Syriac manuscripts

Along the lines of a reappraisal of the so-called Byzantine “Dark Ages,” this contribution addresses
the question of the re-emergence of classical culture in Byzantium in the 9th century and how Syriac
sources can throw some light on the continuation and yet transformation of late antique teaching
and scholasticism. The continuous work by Syriac scholars on Greek scientific and philosophical
texts in the 7th–10th centuries shows the availability of Greek manuscripts in the East, even beyond
the Roman-Sasanian border. Syriac literature can help understand the transformation of Hellenism
and the constitution of a cultural koine in other languages than Greek. A Christian as well as more
specifically Syrian Hellenism blended the cultural idioms of Greek and “oriental” culture. Not only
did Greek culture survive, but it spread in the Arabic polity and ultimately re-emerged in Byzantium
from the shelves of the Byzantine libraries. Oblivion of classical “pagan” literature was parallel to the
transmission of a new canonised knowledge in Syriac and then Arabic but was ultimately reversed:
not so much thanks to the “return” of Greek manuscripts and texts from the East however as from a
competition over the appropriation of ancient Greek culture beyond Christianity.

This blog was prepared for Holy Week 2020. In it, I describe illustrations relating to various stages of the Passion of Christ found within the British Library's holdings of Syriac manuscripts. I explore some of the variations in style and technique in the paintings, as well as the differences in content between various examples of Syriac lectionaries and liturgical works.

L’invenzione del dialogo raccoglie una serie di testi letterari cristiani in lingua siriaca, di un genere in cui questa letteratura si distinse ed eccelse: l’innografia e la poesia piegate a esporre temi e motivi teologici, esegetici e sapienziali. Gli scritti debitamente introdotti e commentati mostrano la varietà di forme e contenuti che questi conobbero: dalla riflessione filosofica e teologica di Efrem, al ricamo narrativo ed esegetico di dialoghi immaginari tra personaggi della Bibbia o dell’agiografia, da Caino e Abele o Giuseppe e la moglie di Potifar, a Giuseppe e Maria o la peccatrice e Satana, fino ai contraddittori che in età cristiana riprendono e reinventano un genere mesopotamico antico: quello della disputa, ad esempio tra anima e corpo, tra i mesi, tra l’oro e il grano.

Indice e preview: https://www.claudiana.it/scheda-libro/alessandro-mengozzi/linvenzione-del-dialogo-9788839409577-2152.html

* * * now available online * * *
https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/index.html

The Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage (GEDSH) is the first major encyclopedia-type reference work devoted exclusively to Syriac Christianity, both as a field of scholarly inquiry and as the inheritance of Syriac Christians today. In more than 600 entries it covers the Syriac heritage from its beginnings in the first centuries of the Common Era up to the present day. Special attention is given to authors, literary works, scholars, and locations that are associated with the Classical Syriac tradition. Within this tradition, the diversity of Syriac Christianity is highlighted as well as Syriac Christianity’s broader literary and historical contexts, with major entries devoted to Greek and Arabic authors and more general themes, such as Syriac Christianity’s contacts with Judaism and Islam, and with Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Georgian Christianities. In addition to the literary tradition, inscriptions and objects of art are given due consideration. The entries are accompanied by 131 illustrations, twenty of which are in color. The volume closes with maps, lists of patriarchs of the main Syriac Churches of the Middle East, and elaborate indices.

GEDSH is a collaborative project that involves seventy-six scholars from across the globe. Three of the four editors are associated with major universities in Europe and the United States: Oxford University, Yale University, and Duke University. The fourth editor is the founding director of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute. GEDSH was carried out under the auspices of Beth Mardutho."

For Jacob of Serugh’s large text corpus hardly any early text or primary witnesses have survived. Most of them are copies from centuries later, with the most ancient ones dating to the seventh century AD. The discovery of a sixth-century palimpsest (6th cent.) with the Homily on the Presentation in the Temple by this prolific author among the Syriac manuscripts in the British Library from Deir al-Suryan is rather surprising after so many years since the publication of the catalogues by William Wright in 1871–1873. This study presents the attribution of the palimpsest folios according to their content.

