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Or 1326

Record Id:

032-003461544

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-003461544

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100085832057.0x000001

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100171510012.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Or 1326

Title:

The Bible, vol. 2.

Scope & Content:

The present manuscript, which reportedly contains the first of two volumes, belongs to the rare examples of almost complete versions of the Bible in Arabic manuscripts. The second volume is likely held in the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate (Bible 32). Judged by the date in the early modern era, its production may have been motivated by Western missionaries and scholars who took great interest in what they hoped were ancient versions of the Bible. In addition to the biblical books themselves, several prefaces are included from which we may glean the perception of the Bible in West Asian communities. The codex contains the renditions of several known translators, including Hibat Allāh ibn al-ʿAssāl, al-Ḥarith, and Ibn Faḍl.

This volume contains the first of two volumes of the Bible (cf. fol. 1r).

Contents:

For excerpts from each book and further details, see Rieu, Supplement, pp. 1-4.

Fol. 1r: list of contents

Fol. 1v (blank)

Fols. 2r-23v: Ezekiel in 28 chapters (aṣḥāḥ), the version by ibn Faḍl.

Fols. 24r-34r: Daniel divided into aṣḥāḥ and ruʾan; the version by ibn Faḍl.

fols. 24r-v: Preface

fols. 25r-v: Susanna

fols. 25v-33v: Daniel 1-12, including Additions in chapter 3.

fols. 33v-34r: Bel and the Dragon

Fols. 34v-49v: Ben Sira

(blank folio, non-foliated)

Fol. 50r: waqfiyya to the Patriarchal see.

Fols. 50v-57v: Esdra I

Fols. 58r-62v: Ezra (i.e. protocanonical Ezra, here Ezra 2)

Fol. 63r: (blank)

Fols. 63v-66v: Esther, divided into fuṣūl.

Fol. 67r: (blank)

Fols. 67v-73v: Judith

Fol. 74r: (blank)

Fols. 74v-78v: Tobit, divided into 14 aṣḥāḥ.

Fol. 79r: (blank)

Fols. 79v-91v: 1 Maccabees (i.e. the second book of the Maccabees), subdivided with rubrics.

Fol. 92r: (blank)

Fols. 92v-115v: 2 Maccabees, subdivided with rubrics.

Fol. 116r: (blank)

Fols. 116v-172v: History of the Jews, subdivided with rubrics.

Fols. 173r-183v: Job in 15 chapters (aṣḥāḥ).

Fols. 184r-189r: Wisdom of Solomon; the version by al-Ḥarith.

Fol. 189v: Introduction to Proverbs

Fols. 190r-199v: Proverbs, divided into 13 chapters (aṣḥāḥ).

Fols. 200r-203v: Ecclesiastes

Fols. 204r-205r: Song of Songs

Fol. 205v: colophon

(empty unfoliated folios)

Fols. 206v-209r: Introduction to the Gospels and the canons

Fols. 209v-212r: The canons of Eusebius

Fols. 212v-225v: Matthew, including an introduction. Matthew divided into 85 chapters (fuṣūl). The version by Abū al-Faraj Hibat Allāh ibn al-ʿAssāl.

Fols. 226r-234v: Marc, including an introduction. Marc is divided into 52 chapters (fuṣūl). The version by Abū al-Faraj Hibat Allāh ibn al-ʿAssāl.

Fols. 235r-250v: Luke, including an introduction. Luke is divided into 84 chapters (fuṣūl). The version by Abū al-Faraj Hibat Allāh ibn al-ʿAssāl.

Fols. 251r-262v: John, including an introduction. Luke is divided into 45 chapters (fuṣūl). The version by Abū al-Faraj Hibat Allāh ibn al-ʿAssāl.

Fols. 262v: Colophon (says the ms is copied from a ms prepared by al-Asʿad Abū al-Faraj ibn al-ʿAssāl, cf. Rieu, Supplement, p. 3.

Fols. 263r-269r: Revelation

269v-270r: (blank)

Fols. 270v-303r: 14 Pauline Epistles

Fols. 304r-311r: 7 Catholic Epistles

Fol. 310r: waqfiyya to the Coptic Patriarchal see.

Fols. 311v-326v: Acts

Fol. 326v: Colophon

Additional colophons can be found at fols. 205v; 225r; 262v; and 269r.

The date range of the item comes from several colophons, ranging from (fol. 205v) Friday, 25 Bu[ʾ]ūna 1301 Anno Martyrum = June 1585 CE to (fol. 269r) Wednesday, 11 Abīb year 1306 [?] Ann Martyrum = July 1590 CE.

