8. Revision of the List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts

When the Peshitta Institute started the preparations for the Leiden Peshitta edition, a list was compiled of all Peshitta manuscripts that were known at that time. This list appeared in 1961 Many additions have been published in the Peshitta Institute Communications, which appeared in Vetus Testamentum and in the Journal for the Aramaic Bible and Aramaic Studies.

The List contains (a) a main section containing the description of the manuscripts, arranged under the alphabetical order of the place names where the manuscripts are kept, (b) an appendix, which gives a description of manuscripts that must be considered lost or unobtainable and manuscripts that will not be used for the edition, and (c) a number of indices. The main section and the addenda to it contain the description of 360 manuscripts from the fifth till the nineteenth century. The appendix contains the description of about 230 manuscripts containing Psalms and/or Odes and 40 manuscripts of other books.

Now that the Leiden Peshitta edition is approaching its completion, the List will be thoroughly revised and updated. The revision will not only consist of the inclusion of the additions that have appeared in the Peshitta Institute Communications, but also of a thorough revision of the way in which the manuscripts are described. Due attention will be paid to new insights about the way we should take into account codicological and palaeographical information, the classification of manuscripts, their textcritical and texthistorical value and their stemmatological position.

The project leaders are Konrad Jenner and Wido van Peursen.

For more information about the new format of the List and the information that will be included in it see W.Th. van Peursen, ‘La diffusion des manuscrits bibliques conservés: typologie, organisation, nombre et époques de copie’, fortcoming in the proceedings of the Société d’études syriaques. Table ronde: L’ancient testament en syriaque, 16 November 2007, in the series Études Syriaques.