1. In early December 2025, the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities gave its approval for a new long-term project on Arabic translations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The project, entitled “Biblia Arabica: Critical edition and comprehensive digital … Continued
by Miriam L. Hjälm 1. Among the rich manuscript treasures kept at the British Library, we find more than one hundred Christian Arabic Bible translations and Bible commentaries. [1]This work was part of a research project sponsored mainly by the … Continued
by Peter Tarras 1. Anyone who works on Arabic translations of the Bible, especially Christian translations, knows the name Georg Graf (1875–1955) very well. With the first volume of his Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, he has created a reference … Continued
by Sebastian Hieke 1. As Arabic slowly emerged as the lingua franca for Eastern Syrian learning and study, new copies of biblical texts were compiled for an increasingly Arabic-speaking audience. As part of this, the Syro-Hexapla – studied by experts … Continued
by Jasper Bernhofer 1. Chapter 49 from the Book of Genesis contains the so-called Blessing of Jacob, a compilation of sayings, which are framed as Jabob’s deathbed address to his twelve sons, each of them representing one of the tribes … Continued
by Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala 1. Codex Sinai Arabic 1 (Sin. Ar. 1) is one of the jewels of Christian Arabic translation literature.[1]A digitised copy of the codex is available on the website Sinai Manuscripts Digital Library: https://sinaimanuscripts.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:%2F21198%2Fz18w4z1w. The codex contains … Continued
by Bishara Ebeid 1. From 28 to 29 April 2023, a group of scholars in the field of Arabic Bible and Arab Christian studies gathered at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice to participate in a conference organized by myself in … Continued
by Peter Tarras 1. The Arabic Bible has served various functions throughout its history. In the 19th century, for example, it was an important literary medium of the Christian Nahda as well as an object of scientific curiosity for European … Continued
by Phillip W. Stokes 1. Scholarly interest in the Bible in Arabic has surged in recent decades. While traditionally specialists in the textual history of the Bible downplayed the importance of Arabic Bible manuscripts, scholars have increasingly shown the potential … Continued
by Vevian Zaki In the month of Ramaḍān 253 AH (September/October 867 CE), Bishr ibn al-Sirrī finalized in Damascus his work on translating the Pauline Epistles from Syriac into Arabic, annotating and transcribing them into a manuscript. On a different … Continued
