{"id":826,"date":"2026-10-28T04:14:50","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T04:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/jacob-of-edessa\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T04:14:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T04:14:50","slug":"jacob-of-edessa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/jacob-of-edessa\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob of Edessa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob of Edessa was a Syriac scholar, monk and bishop of the second half of the seventh century, and the most learned figure of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the generations that followed the Arab conquest of Syria. He lived from about 633 to 708, held the bishopric of Edessa twice, and spent most of his life in monasteries in northern Syria, where he taught, translated and wrote on almost every branch of learning known to his church. His works include a revision of the Syriac Old Testament that combined the traditional Peshitta with readings drawn from the Greek Septuagint and from the Syro-Hexapla of Paul of Tella; the first grammar of the Syriac language; a letter on the correct writing of Syriac that discusses the marking of vowels; a commentary on the six days of creation; a chronicle continuing that of Eusebius; numerous letters, scholia and canonical rulings; and revisions of earlier translations from Greek, including the homilies and hymns of Severus of Antioch. Later Syriac writers called him the interpreter of the books, and his influence on the study of the Bible, grammar and church law in the Syriac tradition was lasting. This article describes his life, the setting of his work in the early Islamic period, his biblical revision, his grammatical and orthographic writings, his other works, and his place in the history of the text of the Bible.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-1\"><a href=\"#note-1\">1<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-2\"><a href=\"#note-2\">2<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-3\"><a href=\"#note-3\">3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group at-a-glance\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"at-a-glance\">At a glance<\/h3>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li><strong>Life:<\/strong> Born about 633 at \u02bfEn Debha near Antioch; died at Tell \u02bfAdda on 5 June 708.<\/li>\n\n\n<li><strong>Training:<\/strong> Monastery of Qenneshre on the Euphrates, where Greek learning was cultivated; later studies at Alexandria.<\/li>\n\n\n<li><strong>Office:<\/strong> Bishop of Edessa from about 684 for some four years; resigned in protest at the neglect of the canons; briefly restored in 708.<\/li>\n\n\n<li><strong>Bible:<\/strong> Revision of the Syriac Old Testament made at Tell \u02bfAdda in 704\u20135, combining the Peshitta with Greek readings and the Syro-Hexapla.<\/li>\n\n\n<li><strong>Grammar:<\/strong> Author of the first Syriac grammar and of a letter on orthography that discussed the marking of vowels.<\/li>\n\n\n<li><strong>Other works:<\/strong> Hexaemeron on the six days of creation; chronicle continuing Eusebius to 692; scholia, letters, canons and revisions of liturgy and of Severus of Antioch.<\/li>\n\n\n<li><strong>Church:<\/strong> A leading scholar of the Syriac Orthodox (Miaphysite) Church under early Umayyad rule.<\/li>\n\n\n<li><strong>Legacy:<\/strong> Called the interpreter of the books; drawn upon by Bar Hebraeus and later Syriac grammarians and exegetes.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"early-life-and-training\">Early Life and Training<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob was born about 633 in the village of \u02bfEn Debha in the district of Gumya, in the territory of Antioch. Almost all that is known of his early life comes from the ecclesiastical history of the thirteenth-century Syriac scholar Gregory Bar Hebraeus and from the chronicle of Michael the Syrian, who drew on earlier sources now lost. The date of his birth fell in the years of the Arab conquest of Syria, which brought the region under Muslim rule by about 636, and he grew up in a world in which the Christian communities of Syria were adjusting to the loss of Byzantine authority and the establishment of a new political order. His church, the Syriac Orthodox, was one of the Miaphysite churches that had rejected the Council of Chalcedon of 451 and had been at odds with the imperial church of Constantinople; for its members the change of rulers did not mean the loss of a protector so much as a new set of circumstances in which to maintain their faith.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-4\"><a href=\"#note-4\">4<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-5\"><a href=\"#note-5\">5<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-6\"><a href=\"#note-6\">6<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-7\"><a href=\"#note-7\">7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a boy Jacob studied the Scriptures and the elements of doctrine under a local chorepiscopus, and as a young man he entered the monastery of Qenneshre, on the left bank of the Euphrates opposite the town of Europos, near modern Jarablus. Qenneshre had been founded in the sixth century by John bar Aphtonia, a monk who had left a Greek-speaking monastery after the Council of Chalcedon, and it had become the most important centre of Greek learning in the Syriac Orthodox Church. Its monks studied Greek grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and theology, translated Greek works into Syriac and trained the scholars who served the church as bishops and teachers. In Jacob\u2019s youth the leading figure of the monastery was Severus Sebokht, a scholar who wrote on astronomy, logic and the astrolabe and who is remembered for one of the earliest references outside India to the Indian numerals.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-8\"><a href=\"#note-8\">8<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-9\"><a href=\"#note-9\">9<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-10\"><a href=\"#note-10\">10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At Qenneshre Jacob acquired the command of Greek that marked all his later work. He read the Greek Bible, the Greek fathers and the logical works of Aristotle, and he learned the methods of grammatical and textual study that had been cultivated in the schools of late antiquity. After some years at Qenneshre he went to Alexandria to continue his studies. Alexandria was still, in the middle of the seventh century, a city with a tradition of philosophical teaching, though the great schools of earlier centuries had declined, and its Miaphysite church shared the faith of Jacob\u2019s own. The details of his stay are unknown, but his later works show a familiarity with Greek scholarship that went well beyond the range of most Syriac writers of his time.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-11\"><a href=\"#note-11\">11<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-12\"><a href=\"#note-12\">12<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-13\"><a href=\"#note-13\">13<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among Jacob\u2019s contemporaries at Qenneshre were other scholars who became prominent in the church. One of them was Athanasius of Balad, who later became patriarch of Antioch and who, like Jacob, translated and revised Greek works, including logical treatises. The friendship between the two men is reported in the sources, and it was Athanasius who, as patriarch, consecrated Jacob bishop. Another associate of the circle was George, bishop of the Arab tribes, a younger scholar who was a pupil or disciple of Jacob and who later completed his commentary on the six days of creation. These men formed a network of learned clergy who maintained the Greek traditions of their church in the new conditions of Umayyad rule.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-14\"><a href=\"#note-14\">14<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-15\"><a href=\"#note-15\">15<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-16\"><a href=\"#note-16\">16<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"bishop-of-edessa\">Bishop of Edessa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">About 684 Jacob was consecrated bishop of Edessa, the ancient city in northern Mesopotamia that had been the cradle of Syriac Christianity. Edessa had been the centre of a Christian kingdom in the early centuries, the home of the Syriac literary language and the site of the famous school associated with Ephrem the Syrian. By the seventh century it was a provincial city under Arab rule, but it retained its prestige in the Syriac churches, and its bishopric was among the most important in the Syriac Orthodox hierarchy. Jacob\u2019s appointment reflected his reputation for learning and his standing as a defender of the canons of the church.