Corpus Masoreticum. The Inculturation of Masora into Jewish Law and Lore from the 11th to the 14th Centuries. Digital Reconstruction of a Forgotten Intellectual Culture

Funded by the German Research Foundation

This project began in 2018 and is scheduled to run for 12 years. The aim is to conduct the first philological study of the Western European Masoretic tradition between the 11th and 14th centuries. In the first two funding phases, the richly decorated calligraphic Ashkenazic Bibles, the linear Masora and the micrographic Masora figurata illustrations in various manuscripts were examined philologically. The Masora figurata as well as significant parts of the linear Masora magna from nine medieval manuscripts have been transcribed and made available to the public in open access. So far, groundbreaking results have been achieved with regard to researching the philological quality of the Masora figurata as well as its exegetical and pedagogical function in various manuscripts.

As a digital project, Corpus Masoreticum is supported by a highly scalable digital cloud infrastructure that covers the entire workflow for the management of manuscript holdings, transcriptions, analyses and publications. Its centerpiece, the digital scholarly editing workspace BIMA 2.1, is based on three fundamental concepts: 1. IIIF-compatible manuscript repositories, 2. SVG-TextPath transcriptions, 3. a Neo4j graph database based on a loosely coupled text-as-a-graph data model. To date, BIMA 2. 1 hosts 112 manuscripts and displays over 7,000 (partially or fully transcribed) pages with almost 300,000 transcription lines, of which more than 500 pages have already been published under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 license:

Corpus Masoreticum & BIMA 2.1

The computational toolkits have been enhanced by the implementation of methods and algorithms such as machine text recognition (HTR) and correspondence analysis/seriation of lemma features.

Corpus Masoreticum runs its own publication series: Corpus Masoreticum Working Papers

[Übersetzen nach: English] Isaac ben Simeon ha-Levi’s micrographic decoration opening Genesis. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Urb. ebr. 1, fol. 1r (snapshot from BIMA 2.0: The colours indicate different masoretic lists).

[Übersetzen nach: English] Dr. Ilona Steimann in Genoa, Berio Library.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER ACTIVITIES AND OUTREACH:

Multimedia contributions for the Corpus Masoreticum

Dokumentationsvideos

Documentary videos, in which the aims and methods of the project as well as individual artifacts are presented, provide the interested non-specialist public with insights into the fascinating world of Jewish biblical interpretation, the masora figurata and the Hebrew book and knowledge culture of the Middle Ages.

"When Bible meets literature - Yaaqov's and Esaw's unknown pages", series "Madda ba-Bayit" 'Wissenschft zu Hause' of the Central Council of Jews in Germany: https://youtu.be/yOk0ZXdAxuE

Documentary videos from the various projects:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCalER-_CjwOedcaZrGBG0nQ
https://t1p.de/BIMA-Video1
https://t1p.de/BIMA-Video2

Multimedia online exhibition: "Versunkene Schätze: Die hebräische Buchkultur des mittelalterlichen Judentums in Westeuropa"

Visit the online exhibition

The Chair of "Bible and Jewish Biblical Interpretation" took the anniversary of "1700 years of Jewish life in Germany" as an opportunity to present the subject area of the material heritage of Ashkenazi Judaism to a wider public. In this context, an online exhibition was created to present Jewish scholarly culture in a multimedia format using Hebrew medieval manuscripts.

As a means of academic communication, the project has set itself the goal of not only addressing the painful history of Judaism in relation to ecclesiastical power, but also making the positive aspects of cultural and theological synergies visible: The exhibition artistically and aesthetically juxtaposes the antagonism of church and Judaism with the image of a culturally fruitful interdependence between the respective environmental cultures and the Jewish educational society, which has only begun to be recognized and appreciated so far.

Concept and text: Prof. Dr. Hanna Liss; web design, video & audio production: Clemens Liedtke, M.A.

Current events of the Corpus Masoreticum

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Past events

Festive colloquium in honor of Prof. Dr. Johannes Heil

24 March 2026 News Special Dates

On 19 March 2026, a celebratory colloquium was held at the Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies (HfJS) in honor of Prof. Dr. Johannes Heil. Rector Dr. Andreas Brämer delivered his laudatory speech to over 50 invited guests, paying tribute to his impressive career - from his biography and academic highlights to his time as Rector and beyond.

Prof. Johannes Heil was born in 1961 in Frankfurt am Main, a city with a rich Jewish heritage. After graduating from high school, completing his civilian service and studying art history, classical archaeology, medieval and modern history and Jewish studies (including in Tel Aviv and Haifa), he received his doctorate in 1994 under Johannes Fried. He worked at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt, was a research assistant at the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism in Berlin and completed his habilitation at the TU Berlin in 2003. He has held the Ignatz Bubis Chair at the HfJS since 2005 and was co-opted by the University of Heidelberg in 2012.

Heil's research focuses on the history of European Jewry and anti-Semitism. His dissertation (1998) analyzes Pauline commentaries of the 9th century and their anti-Jewish constructions. His habilitation "Gottesfeinde - Menschenfeinde" (2006) uncovers the emergence of the Jewish conspiracy stereotype (13th-16th century). He recently published "Andere Juden" (2024), which sheds light on a "pre-rabbinic" Judaism in the western Mediterranean and highlights Jewish-Christian interdependencies. He is currently leading a DFG project on Jewish world heritage with Thomas Schmitt.

From 2008-2013 Heil was First Vice-Rector, from 2013 Rector of the HfJS until 2019 (with handover until 2020). He oversaw the new building, Bologna reform, accreditations and new degree courses, while continuing to teach. He positioned himself as socially relevant in debates such as Goldhagen and the circumcision ruling. As a "Mensch" (in the Yiddish sense of the word), he is committed to mentoring students and discreetly supports colleagues.

Heil remains active: a new research proposal has been submitted for review and he recently spoke at the Eugen Täubler Evening. The Rector thanks him for his influence on the HfJS and looks forward to further collaboration. עד מאה ועשרים - on his 65th birthday! 🎉