Apocrypha Syriaca

The twin sisters Agnes Lewis (18431926) and Margaret Gibson (18431920) were pioneering biblical scholars who became experts in a number of ancient languages. Travelling widely in the Middle East they made several significant discoveries including one of the earliest manuscripts of the Four Gospels in Syriac a dialect of Aramaic the language probably spoken by Jesus himself. First published in 1902 as part of the Studia Sinaitica this text is transcribed and translated by Lewis from a Syriac manuscript she acquired in Suez in 1895. As well as featuring pages of the Septaguint and the Peshitta Gospels the palimpsest includes some Arabic pages including a very early version of the Qur''an (estimated by Lewis as seventh-century). Illustrated with reproductions of the leaves of the various texts this is a valuable resource for scholars of Syriac but also of interest for historians of Christianity and Early Islam.