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-17\"><a href=\"#note-17\">17<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-18\"><a href=\"#note-18\">18<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-19\"><a href=\"#note-19\">19<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His tenure was brief and stormy. According to Bar Hebraeus, Jacob sought to enforce the canons of the church strictly, opposing the ordination of unsuitable clergy and other abuses, and he met resistance from the clergy of his diocese and from the patriarch Julian, who had succeeded Athanasius. After about four years he resigned. The sources describe a dramatic gesture: Jacob is said to have taken a copy of the canons and burned it in front of the patriarch\u2019s monastery, declaring that since the canons were trampled underfoot and disregarded, he would burn them as superfluous and of no use. Whatever the precise form of the incident, it became part of his reputation as a man of uncompromising principle who preferred learning and monastic life to ecclesiastical politics.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-20\"><a href=\"#note-20\">20<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-21\"><a href=\"#note-21\">21<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-22\"><a href=\"#note-22\">22<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After his resignation Jacob withdrew to the monastery of Mar Jacob at Kaysum, near Samosata, and then to the monastery of Eusebona, in the territory of Antioch, where he taught for some eleven years. At Eusebona he gave instruction in the Psalms and in the reading of the Scriptures in Greek, and he sought to revive the study of the Greek language, which was declining among the monks. His efforts met with hostility from some of the brethren, who disliked the Greek learning he championed, and he eventually left Eusebona for the great monastery of Tell \u02bfAdda, also known as Teleda, in the region west of Aleppo. There he spent about nine years, and it was at Tell \u02bfAdda that he carried out his revision of the Old Testament.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-23\"><a href=\"#note-23\">23<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-24\"><a href=\"#note-24\">24<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-25\"><a href=\"#note-25\">25<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 708, after the death of Habbib, who had succeeded him as bishop of Edessa, Jacob was recalled to the see. He went to Edessa and held the office for about four months, and then returned to Tell \u02bfAdda to collect his books and pupils with the intention of settling in his diocese. He died there on 5 June 708 and was buried at the monastery. Later tradition reported miracles at his tomb, and he came to be honoured as a saint in the Syriac Orthodox Church.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-26\"><a href=\"#note-26\">26<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-27\"><a href=\"#note-27\">27<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-28\"><a href=\"#note-28\">28<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-setting-syriac-christianity-under-the-umayyads\">The Setting: Syriac Christianity under the Umayyads<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob\u2019s life coincided with the first century of Muslim rule in Syria and Mesopotamia. The Umayyad caliphs, who ruled from Damascus from 661, governed a population that remained for a long time largely Christian, and they relied on Christian officials and on the existing administrative systems of the Byzantine and Persian empires. Under the caliph \u02bfAbd al-Malik, who reigned from 685 to 705, the state began a process of reform that introduced Arabic as the language of administration and created a distinctively Islamic coinage. Jacob\u2019s years as bishop and as a teacher at Eusebona and Tell \u02bfAdda fell in this period of change, and his writings reflect the questions that it raised for Christian communities.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-29\"><a href=\"#note-29\">29<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-30\"><a href=\"#note-30\">30<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-31\"><a href=\"#note-31\">31<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among Jacob\u2019s letters are replies to questions put to him by clergy and laymen about the relations between Christians and Muslims. In one of his letters to John the Stylite of Litarba he discusses the direction of prayer, remarking that the Muslims in Syria pray towards the south, towards the Ka\u02bfba, which he describes as the place of their patriarch. In his canonical replies he addressed such practical matters as whether a priest might give a blessing to a Muslim, whether Christians might eat with Muslims, and how to treat Christians who had converted to Islam and wished to return. These texts are among the earliest Christian writings to describe Islam and its adherents in some detail, and they have been studied by historians of early Islam as evidence for the period before the formation of the classical Islamic sources.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-32\"><a href=\"#note-32\">32<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-33\"><a href=\"#note-33\">33<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-34\"><a href=\"#note-34\">34<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The questions put to Jacob also show the conditions of Christian life in a mixed society. Many of the faithful were unsure of the boundaries between their own church and others, attended the services of rival Christian communities, or practised customs that the clergy regarded as superstitious. Jacob answered with firmness but also with a sense of practical realities, and his replies reveal a church in which the learned elite of the monasteries and the simple believers of the villages lived in very different intellectual worlds. The historian Jack Tannous has used Jacob\u2019s writings to illustrate the gulf between these worlds and the efforts of scholars like Jacob to instruct and discipline the faithful.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-35\"><a href=\"#note-35\">35<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-36\"><a href=\"#note-36\">36<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time the period saw a revival of interest in Greek learning among the Syriac scholars, who continued to translate and comment on the works of Aristotle and the Greek fathers. The monasteries of northern Syria, such as Qenneshre, preserved the scholarly traditions of late antiquity, and the scholars trained there became, in the following century, the translators who transmitted Greek science and philosophy into Arabic under the Abbasids. Jacob\u2019s own translations and revisions belong to the background of this later movement, for they show the techniques of close, literal translation and the attention to terminology that were later applied in the translation of Greek texts into Arabic.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-37\"><a href=\"#note-37\">37<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-38\"><a href=\"#note-38\">38<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-39\"><a href=\"#note-39\">39<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-revision-of-the-syriac-old-testament\">The Revision of the Syriac Old Testament<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Syriac churches possessed in Jacob\u2019s time several translations of the Old Testament. The oldest was the Peshitta, a translation made from the Hebrew, probably in the second century, which had become the standard Bible of all the Syriac churches. In the early seventh century Paul of Tella had made a new translation from the Greek, the Syro-Hexapla, which rendered the Septuagint column of Origen\u2019s Hexapla into Syriac with great literalness, preserving the critical signs by which Origen had marked the differences between the Greek and the Hebrew. The Syro-Hexapla was used for study and for the comparison of readings, but it never replaced the Peshitta in the liturgy, and its literal style made it difficult reading. A Syriac scholar who wished to understand the Bible thus faced two texts that often differed, one translated from the Hebrew and one from the Greek, and Jacob set himself to reconcile them.