Introduction to the Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Studies

It was during the sixteenth century in Renaissance Europe that, as a result of the efforts of the Catholic and Protestant scholars of the New Testament, Syriac studies became a part of European intellectual life. Since then, the number of scholarly publications on various matters related to the history, culture and religious life of Syriac-speaking Christians has only increased. As these publications are in a variety of languages, and many of them scattered through journals and periodicals belonging to various academic fields, it is often difficult to obtain precise information on what has already been published on one or another aspect of Syriac Christianity. Our project aims to fill the evident gap in the bibliographical resources and provide a convenient and easily accessible tool for the worldwide scholarly community. The ultimate goal of this project is to create an on-line database on Syriac Christianity that will be updated on a regular basis and available free of charge to the international scholarly community.

The need for such a project is conditioned by several factors. First, there is a steadily growing interest in the heritage of Syriac-speaking Christians among scholars as well as among the general public. Syriac Christianity played an important role in the historical, social and cultural developments that took place in the Middle East beginning with the period of Late Antiquity. Accordingly, it is essential to take this rich tradition into account in order to understand the cultural and religious dynamics of the region, from antiquity to modern times. The importance of Syriac Christianity lies not only in its interest as an independent and unique religious and cultural phenomenon worth investigating for its own sake, but in its relevance for several interdisciplinary fields. Syriac studies are of especial importance for Jewish studies, especially to understand the cultural background of rabbinic Judaism and, in particular, of the Babylonian Talmud. They are also highly relevant for such branches of Islamic studies as research on the history and culture of pre-Islamic Arabs, on background of the Qurʾan and early Islam, and last but not least on the process of the transmission and appropriation of Greek science. Furthermore, an understanding of other Eastern Christian traditions, such as Byzantine, Armenian and, especially, Christian Arabic, is often impossible without resorting to the information provided by Syriac sources.

As noted, the importance of the Syriac Christian tradition finds expression in many scholarly publications, the number of which has been steadily increasing since the beginning of Syriac studies. Given that the number of books and articles dealing with various aspects of Syriac Christianity is growing rapidly, it is becoming even more difficult for those interested in its various aspects to find the necessary information. The bibliographies compiled by Cyril Moss and Sebastian P. Brock provide a good starting point. However, the whole idea of using a book format to present bibliographical data becomes more and more obsolete, since it can barely, if at all, compete with the advantages of digital databases, with their multiple options for entering and retrieving relevant information, as well as the possibility they provide for ongoing updating and improvement.

All this, in our opinion, makes obvious the need for a digital on-line database that will integrate the results of the centuries-old tradition of academic research on Syriac Christianity and make them easily available to a wide public. We hope that this project will be welcomed not only by those working in the field of Syriac studies, but that our database will serve as an indispensable research tool for scholars of early and medieval Christianity, rabbinic Judaism, Islam, comparative religion and Semitic linguistics. Accordingly, our project is meant to be as all-inclusive thematically as possible.

The database was first launched and made publicly available in the year 2012 as The Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity, supported and hosted by the Center for the Study of Christianity of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose then director Prof. Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony rightly saw great potential of the project and its contribution to advancement of the field of Syriac studies. Since then, the database inventory grew in size almost twice and the project received multiple positive feedback from the scholarly community worldwide. Due to some unforeseen technical challenges, however, the database had recently to move to the servers of Vanderbilt University and join the ecosystem of Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portal, managed by Prof. David Michelson and his team. We hope that this collaboration will last and bring about close cooperation between various projects of the Portal.

Sergey Minov

Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, HSE University, Moscow