Ronny Vollandt (PhD, Cambridge), who was recently appointed Professor of Judaic Studies at LMU, originally joined the project in 2013 as a Postdoc Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses not only on Arabic translations of the Bible by Jews and Christians, but also on exegetical works in Arabic. At present he is working on a monograph on Sa‘adya Gaon’s Judaeo-Arabic Pentateuch translation. Within the Biblia Arabica project, Vollandt’s responsibilities include the charting, description, and analysis of Christian-Arabic translation traditions of the Bible. Moreover, he is preparing a comprehensive bibliography of studies on the Bible in Arabic, which will be an indispensable tool for current and future scholars working in this field.
Photo Credit: LMU, Munich
Select PublicationsBooks
— Orientalische Bibelhandschriften aus der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – PK / Oriental Bible Manuscripts from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – PK (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2016).
Articles
— “An unknown medieval Coptic Hebraism? On a momentous junction of Jewish and Coptic biblical studies”, inCanonical Texts and Scholarly Practices: A
Global Comparative Approach, A. Grafton and G. Most (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, forthcoming).
— “Translations as linguistic commentaries? On the exegetical dimension of early Bible translations into Judaeo-Arabic”, in Commentary Cultures: Technologies of Medieval Reading, Philological Encounters 2, I. Dayeh (ed.), (2016, forthcoming).
— “The Conundrum of Scriptural Plurality: The Arabic Bible, Polyglots, and Medieval Predecessors of Biblical Criticism”, in Editing the Hebrew Bible in the Variety of its Texts and Versions, Armin Lange, Andres Piquer, Pablo A. Torijano and Julio Trebolle Barrera (eds.) (Leiden: Brill, 2016).
— “Making quires speak. An analysis of Arabic multi-block Bibles and the Creation of a Canon“, Intellectual History of the
Islamicate World 4 (2016): 173–209.
— Coptic Hebraists in The Middle Ages? On the Transmission of Rav Saʿadiah Gaon’s Tafsīr. Tarbiz 83 (1/2) (2015): 71-86 [in Hebrew].
— علم التأريخ اليهوديّ في ما بعد الزمن الكتابيّ. “كتاب يوسف ابن كُريون” بصيغته العربية وصداه في الأوساط اليهوديّة والمسيحيّة , al-Machriq 89 (2015): 249-267.
— ‘From the Desks of a Coptic-Muslim Workshop: Paris, BNF, MS Ar. 1 and the Large-scale Production of Luxurious Arabic Bibles in Early Ottoman Cairo’, in Patronage, Production, and Transmission of Texts in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Cultures, eds. E. Alfonso and J. Decter, Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, pp. 231-265.
— ‘Ancient Jewish historiography in Arabic garb: Sefer Josippon between South Italy and Coptic Cairo’, Zutot 11 (2014): 70-80.
— ‘Whether to capture form or meaning: A typology of early Judaeo-Arabic Pentateuch translations’, in A Universal Art. Hebrew Grammar across Disciplines and Faiths, eds. N. Vidro, I. Zweip and J. Olszowy-Schlanger, Leiden: Brill, 2014, pp. 58-83.
— “The Arabic Pentateuch of the Paris Polyglot: Saadiah Gaon’s advent to the republic of letters,” in Linguistic and Cultural Aspects of Arabic Bible Translations, ed. S. Binay and St. Leder (Beiruter Texte und Studien No. 131, Beirut:Orient Institut Beirut, 2012): 19-35.
— “1.1.5. Biblia judia en arabe. Localizacion: Madrid, BNE, MS 5475”, in Biblias deSefarad: Vidas cruzadas del texto y sus lectores, ed. Javier del Barco, Madrid: Biblioteca Nacional de Espana, 2012.
— with Miriam Lindgren: ‘An Early Copy of the Pentateuch and the Book of Daniel in Arabic (MS Sinai—Arabic 2):
Preliminary Observations on Codicology, Text Types, and Translation Technique’, IHIW 1 (2013): 43-68.
— with Miriam Lindgren: “Arabic versions, secondary, five scrolls,” in The textual History of the Bible, vol. 1. Edited by A. Lange (general editor); E. Tov (volume editor); M. Polliack (area editor), Leiden: Brill, 2016.
— with Miriam Lindgren: “An Early Copy of the Pentateuch and the Book of Daniel in Arabic (MS Sinai—Arabic 2): Preliminary Observations on Codicology, Text Types, and Translation Technique,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 1 (2013), pp. 43-68.
— ‘Some Historiographical Remarks on Medieval and Early-Modern Scholarship of Biblical Versions in Arabic: A Status Quo’, IHIW 1 (2013): 25-42.
— ‘Che portono al ritorno quì una Bibbia Arabica integra: A history of the Biblia Sacra Arabica (1671–73)’, in Græco-latina et orientalia. Studia in honorem Angeli Urbani Heptagenarii, eds. J.P. Monferrer-Sala and S. Kh. Samir, Beirut: CEDRAC, 2013, pp. 401-418.
Forthcoming Articles
— ‘Jewish literature in the Arabic language’. in Rethinking the Diaspora: Jewish Minorities in the Past, Present and Future, eds. V. Lepper and S. Koller, forthcoming 2015.
— ‘Translations as linguistic commentaries? On the exegetical dimension of early Bible translations into Judaeo-Arabic’. in Commentary Cultures: Technologies of Medieval Reading, Philological Encounters 2, I. Dayeh (ed.), forthcoming 2015.
— ‘Une Historiographie juive post biblique: Le Sefer Josippon en langue arabe, sa réception parmi les chrétiens et les musulmans’. in: Revue des Études Juives (forthcoming 2015).
— ‘More on Christian books in Jewish libraries: Biblical translations into Christian-Arabic preserved in the Cairo Genizah collections’. in The Semitic Languages of Jewish Intellectual Production, eds. M. Angeles Gallego and J. P. Monferrer-Sala. Leiden, New York: Brill, forthcoming.
— ‘An unknown medieval Coptic Hebraism? On a momentous junction of Jewish and Coptic biblical studies’. in Canonical Texts and Scholarly Practices: A Global Comparative Approach, eds. A. Grafton and G. Most, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