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-40\"><a href=\"#note-40\">40<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-41\"><a href=\"#note-41\">41<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-42\"><a href=\"#note-42\">42<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-43\"><a href=\"#note-43\">43<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob\u2019s revision, made at Tell \u02bfAdda in the years 704 and 705 according to the colophon of one of the surviving manuscripts, took the Peshitta as its base and revised it in the light of the Greek. Where the Peshitta differed from the Septuagint, Jacob often introduced Greek readings into the text, sometimes replacing the Peshitta wording, sometimes adding words or phrases from the Greek alongside it. He drew on the Syro-Hexapla and on Greek manuscripts directly, and he seems to have used more than one form of the Greek text, including readings of the type associated with the recension of the Antiochene church that is often called the Lucianic. The result was a mixed text, neither a pure Peshitta nor a translation of the Septuagint, but a combination that preserved the familiar Syriac wording while bringing it closer to the Greek Bible of the church fathers.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-44\"><a href=\"#note-44\">44<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-45\"><a href=\"#note-45\">45<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-46\"><a href=\"#note-46\">46<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-47\"><a href=\"#note-47\">47<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The revision was accompanied by an apparatus of notes in the margins. Jacob recorded alternative readings, indicating whether they came from the Syriac or the Greek, gave the Greek forms of proper names transliterated into Syriac letters, and added explanations of difficult words and passages. He divided the text into sections with headings summarising their content, and he included introductory and explanatory material. In this respect his work resembled a scholarly edition more than a simple translation, and it reflected the methods of Greek biblical scholarship that he had learned at Qenneshre and Alexandria.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-48\"><a href=\"#note-48\">48<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-49\"><a href=\"#note-49\">49<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-50\"><a href=\"#note-50\">50<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Only parts of the revision survive. Manuscripts containing Jacob\u2019s text of the Pentateuch, the books of Samuel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and some other books have been identified in the libraries of London, Paris and Rome, and some of them are fragmentary. The most important is a manuscript of the books of Samuel in the British Library, copied in 719, only eleven years after Jacob\u2019s death, which preserves the text with its marginal notes and a colophon recording the circumstances of the revision. This manuscript has been the subject of two modern studies, by Richard Saley, who analysed the textual traditions underlying the revision, and by Alison Salvesen, who published the text and translation of the books of Samuel with a full study of Jacob\u2019s methods.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-51\"><a href=\"#note-51\">51<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-52\"><a href=\"#note-52\">52<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-53\"><a href=\"#note-53\">53<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Saley\u2019s analysis showed that Jacob\u2019s Greek readings in Samuel came from several sources. Many corresponded to the Syro-Hexapla, but a significant number agreed with the Antiochene or Lucianic text of the Septuagint, which differed from the Hexaplaric text in many places in the historical books. Jacob seems to have had access to Greek manuscripts of this type, which were widely used in the churches of Syria, and he combined their readings with those of the Peshitta and the Syro-Hexapla. Salvesen\u2019s study emphasised the care with which Jacob worked, the consistency of his methods and the scholarly purpose of his notes, which were intended to help readers understand the relation between the different forms of the text.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-54\"><a href=\"#note-54\">54<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-55\"><a href=\"#note-55\">55<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-56\"><a href=\"#note-56\">56<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The purpose of the revision has been debated. One view holds that Jacob sought to produce a Syriac Bible that would agree with the Greek Bible used by the fathers of the church, whose commentaries were read in Syriac translation and whose quotations often differed from the Peshitta. Another emphasises his scholarly interest in the text as such, and sees the revision as an attempt to give readers access to all the available evidence in a single book. The two purposes are not exclusive. Jacob was both a churchman concerned with the faith of his community and a scholar interested in the history and meaning of the text, and his revision served both ends.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-57\"><a href=\"#note-57\">57<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-58\"><a href=\"#note-58\">58<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-59\"><a href=\"#note-59\">59<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The revision did not replace the Peshitta, which remained the Bible of the Syriac churches, and it was not widely copied. Its influence was felt chiefly through the commentaries and scholia of later writers, who drew on Jacob\u2019s notes and readings. In the history of the Syriac Bible it represents the culmination of a series of attempts, beginning with the Philoxenian version of the early sixth century and continuing with the Syro-Hexapla and the Harklean New Testament, to bring the Syriac Bible into line with the Greek. It also illustrates the importance of the Greek Bible for the Syriac Orthodox Church, which, unlike the Church of the East, maintained close links with the Greek theological tradition.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-60\"><a href=\"#note-60\">60<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-61\"><a href=\"#note-61\">61<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-62\"><a href=\"#note-62\">62<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"grammar-and-orthography\">Grammar and Orthography<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob is regarded as the founder of Syriac grammar. He wrote a grammar of the Syriac language, which bore a title meaning the correction of Mesopotamian speech, and which survives only in fragments. The fragments were collected and studied in the nineteenth century by Adalbert Merx in his history of grammatical study among the Syrians. They show that Jacob applied to Syriac the categories of Greek grammar, discussing the parts of speech, the inflection of nouns and verbs and the forms of words, and that he sought to establish norms of correct usage at a time when the spoken language was changing and the influence of Arabic was growing. The later Syriac grammarians, including Bar Hebraeus in the thirteenth century, built on his work and cited him as their authority.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-63\"><a href=\"#note-63\">63<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-64\"><a href=\"#note-64\">64<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-65\"><a href=\"#note-65\">65<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the problems that Jacob addressed was the representation of vowels. The Syriac alphabet, like the Hebrew, was originally written without vowels, and readers had to supply them from their knowledge of the language. Over time a system of dots had been developed to distinguish words that were spelled alike but pronounced differently, but there was no complete system of vowel signs. In his grammar Jacob proposed to write the vowels as small letters on the line, alongside the consonants, so that the pronunciation of every word would be fixed. The proposal was not adopted, perhaps because it altered the familiar appearance of the script, and the manuscripts that survive of his grammar show it only in part.