Christian Arabic Versions Of Daniel

In Christian Arabic Versions of Daniel, Miriam L. Hjälm provides an insight into the Arabic transmission of the biblical Book of Daniel with a focus on translation techniques used in the early manuscripts.

The four kingdoms motif enabled writers of various cultures, times, and places, to periodize history as the staged succession of empires barrelling towards an utopian age. The motif provided order to lived experiences under empire (the present), in view of ancestral traditions and cultural heritage (the past), and inspired outlooks assuring hope, deliverance, and restoration (the future). Four Kingdom Motifs before and beyond the Book of Daniel includes thirteen essays that explore the reach and redeployment of the motif in classical and ancient Near Eastern writings, Jewish and Christian scriptures, texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, depictions in European architecture and cartography, as well as patristic, rabbinic, Islamic, and African writings from antiquity through the Mediaeval eras.

The Syriac Apocalypse of Ezra, sometimes called the Revelation of Ezra appears to have been reworked in the High Middle Ages. Another version of the apocalypse has survived in Arabic, but attributed to Daniel not Ezra, commonly known as the Arabic Apocalypse of Daniel. The Arabic version is shorter and appears to be older, likely dating to earlier than the time of Muhammad, while the Syriac version has been reworked into an anti-Islamic apocalypse, likely between 1229 and 1244. The apocalypse includes a reference from the High Middle Ages to Muslims as Ishmaelites, and Mongols as Gog and Magog, forming an alliance and conquering Jerusalem. This idea would not have been conceivable until the Mongols defeated the Khwarazmian Empire, an Islamic Turko-Persian empire in Iran and Central Asia. Before that, the idea that the Mongols could reach Jerusalem was not a consideration. The Apocalypse indicates that the city of Jerusalem was occupied by Christians at the time, which would place the anti-Islamic redaction to sometime between 1229 and 1244. The Latin crusaders had been driven out of Jerusalem in 1187, however, the kingdom of Jerusalem continued to exist, first from its capital in Tyre, and later Acre, however, in 1229 Jerusalem was recaptured, and held until 1244. As the Principality of Antioch was another crusader state to the north, and the name ‘Antioch’ appears to have been added earlier in the Apocalypse, the redactor may have meant it as a piece of propaganda intended to garner support from Byzantine Christians, who had not generally participated in the crusades and had better relations with the Muslims than the Catholics. The older Arabic version of the apocalypse likewise appears to have been used for propaganda, however, was anti-Jewish instead of anti-Islamic, and appears to have been written in Aramaic before the time of Muhammad. Based on the dialect of Arabic, it most likely originated in Palestine, among medieval Christians. The Arabic version is much shorter and is mostly paraphrased from the Gospels and other early Christian works, however, the content of the apocalypse is clearly something that was incorporated into the longer Syriac Apocalypse. While the content of the Arabic apocalypse is repeated in the Syriac apocalypse, it is a direct translation, but a series of paraphases that are reinterpreted in an anti-Islamic way. The longer Syriac apocalypse, which must originate much later than the pre-Islamic Arabic apocalypse, nevertheless, has much more content, most of which appears to have been composed in Neo-Babylonian sometime between 597 and 592 BC. The Syriac apocalypse has many Greek loanwords, confirming it was written in Greek, as well as an Arabic word the Syriac translator chose over a Syriac word, suggesting the Syriac translation was done long after Northern Iraq became Arabic speaking. All known copies of the Syriac Apocalypse can be traced to Iraqi Kurdistan, or the old Christian churches of Mosul, just south of Kurdistan. All of the surviving manuscripts are also in the Eastern Syriac script, and ten of the known 15 manuscripts can be linked to the Rabban Hormizd Monastery, of the Chaldean Catholic church, suggesting that all known copies are derived from the texts maintained at the monastery. The oldest known manuscript is from 1702 and is known as MS Mingana Syriac 11, or simplified to Mingana 11. It was copied on January 16, 1702, by a Hoshabo, son of Daniel, son of Joseph the priest, son of Hoshabo, and bought by Alphonse Mingana in the 1920s. Minanga was a British orientalist who had been born in Ottoman Kurdistan, and in the 1920s made multiple trips to northern Iraq to acquire ancient manuscripts, which later became the Mingana Collection at the University of Birmingham, in England.

In this study, Vevian Zaki places the Arabic versions of the Pauline Epistles in their historical context, exploring when, where, and how they were produced, transmitted, understood, and adapted among Eastern Christian communities across the centuries. She also considers the transmission and use of these texts among Muslim polemicists, as well as European missionaries and scholars. Underpinning the study is a close investigation of the manuscripts and a critical examination of their variant readings. The work concludes with a case study: an edition and translation of the Epistle to the Philippians from manuscripts London, BL, Or. 8612 and Vatican, BAV, Ar. 13; a comparison of the translation strategies employed in these two versions; and an investigation of the possible relations between them.

Senses of Scriptures, Treasures of Tradition, edited by Miriam L Hjälm, provides insights into the Bible and its reception in Arabic among Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims.

The articles brought together in this volume deal with Muslim perceptions and uses of the Bible in its wider sense, including the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament as well as the New Testament, albeit with an emphasis on the former scripture. While Muslims consider the earlier revelations to the People of the Book to have been altered to some extent by the Jews and the Christians and abrogated by the Qurʾān, God's final dispensation to humankind, the Bible is at the same time venerated in view of its divine origin, and questioning this divine origin is tantamount to unbelief. Muslim scholars approached and used the Bible for a variety of purposes and in different ways. Thus Muslim historians regularly relied on biblical materials as their primary source for the pre-Islamic period when discussing the creation as well as the history of the Israelites and the prophets preceding Muḥammad. Authors seeking to polemicize against Jews and Christians were primarily interested in the presumed biblical annunciations of Muḥammad and his religion and / or in perceived contradictions and cases of internal abrogation in the Bible. These various concerns resulted from and had an impact on the ways in which Muslim authors accessed the scriptures.

This volume, the first ever of its kind in English, introduces and surveys Greek literature in Byzantium (330 - 1453 CE). In twenty-five chapters composed by leading specialists, The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature surveys the immense body of Greek literature produced from the fourth to the fifteenth century CE and advances a nuanced understanding of what "literature" was in Byzantium. This volume is structured in four sections. The first, "Materials, Norms, Codes," presents basic structures for understanding the history of Byzantine literature like language, manuscript book culture, theories of literature, and systems of textual memory. The second, "Forms," deals with the how Byzantine literature works: oral discourse and "text"; storytelling; rhetoric; re-writing; verse; and song. The third section ("Agents") focuses on the creators of Byzantine literature, both its producers and its recipients. The final section, entitled "Translation, Transmission, Edition," surveys the three main ways by which we access Byzantine Greek literature today: translations into other Byzantine languages during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages; Byzantine and post-Byzantine manuscripts; and modern printed editions. The volume concludes with an essay that offers a view of the recent past--as well as the likely future--of Byzantine literary studies.

In the Book of Daniel, the Living God has become known as "The God of Daniel." This is because of the great work of God in the life of Daniel and the great visions that God has revealed to him. The main subject of the Book of Daniel is the revelation of God the Most High who reigns over "The Kingdom of Men". The topic extends to the Kingdom of God which destroys all these kingdoms and stays firm forever. As the climax of God's plan for His kingdom, He revealed to Daniel the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, His death, resurrection, and entrance in glory to the heavenly Holy of Holies to sit on the right hand of the heavenly Father above all principalities and powers in power and majesty.