EAST OF BYZANTIUM WORKSHOP

Jack Tannous
Princeton University

In this workshop, we will look at and discuss several early Arabic translations of the New Testament, including Sinai Arabic 73, Sinai Arabic 151, and Vatican Arabic 13. Special attention will be given to Sinai Arabic New Finds MG 2, a bilingual Greek-Arabic manuscript of the letters of Paul. We will examine the question of the manuscript’s Vorlage.

Jack Tannous is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University. His research focuses on the cultural history of the eastern Mediterranean, in the Late Antique and early medieval period, particularly the Syriac-speaking Christian communities of the Near East. Professor Tannous’s research interests include manuscripts and the editing of Syriac and Arabic (especially Christian Arabic) texts. His forthcoming book is titled Lovers of Labor at the End of the Ancient World: Syriac Scholars Between Byzantium and Islam. Among his recent publications are “The Life of Simeon of the Olives: A Christian Puzzle from Islamic Syria” in Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown, edited by J. Kreiner and H. Reimitz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), and “Greek kanons and the Syrian Orthodox liturgy” in Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th centuries, edited by B. Bitton-Ashkelony and D. Krueger (New York: Routledge, 2016). With Scott Johnson, Dr. Tannous created and maintains the site syri.ac , an online resource for Syriac studies, originally hosted at Dumbarton Oaks and now at the University of Oklahoma.