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-66\"><a href=\"#note-66\">66<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-67\"><a href=\"#note-67\">67<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-68\"><a href=\"#note-68\">68<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The vowel signs that came to be used in the western Syriac tradition, which are derived from the forms of Greek vowel letters written small above or below the line, have sometimes been attributed to Jacob. Modern scholars generally regard this attribution as doubtful, since the signs are not attested in manuscripts until some time after his death, but it is likely that his interest in the representation of vowels and his familiarity with Greek contributed to the climate in which they were developed. The eastern Syriac tradition developed a different system of vowel points, based on combinations of dots, which is closer in principle to the systems devised for Hebrew.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-69\"><a href=\"#note-69\">69<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-70\"><a href=\"#note-70\">70<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-71\"><a href=\"#note-71\">71<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob also wrote a letter on Syriac orthography addressed to George, bishop of Sarug, which was published by George Phillips in 1869. In it he insisted that scribes should preserve the traditional spellings of words and the diacritical points, and should not alter the text according to their own pronunciation or understanding. He described the various points used in Syriac manuscripts, explained their functions and warned against the confusion caused by careless copying. The letter shows Jacob\u2019s concern for the accurate transmission of texts, which he regarded as a duty owed to the authors and to the readers who depended on the copies.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-72\"><a href=\"#note-72\">72<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-73\"><a href=\"#note-73\">73<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The concern for correct reading that Jacob expressed was shared by the Syriac scholars who, in the following centuries, compiled manuscripts recording the correct pronunciation and pointing of difficult words in the Bible. These manuscripts are sometimes called the Syriac Masorah, by analogy with the Hebrew Masorah, and they were produced in both the eastern and western Syriac traditions. They record the vocalisation of words, the division of sentences and other features of reading. The western Syriac Masorah has been associated with the monastery of Qarqaphta, and the oldest dated eastern Syriac manuscript of this type was written in 899. The parallel with the work of the Hebrew Masoretes, who in the same centuries developed the vowel points and accents of the Hebrew Bible, has often been noted.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-74\"><a href=\"#note-74\">74<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-75\"><a href=\"#note-75\">75<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-76\"><a href=\"#note-76\">76<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"jacob-and-the-hebrew-masoretes\">Jacob and the Hebrew Masoretes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The development of systems of vowel signs and reading marks in Syriac and Hebrew in the seventh to the tenth centuries raises the question of whether the two traditions influenced each other. The Hebrew vowel systems, Palestinian, Babylonian and Tiberian, were developed by Jewish scholars in the land of Israel and in Babylonia, in regions where Syriac Christianity was also present, and some features of the Hebrew systems resemble those of Syriac. The Babylonian system, in particular, places its vowel signs above the letters, as the eastern Syriac system often does, and the use of dots to distinguish pronunciation in Syriac predates the Hebrew vowel signs. Some scholars have argued that the Hebrew Masoretes were influenced by the Syriac example, while others have stressed the independence of the Jewish development.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-77\"><a href=\"#note-77\">77<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-78\"><a href=\"#note-78\">78<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-79\"><a href=\"#note-79\">79<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob\u2019s own work belongs to the earliest phase of this development. His grammar and his letter on orthography date from the last decades of the seventh century, before the Tiberian Masoretes had established their system, and his proposal for writing vowels on the line shows that the need for a complete representation of vowels was felt in Syriac circles at the time. Whether any Jewish scholar knew of his work is unknown. The parallel nonetheless illuminates the common situation of the two traditions, each concerned to fix the reading of a sacred text in a language that was ceasing to be spoken as it had been in earlier centuries. In both cases the scholars sought to preserve a traditional pronunciation by marking it in the text, and in both the systems they devised became part of the transmission of the Bible.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-80\"><a href=\"#note-80\">80<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-81\"><a href=\"#note-81\">81<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-82\"><a href=\"#note-82\">82<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob also had some knowledge of Hebrew scholarship and of Jewish interpretations of the Bible, as did other Syriac scholars, who lived alongside Jewish communities and sometimes consulted them about the meaning of the Hebrew text. In his scholia he occasionally refers to the Hebrew text or to Jewish interpretations, and his revision distinguishes readings derived from the Syriac, which was translated from the Hebrew, from those derived from the Greek. He did not, however, read Hebrew with the fluency with which he read Greek, and his access to the Hebrew text was chiefly through the Peshitta and through the Hexaplaric materials, which preserved the readings of the later Jewish translators Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-83\"><a href=\"#note-83\">83<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-84\"><a href=\"#note-84\">84<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-85\"><a href=\"#note-85\">85<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-hexaemeron-and-exegesis\">The Hexaemeron and Exegesis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob\u2019s longest surviving work is the Hexaemeron, a treatise in seven books on the six days of creation and the seventh day of rest. It was left unfinished at his death and was completed by his disciple George, bishop of the Arab tribes. The work belongs to a tradition of commentary on the creation narrative going back to Basil of Caesarea, whose Greek Hexaemeron was widely read in Syriac translation, but Jacob\u2019s treatise is distinctive in its use of the natural science of his time. He discusses the structure of the heavens, the movements of the stars, the nature of the elements, geography, zoology and the human body, drawing on Greek sources and on the scientific learning of Qenneshre. The Hexaemeron was edited by Jean-Baptiste Chabot in 1928 and translated into Latin by Arthur Vaschalde in 1932.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-86\"><a href=\"#note-86\">86<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-87\"><a href=\"#note-87\">87<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-88\"><a href=\"#note-88\">88<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob\u2019s other exegetical works include scholia on the books of the Bible, explaining difficult words and passages, and letters answering questions about the meaning of the Scriptures. Many of these survive only in the compilations of later writers, especially in the catena of the monk Severus of Edessa, compiled in 861, which gathered extracts from Ephrem, Jacob and other authorities. Jacob\u2019s interpretations combine attention to the literal and historical meaning of the text with an interest in its spiritual sense, and they show the influence of the Antiochene tradition of exegesis, which emphasised history and grammar, as well as of the Alexandrian tradition, which emphasised allegory.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-89\"><a href=\"#note-89\">89<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-90\"><a href=\"#note-90\">90<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-91\"><a href=\"#note-91\">91<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In his letters Jacob discussed a wide range of questions about the Bible, from the chronology of the patriarchs to the geography of the Garden of Eden, from the genealogy of Christ to the meaning of individual words. He was often asked to explain discrepancies between the Peshitta and the Greek, and his answers show his use of the Septuagint and the Hexaplaric materials to resolve them. The letters to John the Stylite of Litarba, a monk who seems to have been a frequent correspondent, are particularly numerous and cover topics from biblical interpretation to astronomy and history. They give a vivid picture of the intellectual life of the Syriac monasteries and of the kinds of questions that interested learned monks in the early Islamic period.