Syriac Bible Research Articles

Dots, Versification and Grammar

Abstract The Syriac gospel of Matthew is divided into sentences by means of pausal accent dots, both single clause sentences and complex sentences. This article explores the relationship between these pausal accent dots and verse division, comparing the Syriac dotting system with Greek punctuation marks and Hebrew accents. All three traditions divide the text into larger and smaller sections. In the Hebrew Bible the smaller sections are often classified as verses that are further subdivided through cantillation marks, typically called accents. This article explains why the Syriac dots, also called accents, have a fundamentally different function than the Hebrew accents. It also explores the similarities between the Syriac dots and the Greek punctuation marks. The conclusion is that the “verse” is not a concept that can easily be applied to Syriac Bible manuscripts. Instead, the Syriac dots indicate different types of boundary tones, pauses associated with a specific pitch contour.

“The Way It Is in the Church”

For centuries, the legal rate of interest in the Roman Empire was “one-hundredth”: 1 percent of the principal of the loan was added to it each month. Although Christian leaders and writers in the Greek and Latin west did not approve of this practice, Syriac-speaking Christian communities in the eastern Roman Empire incorporated the rate of “one-hundredth” into canon law, and some grounded it in a novel interpretation of the Syriac Bible. In this paper, I describe the incorporation of Roman lending norms into the framework of the Syriac church and discuss an early document that both reflects and modifies these norms: a “circular letter” of Symeon Stylites (d. 459), in which he commands that interest rates be lowered by 50 percent as a temporary act of piety. That letter is preserved in a manuscript of Symeon’s Syriac Life, found today in the British Library (Add. 14,484, fols. 130b–133b). I situate the letter within that Syriac tradition, and I offer the possibility that Justinian’s law of 528, which also lowered interest rates by 50 percent (CJ 4.32.26), might have been the result of contacts with this Syriac tradition, and specifically with Symeon’s regulation. I also examine the reception of the Roman rate of “one-hundredth” in early Christian normative sources (“lawbooks” and “canons”) from the Church of the East, in the Sasanian Empire. These Christians received the Roman norm of “one-hundredth” differently and did not incorporate Symeon’s pious reduction of the interest rate, or Justinian’s imperial legislation to the same effect.

The Syriac World

The Syriac World

Erken Bizans Dönemi Resimli Dini El Yazmaları

The subject of this study is the Early Byzantine Period Illuminated Theological Manuscripts. The primary aim of this study is to identify and classify the themes of Early Byzantine Period illuminated theological manuscripts, analyzing and comparing their styles accordingly, presenting the production materials and determining their place of production. During the museum and library research the Quedlinburg Itala (Ms. Theol. Lat. fol. 485 / LDAB 8476), Ashburnham Pentateuch (Ashburnham Pentateuch MS nouv. acq. lat. 2334 / LDAB 8110), Rabbula Gospel (Rabbula Gospels Cod. Plut. I,56 / LDAB 115232), Paris Syrian Bible (The Syriac Bible of Paris Cod. syr. 341 / LDAB 115270), St. Augustus Gospel (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 286 / LDAB 7481), British Library Cannon Tables (London, British Library Add MS 5111 / LDAB 7151) and Cotton Genesis (Lond.Cotton Otho B.IV / LDAB 3242) were analyzed at the outset under the title of Early Byzantine Period Illuminated Theological Manuscripts. The Rossano Gospels (Codex Purpureus Rossanensis / LDAB 2990), Sinope Gospel (Codex Purpureus Sinopensis Paris, Suppl. Gr. 1226 / LDAB 2902) and Vienna Genesis (Vindob. Theol. gr. 31 / LDAB 3078) were addressed separately under the title of Early Byzantine Period Purpura Codices. Analyses revealed that presence of the biblical illuminations in Orthodox Byzantine, and even the depiction of the Old Testament scenes without referring to the New Testament as in the Vienna Genesis manuscript samples, is of high importance in terms of the relationship developed between a belief that has just been institutionalized and tradition. The fact that Jewish art bearing traces of Hellenistic culture caused the Old Testament plots to be used in Christian themes contains some scientific data with regards to the fact that it shows how geographically, and historically different cultures are articulated.

