Among the rich manuscript treasures kept at the British Library, we find more than one hundred Christian Arabic Bible translations and Bible commentaries. So far, information about them has been dispersed in a dozen manuscript catalogues. This dispersion of information has made it rather difficult—even for experts in the field—to navigate through the corpus and locate relevant material. As a means to increase accessibility to these valuable objects, I have for several years had the pleasure to re-examine these manuscripts, select some for digitization, write a few blogs on them (here and here), and finally gather all the data into a new catalogue. This blog post is about that process.

The present article discusses the Muslim legal scholar and theologian `Al & amacr;' alDin al-B & amacr;ji (631-714/1233-1314) and his polemic against the Pentateuch, which he read in at least two Christian Arabic translations that were in use among R & umacr;m Orthodox Christians (Melkites). It aims to identify the recensions of the Pentateuch that al-B & amacr;ji had access to, and to understand how the differences between these recensions contributed to his view that the shared Jewish and Christian scripture had undergone changes. The article suggests that alB & aacute;ji used a combination of arguments to undermine especially the Christian reception of divine revelation, pointing out apparent inconsistencies and illogicalities in the biblical stories themselves as well as text -critical cruxes caused by discrepancies between different versions that circulated side by side within the Eastern Christian communities. Finally, some of the "irrationalities" he describes seem to be particular of the copies of the texts he had in front of him.

The present study offers a comparative analysis of colophons written in Arabic by Christian scribes at the monasteries of Saint Chariton, Saint Sabas, and Saint Catherine in the ninth and tenth centuries CE. These monasteries have played a crucial role in the formation of the early Christian Arabic manuscript tradition. The colophons of these manu-scripts provide the most immediate access to the socio-cultural milieu of their producers. The present study is based on a selection of 20 colo-phons, which are explicitly connected to one of the three monasteries. Our main aim is to draft a typology of early Christian Arabic colophons as a means to investigate the various issues surrounding emergent Chris-tian Arabic scribality. Additionally, we will discuss paleographical fea-tures of the handwriting of the scribes who authored the colophons dis-cussed here. As we will show, these can be used to connect anonymous colophons and manuscripts without colophons, at least with some prob-ability, to the workshops of these monasteries. Overall, our aim is to highlight the microhistorical significance of early Christian Arabic colo-phons, which not only offer spatio-temporal, prosopographical, social, intellectual, and, to some extent, economic coordinates for the contex-tualisation of early Christian Arabic manuscript production, but also al-low us to catch a glimpse of early Christian Arabic scribal self-perception. 

The present study offers a comparative analysis of colophons written in Arabic by Christian scribes at the monasteries of Saint Chariton, Saint Sabas, and Saint Catherine in the ninth and tenth centuries CE. These monasteries have played a crucial role in the formation of the early Christian Arabic manuscript tradition. The colophons of these manu- scripts provide the most immediate access to the socio-cultural milieu of their producers. The present study is based on a selection of 20 colo- phons, which are explicitly connected to one of the three monasteries. Our main aim is to draft a typology of early Christian Arabic colophons as a means to investigate the various issues surrounding emergent Chris- tian Arabic scribality. Additionally, we will discuss paleographical fea- tures of the handwriting of the scribes who authored the colophons dis- cussed here. As we will show, these can be used to connect anonymous colophons and manuscripts without colophons, at least with some prob- ability, to the workshops of these monasteries. Overall, our aim is to highlight the microhistorical significance of early Christian Arabic colo- phons, which not only offer spatio-temporal, prosopographical, social, intellectual, and, to some extent, economic coordinates for the contex- tualisation of early Christian Arabic manuscript production, but also al- low us to catch a glimpse of early Christian Arabic scribal self- perception.

This paper provides a number of cases where early Christian Arabic Bible translators resorted to qur’ānic-sounding language and (later) also a qur’ānic aesthetic in their production of biblical codices. The main purpose of the paper is to discuss various reasons as to why they went so far into the “realm of the other” when producing these translations. The answer to that question is most likely connected to the little-known function of these Bible translations, a topic also addressed in the paper. The adoption of qur’ānic language results in a comparatively high level of intertextuality and the use of codicological features associated with Mamluk Qur’āns also tend to blur religious borders. Thus, the paper also explores the possibility to view a portion of the Christian Arabic Bible endeavour as part of the broader process of “religious co-production.”

No one mentions Syriac, – a dialect of the Aramaic language Jesus spoke –, without referring to Sebastian P. Brock, the Oxford scholar and teacher who has written and taught about everything Syriac, even reorienting the field as The Third Lung of early Christianity (along with Greek and Latin). In 2018, Syriac scholars world-wide gathered in Sigtuna, Sweden, to celebrate with Sebastian his accomplishments and share new directions. Through essays showing what Syriac studies have attained, where they are going, as well as some arenas and connections previously not imagined, flavors of the fruits of laboring in the field are offered. 

Contributors to this volume are: Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Shraga Bick, Briouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Alberto Camplani, Thomas A. Carlson, Jeff W. Childers, Muriel Debié, Terry Falla, George A. Kiraz, Sergey Minov, Craig E. Morrison, István Perczel, Anton Pritula, Ilaria Ramelli, Christine Shepardson, Stephen J. Shoemaker, Herman G.B. Teule, Kathleen E. McVey.