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-92\"><a href=\"#note-92\">92<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-93\"><a href=\"#note-93\">93<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-94\"><a href=\"#note-94\">94<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-chronicle\">The Chronicle<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob wrote a chronicle continuing the Chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea, the fourth-century work that had set out the history of the world in parallel columns arranged by years. Eusebius\u2019s chronicle had been translated into Syriac and was widely used, and Jacob extended it from the reign of Constantine to his own time, ending in 692. He also corrected what he regarded as errors in Eusebius\u2019s chronology. The work survives only in fragments, preserved in a single manuscript in the British Library, which were published and translated by E. W. Brooks in 1899, and in quotations by later historians, including Michael the Syrian and the eleventh-century chronicler Elias of Nisibis.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-95\"><a href=\"#note-95\">95<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-96\"><a href=\"#note-96\">96<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-97\"><a href=\"#note-97\">97<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The fragments show Jacob applying to history the same critical methods he applied to the text of the Bible. He compared the chronologies of different sources, noted their disagreements and proposed corrections based on the evidence of the Scriptures and of other writers. His chronicle included notices of events in the Roman, Persian and Arab empires, and it is one of the early Christian sources that record the rise of Islam and the reigns of the first caliphs. For this reason it has been studied by historians of early Islam as well as by students of Syriac literature.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-98\"><a href=\"#note-98\">98<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-99\"><a href=\"#note-99\">99<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"translations-revisions-and-canons\">Translations, Revisions and Canons<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like other scholars of Qenneshre, Jacob translated and revised works from Greek into Syriac. He revised the Syriac translation of the hymns of Severus of Antioch, the great Miaphysite theologian of the early sixth century, a work known as the Octoechos, completing the revision in 675, and he revised the translation of Severus\u2019s Cathedral Homilies, the sermons Severus preached as patriarch of Antioch, completing the work about 701. These revisions sought to bring the Syriac closer to the Greek original, and they were part of a broader effort among Syriac scholars of the period to produce more precise translations of the Greek fathers.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-100\"><a href=\"#note-100\">100<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-101\"><a href=\"#note-101\">101<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-102\"><a href=\"#note-102\">102<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob also translated or revised works of Greek philosophy, including the Categories of Aristotle, and he wrote a short treatise known as the Enchiridion on philosophical terms. His interest in logic and philosophy reflected the curriculum of Qenneshre, where the logical works of Aristotle were studied as a preparation for theology. The precision of his philosophical vocabulary had an influence on later Syriac and, through Syriac, on Arabic philosophical terminology.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-103\"><a href=\"#note-103\">103<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-104\"><a href=\"#note-104\">104<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-105\"><a href=\"#note-105\">105<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In church law Jacob was an authority whose rulings were cited for centuries. He answered questions from clergy about the conduct of worship, the administration of the sacraments, marriage, fasting and the treatment of penitents, and his replies were gathered into collections of canons. He also revised the liturgy, including the anaphora of Saint James, and composed orders of service for baptism, marriage and other rites. His liturgical work helped to standardise the worship of the Syriac Orthodox Church, and some of his revisions remained in use.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-106\"><a href=\"#note-106\">106<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-107\"><a href=\"#note-107\">107<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-108\"><a href=\"#note-108\">108<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"assessment\">Assessment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob of Edessa was the most versatile scholar of the Syriac tradition, and his works cover nearly every field of learning cultivated in his church. His contemporaries and successors recognised him as a figure of exceptional erudition, and later writers referred to him with titles of honour. Modern scholars have compared him to Jerome, the Latin scholar of the fourth and fifth centuries, who likewise combined mastery of the biblical languages, a concern for the accuracy of the text, and a temperament that made him enemies. The comparison captures something of Jacob\u2019s place in his tradition, for like Jerome he stood at the meeting point of several cultures and sought to bring the best of each to bear on the understanding of Scripture.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-109\"><a href=\"#note-109\">109<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-110\"><a href=\"#note-110\">110<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-111\"><a href=\"#note-111\">111<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the history of the Bible, Jacob\u2019s importance lies in his revision of the Old Testament and in his work on the representation of the text. His revision shows how a learned scholar of the seventh century understood the relation between the Hebrew-based Peshitta and the Greek Septuagint, and how he sought to reconcile them by a combination of texts and notes. It preserves readings of the Greek text of the historical books that are of value for the study of the Septuagint, and it illustrates the methods of biblical scholarship in the Syriac monasteries. His work on grammar and orthography, in turn, belongs to the same broad movement that produced the Hebrew Masorah, the effort to fix the reading of sacred texts by marking vowels and other features in the written text.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-112\"><a href=\"#note-112\">112<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-113\"><a href=\"#note-113\">113<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-114\"><a href=\"#note-114\">114<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The study of Jacob has advanced considerably in recent decades. The publication of his revision of Samuel, the edition of his Hexaemeron, the study of his letters and canons, and the collection of essays on Jacob and the Syriac culture of his day, published in 2008, have made his work more accessible and have shown its significance for the history of Syriac Christianity, early Islam and the transmission of Greek learning. Much of his work remains unpublished or only partly edited, and further study is likely to reveal more about his methods and influence. What is already clear is that he was one of the major scholars of the early medieval Near East, and that his work on the Bible stands in the long line of efforts, from Origen\u2019s Hexapla to the modern critical editions, to understand and preserve the text of Scripture across languages and traditions.