• Reference
    • GB 59 Or 5918
  • Dates of Creation
    • 1458
  • Language of Material
    • Arabic Syriac
  • Physical Description
    • Codex 232 ff Material: Oriental paper. Dimensions: 230-240 x ca 160 mm [195 x 115 mm written]. Foliation: British Museum foliation in pencil and in Coptic Epact numbers. Lines per page: 19-20 lines/page. Script: Naskh. Ink: Black ink, with rubricated headings in red. Stops uncoloured or in red. Binding: British Museum binding. Condition: Good, though the margins of the first and the last folios are missing and restored. Marginalia: A few notes in Arabic and Syriac. Sporadically section numbers in Greek. Quire marks: Quinions; a new quire is marked on the upper left corner of a recto in Arabic letters (eighth etc). Catch words: In Karshuni in the lower margin at the left corner of a verso, seemingly by a different (later) hand.

Scope and Content

This volume contains the Major and Minor Prophets in Arabic translation. Contents:. Ezekiel, fols. 117v-167r. (Fol. 167v blank). Daniel, 168r-189r. Bel and the Dragon. fols. 189r-191v. Calendars (?) in Syriac, fols. 191v-192r, including colophon?. Hosea, fols. 192v-200r. Joel, fols. 200v-203r. Amos, fols. 203v-209v. Mica, fols. 210r-214r. Obadiah, fols. 214v-215r. Jonah, fols. 215v-217r. Nahum, fols. 217v-219r. Habakkuk, fols. 219v-221r. Zephaniah, fols. 221v-223v. Haggai, fols. 224r-225v. Zachariah, fols. 226r-231r (beginning missing). Malachi, fols. 231v (end missing). Readers/buyers' notes, fols. 232r. The Readers' and buyers' notes are in Arabic and Karshuni. In the first Arabic note we read that Ibrāhīm … b. qass Isḥāq…from the village Qālūq… saw this copy in the year 1930 according to the Greek Era (=1618 CE) during the reign of Patriarch Hidāyat Allāh, Patriarch of Antioch. There is a colophon within the circle in Syriac on fol. 192r, providing the year 1770 in the Seleucid era (1458 CE). The colophon is connected to a bishop George (ܠܓܐܘܪܓܝ ܐܦܝܣܩܘܦܐ). Ellis and Edwards, however, date the ms to the 13th-14th c. (cf. Descriptive, 69).

Access Information

Not Public Record(s)

Unrestricted

Acquisition Information

Immediate source of acquisition: Bought of David Fetto on April 13, 1901.

Other Finding Aids

Ellis, A.G. and Edward Edwards, A Descriptive List of the Arabic Manuscripts Acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum since 1894 (London: British Museum, 1912), p. 69.

Related Material

For more information about the work and its context, see:Hjälm, Miriam L. 'The Changing Face of the Arabic Bible: Translation Techniques in Early Renditions of Ezekiel', Open Theology 2, issue 1 (2016): 832-848.Hjälm, Miriam L. 'The Major Prophets in Arabic: The authorship of Pethiōn Revisited in Light of New Findings', in Senses of Scripture, Treasures of Tradition: The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians and Muslims, edited by Miriam L. Hjälm (Biblia Arabica, 5; Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 448-483. Vaccari, Alberto. 'Le versioni arabe dei profeti.' Biblica 3 (1922): 401-423.