The Story of Susanna in Syriac: A Preliminary Survey of Diversity

Abstract This pilot study outlines the diverse and at times interwoven textual traditions of the story of Susanna in the Syriac Bible. There are three different versions of the story aside from the Syrohexapla and the revision of Jacob of Edessa, namely the ‘Peshitta’ version, another here dubbed ‘Sinai Susanna’, and finally the so-called ‘Harklean’ version. This paper seeks to describe the kinds of relationships that exist between these textual traditions as well as to suggest what type of critical edition might best display these connections. Additionally, the Sitz im Leben of the ‘Harklean’ version is briefly discussed, reflecting on whether the version’s unique literary features betray a Jewish or a Christian background.

Language and Textual History of the Syriac Bible: Collected Studies. By Jan Joosten.

This volume usefully brings together in one place 20 previously published articles by the current Regius Professor of Hebrew in Oxford. Most of the essays are in English, the rest in French, and the majority focus on the Old Testament in its Syriac form known as the Peshitta. In line with proposals made by Michael Weitzman in the 1990s, Joosten believes that most of the books of the Hebrew Bible were individually translated from Hebrew into Syriac by the mid-second century ce, by Jews in the region of Osrhoene (northern Mesopotamia) where the Eastern dialect of Aramaic known to us as Syriac was used. Influence on the Peshitta from the Targum is shown to be negligible to non-existent, though some similarities of exegesis may be due to a shared interpretative background. Influence from the Septuagint is hardly found in the earliest strata of the translation, but from time to time it may be seen in books rendered later, notably Proverbs, a book in which Joosten is a specialist.

Choosing a Textual Basis for the New English Annotated Translation of the Syriac Bible

Choosing a Textual Basis for the New English Annotated Translation of the Syriac Bible

The New English Annotated Translation of the Syriac Bible (NEATSB): Retrospect and Prospect

Abstract At the request of several scholars and laymen, the Leiden Peshitta Institute has initiated a translation project, the so-called New English Annotated Translation of the Syriac Bible (NEATSB). This article reviews the initial discussions as well as the decisions made with regard to the actual setup of this translation at the first NEATSB seminar in 1999. It also evaluates these theoretical reflections and the editorial policy based on them from the perspective of translation techniques, and concludes with sample translations of two passages from 1 Samuel. This material will be brought up for discussion at the second NEATSB seminar, to be held in August 2004 under the title The Bible of Edessa.

Testament and Canon in the Letter of Second Baruch (2 Baruch 78-87

The Letter of Second Baruch ( 2 Baruch 78-87 [here called Ep2B]) defined the apocalyptic views and religious teachings of its author and later was received into the canon of the Syriac Bible. This article shows that Ep2B is an example of a Second Temple period testament, showing aspects of early and late testament forms. Like other testaments of the period, the letter gave expression to the beliefs and boundaries of religious groups and even acquired 'inspired' status.

