The aim of the present work is to make a contribution to the understanding of the inner workings of the Syriac language through a study of one important corpus written in that language. The book contains four chapters on aspects of Syriac syntax. In addition, a chapter on inner-Syriac developments -- traceable owing to the fact that the Gospel of Matthew was translated several times and at different dates -- and a chapter on the process of translation from Greek into Syriac are included as well. The analysis of the language of the Syriac versions of Matthew facilitates the use of these...

This work proposes a reconstruction of the thought world underlying the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26). It focuses on the notions of people and land, which are central to the way the law is presented in this corpus. Important themes treated include the sons of Israel, the resident alien, the call to holiness, the camp in the desert and the land as the property of the Lord.
The conceptual universe of the Holiness Code is entirely dominated by the notion of the presence of the Lord in his sanctuary, in the midst of his people. It is this presence which requires the Israelites to observe...

This volume contains 15 contributions presented at a symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls & Ben Sira, held in Strasbourg on May 29 and 30, 2006. The papers address linguistic and philological issues.

The Book of Ben Sira comes to us in a bewildering variety of ancient textual forms. Each version shows how the book was received and interpreted in a new situation and by another community of readers. The present volume contains studies by some of the best specialists in this field of research. Each of the ancient text forms of Ben Sira--Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin--is studied in its proper context and analysed in regard to what explains the typical changes it contains.

On the occasion of the twenty-first conference of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Brill and the editorial board of Vetus Testamentum present this publication of ten articles published in the journal between 1950 and today. Most of them have been seminal in one way or another, and all, we think, continue to repay close study. The selection was made so as to illustrate the diversity of subject matter, scholarly approach, and geographic provenance that characterizes Vetus Testamentum.

Although the Jewish Targums were written down only from the second century CE onward, and need to be studied against their Late Antique background, the issue of their connection to earlier sources and traditions is an important one. Do the existing Targums link up with an oral translation of Scripture and, if so, how far does it go back? Do the Targums transmit traditional exegetical material in a distinct form? What is the relation between the Targums and "parabiblical" literature of the Second Temple period (including the New Testament)? In the present volume, these and other questions are...

The projected Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint will offer historical studies of Septuagint words, retracing their usage from early authors, over koine Greek and the translation itself, into Jewish-Hellenistic and early Christian literature. The latter two of these phases were the object of a workshop held in 2011 whose proceedings are published in this volume. The reception of the Septuagint in Greek-speaking Judaism and Christianity raises many questions: How do Jewish or Christian authors writing in Greek handle the difference existing for some words between the...