Apocrypha Syriaca: The Protevangelium Jacobi and Transitus Mariae (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781108043489)

The twin sisters Agnes Lewis (1843-1926) and Margaret Gibson (1843-1920) were pioneering biblical scholars who became experts in a number of ancient languages. Travelling widely in the Middle East, they made several significant discoveries, including one of the earliest manuscripts of the Four Gospels in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language probably spoken by Jesus himself. First published in 1902 as part of the Studia Sinaitica, this text is transcribed and translated by Lewis from a Syriac manuscript she acquired in Suez in 1895. As well as featuring pages of the Septaguint and the Peshitta Gospels, the palimpsest includes some Arabic pages including a very early version of the Qur'an (estimated by Lewis as seventh-century). Illustrated with reproductions of the leaves of the various texts, this is a valuable resource for scholars of Syriac, but also of interest for historians of Christianity and Early Islam.

Author: Agnes Smith Lewis
ISBN-10: 1108043488
ISBN-13: 9781108043489
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 02/23/2012
Pages: 326
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.61h x 6.69w x 0.68d