For the past two centuries, scholars have debated the origin of Arabic script, the youngest of the Semitic scripts. While one camp pointed to Nabatean as the sure ancestor, another favored Syriac instead. By examining each an­cestor visually and historically, one finds evidence for each point of view. Is it reasonable to insist on a single ancestor for Arabic script? The historical exam­ples of Proto­-Sinaitic and Ugaritic scripts demonstrate that a single script can be shown to have features amalgamated from more than one source. Detailed examination of the features of early Arabic script leads us to conclude that both Nabatean and Syriac strongly influenced its development. Finally, we demonstrate that particular details of cursive linking in Arabic script replicate analogous behavior in Syriac.

Questo lavoro sul Vangelo dell'infanzia arabo della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana di Firenze cod. Orientali 387 è nato come proseguimento della collana di volumi denominata "Folia picta", nella quale sono stati pubblicati il Tetravangelo siriaco di Rabbula cod. pluteo 1.56, la Collezione chirurgica di Niceta cod. pluteo 74.7 e la Topografia cristiana di Cosma Indicopleuste cod. pluteo 9.28. L'origine remota del libro è l'essermi imbattuto nelle miniature del Vangelo attraverso la traduzione del suo testo in italiano fatta da Provera nel 1973 e pubblicata dalla Custodia Francescana di Terrasanta. A differenza delle altre traduzioni in lingue moderne, il volume di Provera contiene un elenco dei disegni inseriti tra le linee del testo del codice ed un gruppo di tavole in bianco e nero che riproducono una scelta di quei disegni. Tutti gli studiosi del Vangelo, prima e dopo Provera, non hanno dato peso a queste illustrazioni, implicitamente giudicate complemento al testo di mero valore ornamentale. Dal punto di vista di uno storico della miniatura che si è occupato più volte di illustrazione di testi apocrifi del Vecchio e Nuovo Testamento, la scelta di ignorare le illustrazioni nel codice laurenziano appare come superficialità e chiusura metodologica. Le illustrazioni hanno valore a sé di documenti sulla storia della origine e tradizione del Vangelo, essendo testimoni di una sua versione antica in siriaco ed ignota nelle fonti scritte fino ad adesso pubblicate.

Syriac Christianity developed in the first centuries CE in the Middle East, where it continued to flourish throughout Late Antiquity and the Medieval period, while also spreading widely, as far as India and China. Today, Syriac Christians are found in the Middle East, in India, as well in diasporas scattered across the globe. Over this extended time period and across this vast geographic expanse, Syriac Christians have built impressive churches and monasteries, crafted fine pieces of art, and written and transmitted a sizable body of literature. Though often overlooked, neglected, and even persecuted, Syriac Christianity has been – and continues to be – an important part of the humanistic heritage of the last two millennia. The present volume brings together fourteen studies that offer fresh perspectives on Syriac Christianity, especially its literary texts and authors. The timeframes of the individual studies span from the second-century Syriac translation of the Hebrew Bible up to the thirteenth century with the end of the Syriac Renaissance. Several studies analyze key authors from Late Antiquity, such as Aphrahat, Ephrem, Narsai, and Jacob of Serugh. Others investigate translations into Syriac, both from Hebrew and from Greek, while still others examine hagiography, especially its formation and transmission. Reflecting a growing trend in the field, the volume also devotes significant attention to the Medieval period, during which Syriac Christians lived under Islamic rule. The studies in the volume are united in their quest to explore the richness, diversity, and vibrance of Syriac Christianity.

Aaron Michael Butts and Robin Darling Young (eds.), Syriac Christian Culture: Beginnings to Renaissance (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020).

The Syriac Version of Ezra-Nehemiah seems to be based on an original Hebrew text that is partly different from the one transmitted in the Masoretic tradition. This study seeks explain how the Syriac translator understood the Hebrew text. After the introduction, the second chapter examines the manuscript traditions and provides a critical apparatus to the Syriac text. The following chapters investigate the translation technique and show the translator’s efforts to solve the difficulties in the original by offering a more coherent and clearer new text. The monograph also discusses questions concerning the translator and his community

Syriac and the Qurʾān - Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān - 2018

**Syriac was an Aramaic dialect spoken by Christians in and around Arabia during the time of the Qurʾān’s appearance. It or…

**Article Table of Contents

The place of Syriac in Islamic tradition
Modern theories on Syriac and the Qurʾān
Jewish-Christianity between Syriac and the Qurʾān
Syriac intertext, subtext, or urtext?
Syriac rhymed homilies and Qurʾānic prose
Examples of Syriac in the Qurʾān
Syriac vocabulary
Unconnected letters
Rephrasing the Syriac Bible and Apocrypha – The Last Judgement and next life
Rhyme and rhetoric
Echoes of Syriac homilies – The case of Paradise
Bibliography