Collection Area:

Oriental Manuscripts

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "032-003461544", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Or 1326: The Bible, vol. 2." , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-003461544

Is part of:

not applicable

Hierarchy:

032-003461544

Container:

not applicable

Record Type (Level):

Fonds

Extent:

Codex; ff. 326

Digitised Content:

http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100171510012.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Arabic

Scripts:

Arabic

Start Date:

1585

End Date:

1590

Date Range:

1585-1590

Calendar:

Gregorian

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Paper

Dimensions: ca 330 mm x 230 mm leaf [ca 260 mm x 160 mm written]

Foliation: British Museum foliation in pencil

Lines per page: Normally 29 lines/page. Ruling used.

Script: Naskh; the scribe is Faḍl Allāh

Ink: Black ink, with rubricated headings and text dividers in red and sometimes silver

Decoration: no

Binding: British Museum binding

Condition: Waterstains, wormholes, etc. Good condition

Marginalia: A few notes in Arabic and numbers in Gospels

Paratextual: fols. 50 and 310 waqfiyya to the Patriarch dated 1486 and 1487 AM i.e. 1770-71 CE. Cf. Rieu, Supplement, p. 4.

Catchwords: Catchwords at the lower left corner on verso.

Custodial History:

Fols. 50r and 310r waqfiyya to the Patriarch dated 1486 and 1487 AM i.e. 1770–71 CE. It was commissioned by a certain Ṣalīb b. Girgis al-Anbasī (fol 1r) and produced at the Ḥārat al-Zuwayla in Cairo.

Source of Acquisition:

Bought of Sir Charles A. Murray, 12 June 1875

Finding Aids:

Rieu, Charles, Supplement to the Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: The British Museum, 1894), pp. 1-4.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Related Material:

The second volume held in the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate can be accessed online (https://archive.org/details/COP4–4/page/n5/mode/2up).

A selected bibliography of sources pertinent to the study of this work:

Blackburn, Steven P. The Early Arabic Versions of Job (PhD dissertation submitted at the University of St. Andrews, 1998).

Graf, Georg. Geschichte der Christlichen Arabischen Literatur, vol. 1 (Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944).

Hjälm, Miriam L. ‘The Christian Arabic Book of Daniel: Extant versions, canonical constellations, and relation to the liturgical practice, with an Appendix of “The Song of the Three Young Men,”’ Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 12 (2015), pp. 115-178.

Hjälm, Miriam L. Christian Arabic Versions of Daniel: A Comparative Study of Early MSS and Translation Techniques in MSS Sinai Ar. 1 and 2 (Biblia Arabica, 4; Leiden: Brill, 2016).

Hjälm, Miriam L. ‘The Hazy Edges of the Biblical Canon: A case Study of the Wisdom of Solomon in Arabic’, in The Embroidered Bible: Studies in Biblical Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Honour of Michael E. Stone, edited by Lorenzo DiTommaso, Matthias Henze, and William Adler (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 569–587.

Kashouh, Hikmat. The Arabic Versions of the Gospels: The Manuscripts and Their Families (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), pp. 288-308.

de Lagarde, Paul. Psalterium Job Proverbia arabice (Göttingen, 1876).

Lange, Armin and Emanuel Tov (eds.). Textual History of the Bible, vol. 1: The Hebrew Bible, part 1b: Pentateuch, Former and Latter Prophets (Leiden: Brill, 2016), passim.

Lange, Armin and Emanuel Tov (eds.). Textual History of the Bible, vol. 1: The Hebrew Bible, part 1c: Ketuvim (Writings) and The Biblical Text as Attested in Ancient Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2017), passim.

Löfgren, Oscar. Studien zu den arabischen Danielübersetzungen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der christlichen Texte nebst einem Beitrag zur Kritik des Peschitatextes (Uppsala: Lundequitska bokhandeln, 1936).

Sadan, Josef. ‘In the Eyes of the Christian Writer al-Ḥāriṯ ibn Sinān Poetics and Eloquence as a Platform of Inter-Cultural Contacts and Contrasts’, Arabica 56 (2009): 1–26.

Samaan, Kamil W. Sept traductions arabes de Ben Sira (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1994).

Vaccari, Alberto. ‘Le versioni arabe dei profeti’, Biblica 2 (1921), pp. 401–23.

Vaccari, Alberto. ‘Le versioni arabe dei profeti’, Biblica 3 (1922), pp. 401–23.

Vollandt, Ronny. ‘Making Quires Speak: An Analysis of Arabic Multi-Block Bibles and the Quest for a Canon’, Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 4 (2016), pp. 173–209.

Related Archive Descriptions:

Or 1336
Or 6486