Judaeo-Arabic Bible Translation and the Tiberian Masoretic Tradition

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by Joseph Habib Introduction The great textual critic Dominique Barthélemy (1921–2002) lamented the fact that scholars of the time were too quick to render a difficult passage in the Masoretic Text as corrupt or unintelligible. The Masoretic Text refers to … Continued

Shiʿite Muslim Exegesis of the Bible in Early Modern Iran: Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlavī and His Interpretation of Elijah

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by Dennis Halft OP The Imāmī (Twelver) Shiʿite scholar Sayyid Aḥmad ʿAlavī (d. between 1644 and 1650) is well-known for his Persian writings against Christianity.[1] Born in the Safavid capital of Isfahan, ʿAlavī was the intellectual spearhead of the local … Continued

Comparing the translated sections in Yaʿaqūb al-Qirqisānī’s Parashat Bereshit with those of R. Saʿadya Gaon

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by Rachel Hasson The Karaite Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Qirqisānī lived in the first half of the tenth century in Babylonia; he is indisputably considered knowledgeable and educated of stature. Unlike his contemporary R. Saʿadya Gaon, who composed a … Continued

The Qurʾānic Subtext of Early Arabic Bible Translations

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by Miriam Lindgren Hjälm In 2018, Gabriel Said Reynolds published a valuable reference work with the title The Qurʾān and the Bible: Text and Commentary.[1] In this book, Reynolds accumulates research on what is commonly known as the biblical subtext … Continued

Oriental Languages and Scholarly Collaboration in Seventeenth-Century Europe: Étienne Hubert and the Arabic Gospels

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by Nil Palabiyik Scholarly collaboration is important. It was as important in the seventeenth century as it is now. This blog post is about how I deciphered, almost by sheer coincidence, an arcane reference in an early modern letter and … Continued