The purpose of this huge table is to extensively and fully map the Tosafot sections in Ramban’s commentary on the Torah. This mapping can serve as a tool for understanding the stages of writing the Tosafot by Ramban. On the other hand, the table can be used to understand the relationship between the manuscripts, and also the processes of adding the sections to the manuscript sheets.
Each row in the table refers to a specific section of the appendix, whose number is recorded to the right of the row and the place in the Torah is recorded below the row. Each column in the table refers to one of the manuscripts of the commentary. Each cell in the table indicates whether the section of the appendix discussed in that row appears in the manuscript that the column represents: if the section appears ? a plus sign (+) will appear; if it does not appear ? a minus sign (-); if the section appears on the manuscript sheet, the letter “g” will appear. In the event that it is impossible to know whether the section of the appendix appeared in the manuscript, due to a tear or lack or blurring in the manuscript, a slash mark (/) will appear.
To facilitate searching, an Excel sheet was dedicated to each of the five Torah Pentateuch. These five sheets correspond to the first five chapters of the book, and correspond to them in content. A separate Excel sheet was dedicated to the pseudo-Tosafot (discussed in the seventh chapter of the book), and another sheet was dedicated to the sections that were examined and removed from the Tosafot (sections briefly discussed in the eighth chapter of the book).
At the top of each column is the reference of the manuscript in question (in the form of a letter or number). A detailed list of the manuscripts and their references is provided here in a separate file. In the box below the manuscript reference, the number of its photograph in the Jerusalem Archives is recorded.
The table includes statistical summaries: At the bottom of each column is the number of additions that appear in the manuscript (in the same Pentateuch), the number of additions that do not appear in it, and the number of subsequent sections in the issue. The percentage of additions in the same manuscript is also listed. At the end of each row is the number of manuscripts in which the addition section appears, the number of manuscripts in which it does not appear, and the number of those in which it appears in the issue. Here, too, the percentage of occurrences of each addition section is calculated. A special Excel sheet is dedicated to a statistical summary of the data in the entire Torah, in which the total rate of additions in each manuscript can be seen.
The order of the columns generally corresponds to the degree of appearance of the additions: in the columns on the right come the manuscripts with the fewest additions, and gradually come the manuscripts containing more and more additions. Generally, a clear boundary can be distinguished between manuscripts representing an ‘early edition’, in which the addition rate is lower than 15 percent, and manuscripts representing a ‘late edition’, in which the addition rate exceeds fifty percent.
All of this refers to the complete manuscripts, that is, manuscripts that include all five books of the Torah. Their numbers are given on a light green background. To their left are also the data relating to the partial manuscripts, that is, manuscripts that include one, two, or three books of the Torah. Their numbers are given on a dark blue background.
To the left of the numerical summary columns, data on five ancient and important printed editions were presented. These data are not included in the statistical summary.