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-115\"><a href=\"#note-115\">115<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-116\"><a href=\"#note-116\">116<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-117\"><a href=\"#note-117\">117<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob\u2019s career also illustrates the continuity of scholarly traditions across the political upheavals of the seventh century. He was born under Byzantine rule, educated in a monastery that preserved the learning of late antiquity, and did his major work under the Umayyad caliphs. The Arab conquest did not interrupt the study of Greek in the Syriac monasteries; if anything, the scholars of Jacob\u2019s generation pursued it with renewed energy, as if to preserve their heritage in the face of change. The tradition they maintained was passed on, in the following century, to the translators of Baghdad, and through them to the Islamic and eventually the Latin world.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-118\"><a href=\"#note-118\">118<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-119\"><a href=\"#note-119\">119<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-120\"><a href=\"#note-120\">120<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the Syriac Orthodox Church Jacob is remembered as a saint and teacher, and his name appears in the commemorations of the church. His writings were copied and read for centuries, his canons were cited in legal collections, and his grammatical rules were followed by later scholars. Bar Hebraeus, writing nearly six centuries later, drew on his works for his own grammar, his commentary on the Bible and his history, and through Bar Hebraeus Jacob\u2019s learning reached the scholars of the later Middle Ages. The European scholars who began to study Syriac in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries encountered his name in the manuscripts and histories they read, and the nineteenth-century catalogues of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Museum, the Vatican and the Biblioth\u00e8que nationale revealed the extent of his surviving works.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-121\"><a href=\"#note-121\">121<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-122\"><a href=\"#note-122\">122<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-123\"><a href=\"#note-123\">123<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jacob\u2019s achievement, finally, reflects a conception of scholarship as a service to the community of faith. He studied Greek not for its own sake but in order to understand the Scriptures and the fathers better; he revised the Bible not to replace the Peshitta but to illuminate it; he wrote on grammar and orthography so that the text would be read correctly; and he answered the questions of monks and laymen so that they might live according to the teaching of the church. His resignation of his bishopric in protest at the neglect of the canons and his withdrawal to the monasteries show the same conviction, that learning and discipline were inseparable. In this he was a representative figure of the Syriac monastic tradition at its most creative, and his work on the text of the Bible remains one of its enduring contributions.<sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-124\"><a href=\"#note-124\">124<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-125\"><a href=\"#note-125\">125<\/a><\/sup><sup class=\"fn-ref\" id=\"ref-126\"><a href=\"#note-126\">126<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"notes\">Notes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list post-notes\">\n\n<li id=\"note-1\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-1\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-2\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-2\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-3\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-3\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-4\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-4\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-5\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Bar_Hebraeus\">Bar Hebraeus<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-5\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-6\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Michael_the_Syrian\">Michael the Syrian<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-6\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-7\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Miaphysitism\">Miaphysitism<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-7\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-8\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-8\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-9\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-9\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-10\">Jack Tannous, <em>The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers<\/em> (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). <a href=\"#ref-10\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-11\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-11\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-12\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-12\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-13\">William Wright, <em>A Short History of Syriac Literature<\/em> (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1894). <a href=\"#ref-13\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-14\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-14\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-15\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-15\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-16\">Jack Tannous, <em>The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers<\/em> (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). <a href=\"#ref-16\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-17\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Edessa\">Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-17\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-18\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Ephrem_the_Syrian\">Ephrem the Syrian<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-18\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-19\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-19\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-20\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Bar_Hebraeus\">Bar Hebraeus<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-20\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-21\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Michael_the_Syrian\">Michael the Syrian<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-21\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-22\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-22\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-23\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-23\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-24\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Bar_Hebraeus\">Bar Hebraeus<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-24\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-25\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-25\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-26\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-26\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-27\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Bar_Hebraeus\">Bar Hebraeus<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-27\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-28\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Michael_the_Syrian\">Michael the Syrian<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-28\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-29\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Umayyad_Caliphate\">Umayyad Caliphate<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-29\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-30\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Abd_al-Malik_ibn_Marwan\">Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-30\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-31\">Jack Tannous, <em>The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers<\/em> (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). <a href=\"#ref-31\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-32\">Robert G. Hoyland, <em>Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam<\/em> (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-32\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-33\">Jack Tannous, <em>The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers<\/em> (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). <a href=\"#ref-33\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-34\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-34\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-35\">Jack