A peculiar feature of some early manuscripts of John has rarely been interpreted. At the climax of Mary Magdalene’s recognition scene, her name changes from Maria to Mariam. The immediate narrative context includes Mary’s double turning—she “turns” to Jesus in 20:16 after having already turned toward him in 20:14—which has been a crux interpretum as far back as fourth-century homilies. How should we understand this pivotal moment? This article first charts the naming conventions of the various Marys, arguing for the significance of the change from Maria to Mariam in John 20:16. Next it evaluates several interpretive options for the name change that relate to ethnic identities, genres of romance, signifiers of authoritative status, and narratives of salvation. Some Christian interpreters from late antiquity use these narrative details to dramatize Mary’s salvation or emphasize her authoritative status. In the end, the ancient evidence for Mary’s name change further sharpens the climactic significance of her double turning, and it does so in ways that resonated with both biblical traditions and early Christian interpreters.

Published in James E. Walters (ed.), Eastern Christianity: A Reader (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021), 123-128.

Timothy I was an influential Catholicos of the Church of the East for more than forty years (780–823).  Around sixty letters of his survive, and these provide fascinating insights into how the Catholicos led the Church of the East during a pivotal time at the beginning of the ˁAbbāsid Caliphate (750–1258). The present letter deals with two principal topics. The first is Timothy’s efforts to produce three copies of the Syriac translation of the Septuagint column of Origen’s Hexapla. This Syriac translation, known in modern scholarship as the Syro-Hexapla, was produced by the Syriac Orthodox translator Paul of Tella in 616–617. In addition to being the first mention of the (Syro-)Hexapla in East Syriac sources, this section of the letter provides a rare – and captivating – glimpse of scribal culture and manuscript copying. The second topic of the letter is the discovery of Hebrew manuscripts in the region of Jericho. This incredible story anticipates the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls by more than a millennium. In addition, it might explain the existence of the so-called Apocryphal Psalms in the Syriac tradition.  The Syriac Apocryphal Psalms are a group of five poetic compositions, numbered 151–155, that are first attested in a Syriac manuscript datable to the twelfth century. Two of these Psalms (154–155) are also found in the Qumran Psalms Scroll (11QPsa). This letter might be the proverbial silver bullet to explain how non-canonical Hebrew Psalms could be transmitted into Syriac after the original translation of the canonical Peshiṭta many centuries earlier. Together, both parts of this letter shed light on biblical studies in the Church of the East at the beginning of the ˁAbbāsid period and especially Timothy’s activities in this area.  Beyond these two main topics, the letter is filled with many other intriguing details. These range from referring to Caliph al-Rashīd (786–809) as the “victorious king,” as is common in Syriac sources of the time,  to Timothy’s mention of the appointment of bishops for the Church of the East, not only in the Middle East but spreading eastward into Central and East Asia, with Turkestan and Tibet expressly mentioned. Toward the end of the letter, Timothy returns to where he began, by discussing manuscripts, asking the recipient of the letter to send some manuscripts, search for others, and make copies of yet others.

Le corpus traditionnel d’hymnes syriaques monodiques modales de l’office divin constitue le noyau générateur de la liturgie de l’Église maronite. Ces hymnes s’inscrivent dans la continuité du syncrétisme qu’a réalisé Saint Ephrem de Nisibe au VIe siècle entre la poésie prédicative chrétienne et des mélodies populaires de caractère dansant rural et communiel. Ce métissage esthétique a marqué de son sceau la facture musicale des chants syriaques et notamment leur morphologie rythmique. Cette configuration rythmique se marie de diverses façons à des mélodies-types de nombre restreint que l’on retrouve en sous-jacence des strophes-modèles ou de tête des hymnes syriaques maronites. C’est à l’étude de la composition musicale de ces rīš qōlōs dans une perspective grammaticale musicale générative que s’attelle ce livre. Il part du matériau musical de référence que le Père antonin Maroun Mrad, grand maître de cette tradition, a enregistré vers 1967. Cet essai applique à ce corpus la procédure d’analyse et de modélisation sémiotique modale que Nidaa Abou Mrad a établie pour les monodies traditionnelles du Levant, à partir de la théorie arabe de l’arborescence grammaticale modale, de l’analyse schenkérienne, de la théorie de vecteurs harmoniques de Nicolas Meeùs et de la grammaire chomskyenne.

