Monographs of the Peshitta Institute – serie

For the first time, this volume brings together biblical scholars and specialists in Syriac liturgy and patristic literature. It contains introductory essays on the Syriac versions in the liturgy, the Syriac Old Testament commentary tradition, and the challenges posed to exegetes by the different Syriac versions of the New Testament, written by the leading scholars in the field. Twenty-one further contributions discuss the patristic and liturgical evidence for the development of the text of the Peshitta and other Syriac versions, as well as the reception and use of those versions in the exegesis and liturgy of the Syriac Churches. These studies are fully updated versions of the papers read at the Third Peshitta Symposium, held in Leiden, 12-15 August 2001.

This book is the result of an innovative linguistic study of the Syriac translation of Ben Sira. It contains both a traditional philological analysis, incorporating matters of text-historical interest and translation technique, and also the results of a computational linguistic analysis of phrases, clauses and texts. It arrives at new linguistic insights, including a proposal for a corpus-based description of phrase structure based on a so-called maximum matrix. The book also addresses the fundamentally different way in which a text is approached in a computer-assisted analysis compared with the way in which this is done in traditional philological approaches. It demonstrates how the computer-assisted analysis can fruitfully shed light on or supplement traditional philological research.

This book investigates the character of the Peshitta in Psalms 90-150 in order to facilitate the proper use of this version in textual criticism. It identifies the Peshitta’s translation techniques and it discusses the version’s interpretation of difficult passages in the Hebrew text. The question of the Hebrew Vorlage behind the Peshitta Psalter is raised. Also investigated here is the relationship between the Peshitta Psalms and the LXX and Targum, and an assessment of the supposed influence of these versions on the Peshitta Psalter is offered. Inquiry is made into the theology of the translation, the identity of the translators, and the relationships among the manuscripts of the Peshitta Psalter. This text is designed as a tool for scholars who, when confronted by critical questions in the Psalter, seek to understand the readings preserved in the Peshitta.

Jacob of Edessa (c.640-708) is considered the most learned Christian of the early days of Islam. In all fifteen contributions to this volume, written by prominent specialists, the interaction between Christianity, Judaism, and the new religion is an important issue. The articles discuss Jacob’s biography as well as his position in early Islamic Edessa, and give a full picture of the various aspects of Jacob of Edessa’s life and work as a scholar and clergyman. Attention is paid to his efforts in the fields of historiography, correspondence, canon law, text and interpretation of the Bible, language and translation, theology, philosophy, and science. The book, which marks the 1300th anniversary of Jacob’s death, also contains a bibliographical clavis.

Using the VU University syntactically analyzed, hiearchically structured database of ancient languages, the authors compared the Masoretic text of Kings to the Syriac Peshitta translation. The core question in this comparison is: which deviations between the two texts are related to the requirements of the distinct language systems, which are related to other aspects of the translation process, and which are related to the transmission history of the translated text? Though linguistic and text-historical approaches differ in method and focus, research into ancient biblical translations must take both into account. On the basis of a synoptic matching at clause level, corresponding phrases within the clauses are matched, and corresponding words within phrases. A choice out of a wealth of detailed differences thus brought to light are discussed at the syntactic level at which the phenomenon best fits: word, phrase, clause and above the clause.