Tannous, <em>The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers<\/em> (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). <a href=\"#ref-35\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-36\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-36\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-37\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-37\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-38\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-38\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-39\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Categories_(Aristotle)\">Categories (Aristotle)<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-39\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-40\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Peshitta\">Peshitta<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-40\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-41\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/paul-of-tella-and-the-syro-hexapla\/\">Paul of Tella and the Syro-Hexapla<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-41\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-42\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-peshitta-and-its-hebrew-vorlage\/\">The Peshitta and Its Hebrew Vorlage<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-42\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-43\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-hexapla-of-origen\/\">The Hexapla of Origen<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-43\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-44\">Alison Salvesen, <em>The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-44\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-45\">Richard J. Saley, <em>The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa: A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). <a href=\"#ref-45\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-46\">Michael P. Weitzman, <em>The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-46\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-47\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Septuagint\">Septuagint<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-47\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-48\">Alison Salvesen, <em>The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-48\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-49\">Richard J. Saley, <em>The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa: A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). <a href=\"#ref-49\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-50\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-50\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-51\">Richard J. Saley, <em>The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa: A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). <a href=\"#ref-51\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-52\">Alison Salvesen, <em>The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-52\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-53\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/British_Library\">British Library<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-53\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-54\">Richard J. Saley, <em>The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa: A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). <a href=\"#ref-54\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-55\">Alison Salvesen, <em>The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-55\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-56\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Septuagint\">Septuagint<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-56\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-57\">Alison Salvesen, <em>The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-57\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-58\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-58\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-59\">Michael P. Weitzman, <em>The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-59\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-60\">Michael P. Weitzman, <em>The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-60\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-61\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-syriac-new-testament\/\">The Syriac New Testament<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-61\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-62\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-62\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-63\">Adalbert Merx, <em>Historia artis grammaticae apud Syros<\/em> (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1889). <a href=\"#ref-63\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-64\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Bar_Hebraeus\">Bar Hebraeus<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-64\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-65\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Syriac_language\">Syriac language<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-65\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-66\">Adalbert Merx, <em>Historia artis grammaticae apud Syros<\/em> (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1889). <a href=\"#ref-66\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-67\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Syriac_alphabet\">Syriac alphabet<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-67\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-68\">George Phillips, ed. and trans., <em>A Letter by M\u0101r Jacob, Bishop of Edessa, on Syriac Orthography<\/em> (London: Williams and Norgate, 1869). <a href=\"#ref-68\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-69\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Syriac_alphabet\">Syriac alphabet<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-69\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-70\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-70\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-71\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Syriac_language\">Syriac language<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-71\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-72\">George Phillips, ed. and trans., <em>A Letter by M\u0101r Jacob, Bishop of Edessa, on Syriac Orthography<\/em> (London: Williams and Norgate, 1869). <a href=\"#ref-72\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-73\">Adalbert Merx, <em>Historia artis grammaticae apud Syros<\/em> (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1889). <a href=\"#ref-73\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-74\">Michael P. Weitzman, <em>The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-74\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-75\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-tiberian-masorah-and-the-schools-of-ben-asher-and-ben-naphtali\/\">The Tiberian Masorah and the Schools of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-75\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-76\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-masorah-parva-and-masorah-magna\/\">The Masorah Parva and Masorah Magna<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-76\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-77\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/babylonian-vocalisation-the-eastern-pointing-of-the-hebrew-bible\/\">Babylonian Vocalisation: The Eastern Pointing of the Hebrew Bible<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-77\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-78\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-tiberian-masorah-and-the-schools-of-ben-asher-and-ben-naphtali\/\">The Tiberian Masorah and the Schools of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-78\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-79\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-vowel-point-controversy-who-pointed-the-hebrew-bible\/\">The Vowel-Point Controversy<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-79\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-80\">Michael P. Weitzman, <em>The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-80\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-81\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Masoretic_Text\">Masoretic Text<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-81\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-82\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/saadya-gaon-and-the-birth-of-masoretic-scholarship\/\">Saadya Gaon and the Birth of Masoretic Scholarship<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-82\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-83\">Alison Salvesen, <em>The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-83\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-84\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-hexapla-of-origen\/\">The Hexapla of Origen<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-84\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-85\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Masoretic_Text\">Masoretic Text<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-85\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-86\">I.