The Peshitta is probably the earliest translation of the whole Old Testament into a Semitic idiom. It displays an impressive balance between fidelity to the structure and sense of the Hebrew original and sensitivity to the preferences of the receptor language. This book considers ten key topics in Syriac syntax and exhaustively considers their patterns as they occur in the Peshitta of 1 Kings. Old rules of grammar are refined, new rules formulated, and wider issues of translation method considered. This study is relevant to Syriac specialists, textual critics and biblical scholars alike. It argues that many features in the Peshitta that have previously been attributed to a translator's whim, or to a Vorlage varying from the Masoretic Text, are in fact determined by factors internal to Syriac.

Using the VU University syntactically analyzed, hiearchically structured database of ancient languages, the authors compared the Masoretic text of Kings to the Syriac Peshitta translation. The core question in this comparison is: which deviations between the two texts are related to the requirements of the distinct language systems, which are related to other aspects of the translation process, and which are related to the transmission history of the translated text? Though linguistic and text-historical approaches differ in method and focus, research into ancient biblical translations must take both into account. On the basis of a synoptic matching at clause level, corresponding phrases within the clauses are matched, and corresponding words within phrases. A choice out of a wealth of detailed differences thus brought to light are discussed at the syntactic level at which the phenomenon best fits: word, phrase, clause and above the clause.

The Peshitta Institute Leiden is fulfilling its aim of producing a critical edition of the Old Testament in Syriac according to the Peshitta version. As this critical edition becomes available, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Ezekiel 1-24: A Frame Semantics Approach takes its role in providing perspectives on the value of the Peshitta to Ezekiel in Old Testament textual studies. Godwin Mushayabasa uses the cognitive linguistics approach of frame semantics to determine what techniques were used to translate Ezekiel 1-24 from Hebrew to Syriac. He observes that the Peshitta was translated at the level of semantic frames, producing a fairly literal translation. In achieving this, the author also invokes interdisciplinary dialogue between biblical textual studies and cognitive linguistics sciences.

In The Peshitta and Syro-Hexapla Translations of Amos 1:3-2:16, Petra Verwijs presents the result of a detailed study about the translation techniques used by two Syriac translations of the Biblical passage indicated. The Peshitta is the translation from a Hebrew original and the Syro-Hexapla from a Greek version. The book evaluates the unique characteristics of both through a detailed study of vocabulary and grammar. Previous scholarship has addressed issues of translation technique for the Peshitta of the Dodekapropheton, of which Amos 1:3-2:16 is a part. This is the first detailed study of any part of the Dodekapropheton of the Syro-Hexapla.

This volume contains eighteen articles in Peshitta studies in honour of Konrad D. Jenner on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. The articles address text-critical and text-historical questions, linguistic and translational issues, and the use of the Peshitta in the Syriac tradition.

This volume, containing papers read at the Third Peshitta Symposium, brings together biblical studies and Syriac liturgy and patristic literature. It discusses the patristic and liturgical evidence for the Syriac versions, as well as their reception in the Syriac churches.

This book is about the transmission of the New Testament text in the second and third centuries of early Christianity. It explores the world of manuscripts, scribes, and early Christian textual culture.