Studies on the Syriac Apocryphal Psalms

Studies on the Syriac Apocryphal Psalms, by H. F. Van Rooy. JSS Supplement 7. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. v + 170. Euro64.00. The number 150 is traditionally the rather sacrosanct number of the biblical psalms attributed to King David. Since the time of the earliest editions of the Greek OT, however, scholars have been aware of additional psalms beyond those canonical 150. The five Syriac apocryphal psalms, numbered 151-155, which constitute the subject matter of this monograph, were only first brought to the attention of the scholarly world when the great Maronite scholars, the brothers Assemani, noted their existence in their catalogue of the Syriac manuscripts in the Vatican Library, published in 1759. Surprisingly, it was not until over a century later that the first text of these psalms appeared. And it was not until 1930 when the first edition of these psalms, utilizing five manuscripts, was first published by the great German scholar Martin Noth. Since this time, Hebrew texts of three of these psalms were discovered among the texts found at Qumran, and a new critical edition of these Syriac psalms was published in 1972, as part of the Leiden Peshitta project (vol. IV.6), which is now nearing completion. With all this data now available, Van Rooy here offers the first monograph-length study of these Syriac psalms. The volume is not a systematic monograph, but is actually comprised of eleven distinct studies, most of which have previously appeared in print. Studies 8-11 originally appeared in English, while studies 2-4, and 7 first appeared in Afrikaans but were translated into English; each of these eight studies was revised for this volume. Studies 1, 5, and 6 were prepared specifically for this volume during a research leave at the Leiden Peshitta Institute and are published here for the first time. The eleven studies found in this volume include a translation of these five Syriac apocryphal psalms, three studies of various aspects of the manuscripts in which they are found, three studies specifically of the forms and provenance of Ps 151, followed by a single study of each of the remaining psalms, 152-155. While others have studied these psalms, they were primarily biblical scholars interested in their relation to Greek and/or Hebrew versions. While Van Rooy rehearses these arguments and offers his own thoughts based on his own investigation into these relationships, the real value of this monograph is that it also offers detailed investigations into the provenance of these Syriac psalms within the context of the development of the Syriac biblical text. For example, these Syriac psalms each contain rather lengthy headings that are clearly an inner Syriac development, and contain comments from Eusebius, Athanasius, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Van Rooy demonstrates that in the course of transmission of the Syriac Bible there was little change in the development of the text of these psalms. Though this might not be unexpected for biblical texts, he nonetheless discerns in the few variants, which otherwise seem of relatively little textual importance, a possibility that there was a second Syriac translation of these psalms, perhaps as part of one of the later revisions of the entire Bible; unfortunately, he does little more than proffer this suggestion. …

Thapsacus and Zeugma the crossing of the Euphrates in antiquity

One of the most uncertain points of historical geography of ancient Syria concerns the site of Thapsacus, even if the uncertainty has sometimes been disguised by assertive pronouncements. This city had enjoyed considerable importance during the Persian period, and possibly earlier, as a major crossing of the Euphrates and the main link between Syria and Mesopotamia. It appears for the first time in our record in the Bible, as the place on the Euphrates where the country “beyond the river” begins. Even if referring to the purported extent of the realm of Solomon “from Thapsacus to Gaza”, this mention clearly applies to the Persian satrapy of Abar-Nahara, meaning the whole of Syria and Palestine, and provides evidence for the conditions in the Achaemenid period. The crossing at Thapsacus itself might of course have been used much earlier, whatever the name.To the Massoretic vocalisation Tiphsah, generally accepted in modern translations, the form of Tapsah should be preferred, as found in the Syriac Bible provided with vowel signs centuries before the Hebrew original. This reading is moreover paralleled by the still earlier Septuagint version Θαψά. The Greek rendering confirms not only the vowels but also, if indirectly and by omission, the final pharyngeal of the name, in contrast to the usual ΘάΨακος found in Classical authors. This form is indeed unexpected, but transcriptions of foreign names do not always obey strict rules.

An Explanation of the Term Prosëlutos

I recently completed a research project on the religious use of the Semitic root qrb come near. The net result was that this root is a thoroughly technical term applied over an extensive field to express a considerable range of inherently related phaenomena. Having covered the Old Testament, the Qumran literature, rabbinic literature, the Qur'an and the Syriac Bible, I established that the religious usage of the root operates mainly (but not exclusively) in three semantic spheres, viz. the cultic, metaphorical and eschatological spheres. We may now discard the latter two as they do not concern us in this paper. As regards the first, a variety of cultic matters is described by the root qrb, their common element being the concept of approaching the holy sphere 1). One nuance in the cultic use of qrb is the subject of our present consideration. I shall endeavour to show that the well-known Greek technical term

The Bible in Its Ancient and English Versions

Introduction, by the editor.--The Hebrew Bible, by the editor.--The Greek Bible, by W. F. Howard.--The Syriac Bible, by T. H. Robinson.--The Latin Bible, by H. F. D. Sparks.--The English versions (to Wyclif) by W. A. Craigie.--The Sixteenth-century English versions, by J. Isaacs.--The Authorized version and after, by J. Isaacs.--The Revised version and after, by C. J. Cadoux.--The Bible as the word of God, by the editor.--Bibliography (p. [303]-316).