Abstract
This edited volume is a collection of ‘intersections’ between Syriac studies and Jewish studies from late antiquity up to the tenth century. The volume gives considerable attention to methodological issues inherent in tracing evasive evidence of interactions and in making (and justifying) comparisons made between uneven or dissimilar material. The editors distinguish implicit and explicit references to an Other, and between real and imagined Others, in two categories: Judaism (and Jewish studies scholars) looking towards Syriac Christianity, and vice versa. The essays are not grouped into these two categories but ordered according to contributors’ names. The volume presents interested readers with ample directions and treasuries of texts in order to reflect upon the editors’ aims to nurture further study with methodological insights into the crucial ‘second-order questions of how and why’ (p. 7) that can often elude us, even in the presence of incontrovertible parallels.
Contributions exploring the direction of Judaism towards Syriac Christianity exhibit careful navigation of comparative research and related issues, such as the risk of parallelomania, or ‘comparative research on autopilot’ as I prefer to call it, in contextualising Babylonian Judaism within Sasanian Iran and Middle Persian Zoroastrianism (p.3). 1 Syriac Christians wrote about Jews openly, but the reverse is discernible mainly through the cautious contextualisation of Babylonian Judaism in the late antique and mediaeval Near East. While it seems that intellectual and intertextual connections remain rare, the linguistic comparisons between the two dialects Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and Syriac Aramaic, are self-evident.
Meanwhile, the direction of Syriac Christianity (and scholars) looking at Judaism navigates slightly less rocky terrain: anti-Jewish polemic, the Old Testament Peshiṭta, and the transmission of Jewish thought via converts such as Aphrahaṭ and Ephrem. The phenomenon of Jewish influence upon Syriac Christianity was programmatically articulated by Sebastian Brock, 2 but it has sometimes been taken for granted in the field and extended beyond its remit. In this vein, co-editor Simcha Gross’ individual contribution (‘A long overdue farewell’) traces and critiques the scholarly hypothesis that Syriac Christianity arose out of Judaism. The editors and contributors rebuff some of the classical assumptions about the influence of Jewish culture and exegesis on Syriac Christianity, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The volume cautiously navigates these dual terrains: the well-known rabbinic reluctance to transmit non-Jewish sources in the Talmud, and the nearly unshakeable baggage of presumed cultural ‘dependence’ that beleaguers the study of younger communities (Syriac Christians) that share a common tongue with a coexisting older group (Babylonian Jews). All the while, other groups besides Jews and Christians are not to be forgotten either in some of the chapters. I note especially the essay by Sidney H. Griffith on Jewish Christianinteraction with the Qurʼan in Arabia, which advocates oral transmission as the main conduit for Qurʼanic transmission of Jewish and Christian stories.
One omission would be the absence of any contributions dedicated to Jewish and Syriac magic, considering the ample amount of evidence of late antique Mandean, Syriac, and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic incantation bowls and amulets which come from Sasanian Mesopotamia, and some of which offer evidence of Jewish–Christian relations. 3 The volume editors understandably state the collection is not meant to be comprehensive, only representative of Jewish and Syriac (less so Persian and Islamic) exchange (p. 26). For many reasons, though, the magical corpora would have aided the present volume in its admirable efforts to be methodologically rigorous in examining various kinds of source material.
The co-editors and contributors should be congratulated on producing a volume which is so nicely edited and a pleasure to read. Some of the research was first presented at the 2015 Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins at the University of Pennsylvania, and the volume in its final presentation reflects cohesion and scholarly dialogue. The non-Latin scripts are reproduced admirably by Mohr Siebeck. Interested readers would be those who wish to learn more about the worlds of Babylonian Judaism and Syriac Christianity in late antique and mediaeval Iraq and Iran. Additionally, readers who are more generally interested in all manner of historical interfaith relations, Jewish Christians, non-Chalcedonian Christian churches, or ecumenical dialogue, should find much to reflect upon in this volume.