Introduction (for some reason, omitted from the publication!):

As late as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bitlis was home to a large and vibrant Christian community. Most documentation from that time records these as having been of Armenian ethnicity, yet a number of travellers’ accounts indicate the existence of an additional Christian ethnic group – the Assyrians, also known as “Jacobites” (Yakubiler), Old Syrians (Süryani Kadim) or Syriac Orthodox (Süryani Ortodoks). Not much is known of this elusive component of the city’s ethno-religious makeup due to a lack of detailed accounts or first-hand source material. This paper will endeavour to outline the main details of the Assyrian community in Bitlis, especially its numerical size, as deduced from Ottoman census data and limited travellers’ accounts. For the first time, however, a rare Assyrian source will be used to add more flesh and colour to our existing knowledge. This source is a list of tithes given to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate in 1870, collected by the priest and monk ‘Abd-Allāh Saṭṭūf of Ṣadad. The list mentions a number of Assyrians who lived in Bitlis at the time, and who donated money to their Patriarchate in the Za’farān Monastery (near Mardin); their names reveal some interesting facts regarding the community’s social and cultural situation in the city. It also provides the details of six Assyrian villages in the Īrūn valley, more than 25 kilometres to the southeast, which were closely linked with the urban community. It is hoped that this contribution, resulting from the analysis of a little-known Syriac manuscript source, will illuminate a part of the Bitlis province’s diverse ethnic and religious makeup of which little was previously known about, adding to our knowledge of the city’s cultural milieu.

(Footnote: Between 15 August 1906 and 17 July 1915, Ignatius ‘Abdeh d-Aloho II Saṭṭūf was the Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, and head of the Syriac Orthodox Church. An edition of his tithes register was published by Fr. Iskandar Bcheiry in The Syriac Orthodox Patriarchal Register of Dues of 1870: An Unpublished Historical Document from the Late Ottoman Period, Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2009.)

“The Classical Syriac Language,” in Daniel King (ed.), The Syriac World (New York: Routledge, 2019). 222-242.

The Syriac language is a vital component of the broader Syriac cultural heritage. In this contribution, I locate Syriac within its broader Aramaic (and Semitic) setting as well as its various socio-historical contexts, with a focus on Late Antiquity and, to a lesser extent, the Medieval period. In addition, particular attention is paid to several topics that are of immense importance to our understanding of the Syriac language but are rarely discussed, including periodization, written versus spoken varieties, geographic variation and diachronic change, and standardization.

“Well-documented and long-needed book on the multidimensional identity of the Arameans. It makes complex and confusing matters simple and clear.”
Prof. Dr. Werner Arnold, University of Heidelberg

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This most recent book on the fascinating history, identity and language of the Arameans (otherwise known as Syriacs) also discusses how some of them became ‘Assyrians’ after European and American travelers, mapmakers, missionaries, archaeologists and colonial powers came to the Middle East in the 19th century.

Aramaic is a remarkable gift from the Arameans to humankind and is best known as the language of Jesus. For 1500 years, it was spoken and written throughout the Near East until Arabic replaced it. Aramaic and the Arameans survived mighty empires and played a significant role for Jews, Christians and Muslims in the birth of their religion and literature, including the Bible and the Qur’an.

What else did they contribute to world culture? When and why did the Syriac, ‘Nestorian’, Melkite, Maronite and Chaldean churches come into being, some of whom preserved Aramaic to this day? What do their church fathers and scholars say about their traditional self-identifications? How can we understand often-used names like Arameans, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Suryaye, Suryoye and as-suroye?

These and other intriguing questions answered in this work have been enriched with four unique and hitherto unpublished documents about this Semitic people. Readers interested in the history, language, religion and identity of the Arameans, who are indigenous to Southeast Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, will find great value in this book on the last Aramaic-speaking Christians of the Middle East.

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The book is available from www.johnymesso.com (incl. book trailer).

The Syriologist Arthur Vööbus began his academic studies at the theological faculty of the University of Tartu in 1928. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 1943 and in the following year left Estonia before Soviet occupation. From 1948 to 1977 he served as professor at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. During that period he made 34 research expeditions to Middle East and photographed 695 unique manuscripts, which contained previously unknown or otherwise important material. The Vööbus collection of Syriac manuscripts on film contains approximately 60 000 unique photos, or approximately 120 000 pages of manuscripts. At present the collection is hosted by the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in Collegeville, Minnesota, which organization is dedicated to digitally preserving ancient manuscripts around the world.

