Known as the Ashkar-Gilson Hebrew Manuscript #2, the text is a remnant of a Torah scroll from the seventh or eighth century C.E. and contains a crucial section of the Book of Exodus.

The Masoretic copyists transmitted the Song of the Sea with utmost care. Apparently they were aware of its unique quality. They copied it in a special symmetric layout that resembles brickwork, with two blank spaces in the even lines and one blank space in the odd lines.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Song of the Sea does not yet have this special layout. But it does appear in the Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript! This marks the first time the brickwork pattern is found, without any deviation from the later arrangement.

Found in Beirut, Lebanon, by Fuad Ashkar and Albert Gilson in 1972, the Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript might have originated in the Cairo Genizah.

Excerpted from Paul Sanders, “Missing Link in Hebrew Bible Formation,” BAR 41:06, Nov/Dec 2015.