Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels, Aligning the Sinaiticus, Curetonianus, Peshitta and Harklean Versions.

• Author: SOKOLOFF, MICHAEL
• Position: Review

Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels, Aligning the Sinaiticus, Curetonianus, Pesh[hat{i}]tt[hat{a}] and Harklean Versions. [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] By G. A. KIRAZ. Four Volumes. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1996. Vol. I: Matthew, pp. Ixxxv + 454 + 7 plates; vol. II: Mark, pp. 256; vol. III: Luke, pp. 514; vol. IV: John, pp. 369 + vii.

G. A. Kiraz is well known to scholars for the tools that he has prepared for understanding the Syriac New Testament, including a six-volume Key Word in Context concordance to the Peshitta. [1] Now he has published the present work, which will greatly facilitate using the various Syriac versions of the Synoptic Gospels.

The best-known and most-available Syriac version of the Gospels is, of course, the Peshitta version, which is used not only by the Syriac-speaking church but by most scholars as the only representative of the Gospels in this language. Yet the Peshitta version was not the first translation of the Gospels to be made into Syriac. It was preceded by another translation known today as the Old Syriac version, the native name of which is [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "the Gospel of the Mixed," which has been preserved in two differing fragmentary palimpsest manuscripts known as the Sinaticus and Curetonian texts. Since these were discovered in the last century they have been published several times, though because of the difficulty of reading the lower script, establishing a final text is still a difficult task. The latest version of the Syriac Gospels is known as the Harklean version, after Thomas of Harqel (Heraklea), who lived in the seventh century. This version, a sort of Syriac Aquila, is an extremely literal translation of the Greek text. The author utilized the asterisks and obeli known from Origen's Hexapla as critical signs and indicated variant readings in the margins. This version was popular among Syriac Christians for some time after it was composed, but it fell into disuse afterwards. Up until now the only version of this text available to scholars was published by White in the eighteenth century. Since the Christian Palestinian Aramaic version is composed in a different Aramaic dialect, the author has rightly chosen not to include the remnants of this version in this work. [2]

The four volumes before us thus serve a double purpose. First, the author has made available to the scholarly world several important Syriac translations accessible hitherto mainly in a few...