The intertwined world of the oral and written transmission of sacred traditions in the Middle East
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract
The purpose of this project is to bring together strands of research related to various aspects of
the transmission of sacred texts. This aims at reaching a deeper understanding of the intertwined
world of the three major religions of the Middle East at their formative periods of development
during the early Islamic centuries.
The Arabic Qur'an, the Syriac Bible and the Hebrew Bible, the sacred texts of Islam, Eastern
Christianity and Judaism respectively, were all transmitted in oral and written form. The modes of
transmission of these traditions converged to a remarkable degree in the medieval Middle East,
reflecting close contact between the various religious communities. Two particularly striking
phenomena of convergence include (i) the development of notation systems consisting mainly of
dots added to the consonantal skeleton of the script representing the oral reading traditions in the
early Islamic period and (ii) the assimilation of the mode of transmission of the Hebrew Bible in
the 10th and 11th centuries to that of the Arabic Qur'an. The embryonic development of such
notation systems is attested simultaneously in the early Qur'an manuscripts (8th century) and
contemporary Syriac Bible manuscripts. The convergence of the transmission modes of the
Hebrew Bible with the Qur'an reached its extreme point in a corpus of Hebrew Bible manuscripts
written in Arabic transcription by the Jewish Karaite community in the 10th and 11th centuries.
In addition to making important contributions to the comprehension of the individual sacred
traditions, the project will provide the opportunity to identify parallels across these traditions.
Parallels identified across Arabic and Syriac in the development of their notation system would
be likely to reflect direct contemporary contact. Parallels across (ii) and (i) would be largely of a
typological nature and would serve as an important heuristic and strengthening of hypotheses of
contact within (i).
the transmission of sacred texts. This aims at reaching a deeper understanding of the intertwined
world of the three major religions of the Middle East at their formative periods of development
during the early Islamic centuries.
The Arabic Qur'an, the Syriac Bible and the Hebrew Bible, the sacred texts of Islam, Eastern
Christianity and Judaism respectively, were all transmitted in oral and written form. The modes of
transmission of these traditions converged to a remarkable degree in the medieval Middle East,
reflecting close contact between the various religious communities. Two particularly striking
phenomena of convergence include (i) the development of notation systems consisting mainly of
dots added to the consonantal skeleton of the script representing the oral reading traditions in the
early Islamic period and (ii) the assimilation of the mode of transmission of the Hebrew Bible in
the 10th and 11th centuries to that of the Arabic Qur'an. The embryonic development of such
notation systems is attested simultaneously in the early Qur'an manuscripts (8th century) and
contemporary Syriac Bible manuscripts. The convergence of the transmission modes of the
Hebrew Bible with the Qur'an reached its extreme point in a corpus of Hebrew Bible manuscripts
written in Arabic transcription by the Jewish Karaite community in the 10th and 11th centuries.
In addition to making important contributions to the comprehension of the individual sacred
traditions, the project will provide the opportunity to identify parallels across these traditions.
Parallels identified across Arabic and Syriac in the development of their notation system would
be likely to reflect direct contemporary contact. Parallels across (ii) and (i) would be largely of a
typological nature and would serve as an important heuristic and strengthening of hypotheses of
contact within (i).
Publications
Geoffrey Khan
(2020)
Hebrew and Aramaic in the Middle Ages: Studies in Lan-guage and Linguistic Theory
Khan G.
(2020)
Towards a Comprehensive Model for Interpreting Word Order In Classical Biblical Hebrew'
in Journal of Semitic Studies
Khan G.
(2022)
The Hebrew Bible Manuscripts: A Millennium
Khan G.
(2020)
Remarks on Syllable Structure and Metrical Structure in Biblical Hebrew'
in Brill's Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics
| Description | The PDRA Johan Lundberg has made significant progress in digitising and collecting data from Syriac gospel manuscripts. His survey of the material has highlighted previously unknown patterns of distribution, especially related to punctuation. These patterns have enabled him to partially reconstruct the prosody of Classical Syriac and to identify words or phrases that were emphasised by the scribes and teachers who devised the Syriac dots. He has also investigated all of the major treatises written by medieval Syriac writers, and that investigation has highlighted new connections between the dots and new insights into the theories and descriptions made by the Syriac grammarians. Lundberg is currently writing a monograph that brings these two strands together. The PI, Geoffrey Khan, has made good progress with the research on the corpus of Karaite Bible manuscripts in Arabic script. He has now completed the description of of the philological details of all the manuscripts. Together with our German partners we organised a conference with other scholars working on Hebrew and Syriac manuscripts of the Bible and on Quran manuscripts. The conference highlighted some of the similarities between these traditions, and brought to light clear differences in their use of dots and punctuation to preserve their sacred texts. |
| Exploitation Route | The patterns we have identified could be used by historians, theologians, or philologists to investigate the interpretation of specific biblical passages in the Syriac tradition. Because the investigation has been largely restricted to prose texts it would also be possible to investigate whether poetry, especially texts with a specific meter, have another dotting system. This data could also be used together with an analysis of oral reading traditions and modern Neo-Aramaic dialects to further investigate the historical phonology of Aramaic. The PDRA Johan Lundberg has been awarded a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship to continue this line of research. The PI's work on Arabic transcriptions of the Hebrew Bible will form the basis for further understanding of the convergence of Jewish and Islamic cultures in the Middle Ages. |
| Sectors | Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| Description | Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The Leverhulme Trust |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2023 |
| End | 04/2026 |
| Description | The intertwined world of the oral and written transmission of sacred traditions in the Middle East |
| Organisation | University of Hamburg |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Our research team is digitizing Syriac Bible manuscripts that can be mined for data using tools developed by our German partners. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our German partners are digitizing Arabic Quran manuscripts and have developed tools that can be used to detect distribution patterns. The latter will be used by our team and our partners to examine Syriac and Arabic manuscripts. |
| Impact | No outcomes or outputs yet. |
| Start Year | 2020 |