-B. Chabot, ed., <em>Iacobi Edesseni Hexaemeron seu in opus creationis libri septem<\/em>, CSCO 92, Scriptores Syri 44 (Paris, 1928). <a href=\"#ref-86\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-87\">William Wright, <em>A Short History of Syriac Literature<\/em> (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1894). <a href=\"#ref-87\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-88\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-88\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-89\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-89\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-90\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Ephrem_the_Syrian\">Ephrem the Syrian<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-90\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-91\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Theodore_of_Mopsuestia\">Theodore of Mopsuestia<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-91\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-92\">Robert G. Hoyland, <em>Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam<\/em> (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-92\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-93\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-93\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-94\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-94\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-95\">E. W. Brooks, \u201cThe Chronological Canon of James of Edessa,\u201d <em>Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl\u00e4ndischen Gesellschaft<\/em> 53 (1899): 261\u2013327. <a href=\"#ref-95\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-96\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Chronicon_(Eusebius)\">Chronicon (Eusebius)<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-96\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-97\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Michael_the_Syrian\">Michael the Syrian<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-97\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-98\">E. W. Brooks, \u201cThe Chronological Canon of James of Edessa,\u201d <em>Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl\u00e4ndischen Gesellschaft<\/em> 53 (1899): 261\u2013327. <a href=\"#ref-98\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-99\">Robert G. Hoyland, <em>Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam<\/em> (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-99\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-100\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Severus_of_Antioch\">Severus of Antioch<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-100\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-101\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-101\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-102\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-102\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-103\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Categories_(Aristotle)\">Categories (Aristotle)<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-103\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-104\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-104\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-105\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-105\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-106\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Syriac_Orthodox_Church\">Syriac Orthodox Church<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-106\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-107\">Jack Tannous, <em>The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers<\/em> (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). <a href=\"#ref-107\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-108\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-108\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-109\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-109\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-110\">William Wright, <em>A Short History of Syriac Literature<\/em> (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1894). <a href=\"#ref-110\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-111\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-111\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-112\">Alison Salvesen, <em>The Books of Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-112\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-113\">Richard J. Saley, <em>The Samuel Manuscript of Jacob of Edessa: A Study in Its Underlying Textual Traditions<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1998). <a href=\"#ref-113\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-114\">Michael P. Weitzman, <em>The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction<\/em> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). <a href=\"#ref-114\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-115\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-115\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-116\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/the-hexapla-of-origen\/\">The Hexapla of Origen<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-116\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-117\">See also \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/paul-of-tella-and-the-syro-hexapla\/\">Paul of Tella and the Syro-Hexapla<\/a>\u201d on this site. <a href=\"#ref-117\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-118\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Umayyad_Caliphate\">Umayyad Caliphate<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-118\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-119\">Jack Tannous, <em>The Making of the Medieval Middle East: Religion, Society, and Simple Believers<\/em> (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018). <a href=\"#ref-119\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-120\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-120\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-121\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Bar_Hebraeus\">Bar Hebraeus<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-121\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-122\">William Wright, <em>A Short History of Syriac Literature<\/em> (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1894). <a href=\"#ref-122\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-123\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/Syriac_Orthodox_Church\">Syriac Orthodox Church<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-123\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-124\">Grokipedia, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/grokipedia.com\/page\/jacob_of_edessa\">Jacob of Edessa<\/a>\u201d. <a href=\"#ref-124\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-125\">Bas ter Haar Romeny, ed., <em>Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day<\/em>, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute 18 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). <a href=\"#ref-125\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li id=\"note-126\">Sebastian P. Brock, <em>A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature<\/em> (Kottayam: St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute, 1997). <a href=\"#ref-126\" aria-label=\"Back to text\">\u21a9<\/a><\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jacob of Edessa was a Syriac scholar, monk and bishop of the second half of the seventh century, and the most learned figure of the Syriac Orthodox Church in the generations that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scholars-scribes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masoretes.online\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}