The Image of God in the Golden Haggadah

Some 30 years before the writing of the Sarajevo Haggadah, around 1320, another Passover Haggadah was written and illustrated in Barcelona. Named the “Golden Haggadah” for the gilded backgrounds adorning the 128 illustrated pages out of the 322 pages in total in the manuscript, this Haggadah also opens with illustrations of biblical scenes. However, the first illustration does not present the creation of the world. Instead, it shows Adam naming all the animals in Paradise, according to a nearby inscription.

Illustration from the Golden Haggadah: Adam naming the animals

The second illustration in the Golden Haggadah contains two scenes familiar from the Sarajevo Haggadah: the creation of Eve from Adam’s side and the pair eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The startling innovation here concerns the portrayal of the image of God, who appears from a cloud to scold the three sinners—Adam, Eve and the serpent. Though the artist may have intended to portray an angel and not God himself, many might consider this illustration a violation of the second commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness” (Exodus 20:2–3). The inscription above the illustration reads simply: “Adam and his wife naked.”

Second illustration in the Golden Haggadah: the image of the watchful God appearing from a cloud

Similar to the Sarajevo Haggadah, the illustrations in the Golden Haggadah are separated into four panels. On the opening page, below the illustrations of Adam and Eve, we see the murder of Abel by Cain and next to this, Noah and his wife and sons leaving the ark. Here, too, the figure of the watchful God appears above.

Between Judaism and Christianity

The story of Adam and Eve was naturally embraced by Christian tradition. The Western Church even preserved one of the apocryphal books, “The Life of Adam and Eve”, which recounts their story after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Influences in the opposite direction also exist – Hebrew manuscripts from Europe often show the adoption of Christian motifs, methods of copying and illustration styles. The Frankish knights from the Kaufmann Mishneh Torah are but one of many examples.

Another example of the inter-religious influence associated with Adam and Eve can be found in the Schocken Bible. This manuscript, originating in southern Germany, is preserved at the Schocken Institute in Jerusalem, and dates to around 1300. The beautiful title page features 46 miniatures in medallions, each depicting a scene from Genesis. The blue and red color scheme was common in stained glass windows in Gothic churches as well as Christian manuscripts from the period.

The first two medallions are dedicated to Adam and Eve. The first shows the Temptation, and the second, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Note that in the Schocken Bible, the couple is depicted naked even after the expulsion. Clearly, even after the sin, “man … shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).

Detail of the two medallions showing Adam and Eve, the Schocken Bible

Romantic Icons

Indeed, Adam and Eve’s devotion to each other did not go unnoticed in the Jewish artistic community over the ages. We find a hint of this in many Jewish marriage contracts (Ketubbot) adorned with the figures of the first couple. For example in a Ketubbah dating back to 1629 from Mantua, Italy, Adam and Eve are depicted reaching out their hands and holding what appear to be golden apples. The illustration raises another question that challenged the Jewish sages: What kind of fruit grew on the Tree of Knowledge? The most popular candidate is the apple of course, but the biblical text offers no evidence to support this claim.

Adam and Eve, from a Ketubbah. Courtesy of the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art in the Center for Jewish Art, the Hebrew University

We also found a unique manuscript that contains illustrations of Adam and Eve without mention of the Temptation or the Fall. A manuscript picture bible from Warsaw features illustrations of the major events in the Bible, with the relevant quotations from the biblical text written above each scene. The first illustrations show the creation of the world and the creation of the flora and fauna.

Creation of the World, the Warsaw Bible. Courtesy of the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art, in the Center for Jewish Art, the Hebrew University

Two illustrations are devoted to the story of Adam and Eve. The first, on the right, shows Adam naming the animals. Next to it, on the left, is the creation of Eve. Notice how in both illustrations, the artist took care to preserve Adam’s modesty by adding a large-leafed plant to cover his loins.

Adam and Eve, the Warsaw Bible. Courtesy of the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art, in the Center for Jewish Art, the Hebrew University

Illustrations of the first couple can be found in bibles, halakhic books, Haggadot and Ketubbot. The purpose of the illustrations varied according to the type of text. In Ketubbot, their appearance was meant as a living example of romantic love; in Haggadot and illustrated bibles, their story was intended as a landmark in the historical continuum from Creation to the giving of the Torah and the birth of the Jewish people; and in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah they are a purely decorative ornament.

In the World of Demons and Spirits

We conclude with a more modern illustration of Adam and Eve—taken from a Jewish mystical amulet. Apparently, the most common Jewish amulets were intended for the protection of new mothers. These amulets cited the names of Adam and Eve, as well as three angels who were called to protect the mother and her newborn.

An entire tapestry of Jewish legends has been woven into the origin story of this particular type of amulet. Some of these legends describe the Jewish mythological figure of Lilith as Adam’s first wife, who was banished before she could bear him sons. In a desperate attempt to take revenge on Adam and all his offspring, the demonic Lilith devotes herself to harassing newborns and their mothers. She strangles babies in their sleep, seduces men and becomes pregnant with the wasted sperm, giving birth to demonic stepchildren.

According to Jewish folklore, three angels—Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof—were sent to stop Lilith and return her to Adam. But she claimed that she was now the partner of the great demon Samael and could no longer return to her former husband. The angels managed to extort a promise from her that she would not harm the descendants of Adam from his second wife Eve, which would explain the appearance of their names next to Adam and Eve on the amulets.

The earliest known printed Jewish amulet is a birthing amulet of this sort, featuring a depiction of Adam and Eve and published in Amsterdam around 1700. Suffice it to say, the scene is a familiar one, featuring a notoriously untrustworthy serpent…