Johnson, Scott Fitzgerald. 2018. “The Languages of Christianity on the Silk Roads and the Transmission of Mediterranean Culture into Central Asia.” In Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity: Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppe, ca. 250–750, edited by Nicola Di Cosmo and Michael Maas, 206–219. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The objective of the present article is to give a brief, introductory description of some Neo-Aramaic manuscripts belonging to a private collection authored and compiled by Khivron ‘Azīzī (Urmia) that has remained completely unknown to scholars. This collection consists now of 12 manuscripts in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, which are housed together in my own library in Melbourne, Australia. Furthermore, I hope that this description will draw the attention of scholars to the collection, especially for the contents of the manuscripts. More important, maybe, is that this collection gives insight into a most unknown and not well studied period in the history of the Assyrians in Iran, namely the mid to late twentieth century. This encompasses the later years of Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s rule as well as the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, and their effects on the Assyrians remaining in Urmia.

This article aims to revisit the impact of relations between Rome and
the Maronite Church on his religious identity in the 16th century. The
starting point is the manuscript kept in Florence (BNCF) of the Missale
Chaldaïcum, one of the first publications in the West of Maronite
liturgical books. This Missale drew a lot of ink from researchers who
did not always agree on its history and impact. The author of this article
intends to reopen the file, moving away from generalizations of catalogs
and carrying out a detailed analytical update of the codicological data
offered by the manuscript examined, focusing mainly on the marginal
notes. We are in the presence of a whole research which will lead to
perceive the identity of the Maronites of Mount Lebanon in the 16th
century, starting from the liturgical reality that they lived. This reality
which has been altered by the publication of the Missale, and which can
only be identified by a comparison with the Florentine manuscript. On
the other hand, the codicological observations and analyzes carried out
by the author show a progression of knowledge in Rome concerning the
liturgy and oriental theology.

Название «4-я книга Эзры» 1 , или «Апокалипсис Эзры», носит в научной литературе основная часть (главы 3-14) второканонической библейской 3-й книги Ездры 2 . Согласно мнению современных исследователей, первоначально 4-я книга Эзры была написана на еврейском языке, однако не сохранился ни сам подлинник, ни цитаты из него 3 . Все имеющиеся переводы книги восходят к ее греческой версии, которая являлась, в свою очередь, переводом с еврейского оригинала. Греческая версия также не сохранилась, однако в сочинениях церковных авторов (Апостольские постановления, Послание Варнавы, «Строматы» Климента Александрийского) присутствуют цитаты из нее 4 .

"Vetus Syra: Historicity and Reception Model of the Gospels" - PhD Thesis
Author: Etienne Méténier, Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies, Théologie, Université Saint-Esprit de Kaslik
Supervisor: Ayoub Chahwan

Cet ouvrage est issu d'une thèse de doctorat en théologie soutenue en 2016 par le p. Etienne Méténier, sous la direction du p. Ayoub Chahwan, en codirection entre la Faculté Pontificale de Théologie de l'Universite Saint-Esprit de Kaslik et l' Ecole Biblique et Archéologique Française.

This study is the first monography on the four Old Syriac Gospels, according to their various sources. Its substance is a complete, annotated interlinear translation (volume 2), that aims to make this antique but still poorly propagated textual tradition as accessible as possible, and to compare its main manuscript versions with each other and with the Standard Greek text (NA28), raising more than 1 500 variants in the broad sense.
After a detailed analysis of the literary, historical and geographical background of the Vetus Syra, the research focuses on its principal internal elements, making it possible to narrow down the estimation of the redaction and fixation date to the beginning of the broad time frame put forward previously. Among the noteworthy contributions of this thesis are the comparisons between hellenisms and aramaisms in the Gospels, records of archaisms and Western-Jewish Aramaic features, and its synthetic statistical study of correlations and non-correlations of language characteristics between Greek and Syriac in each Gospel, indicating a textual collation at an early stage, before the existence of complete codices, and thus shedding light on the complex and still largely unknown formation process of the Gospels.
Next, specific features of the text compared to the Standard Greek are identified (eg respect for Nomina sacra, non-abstract language, Jewish customs), testifying to the historical and, in particular, the Semitic reality of the Incarnation.
The thesis then broadens the perspectives of the Vetus Syra teaching to fundamental theology, pointing to the urgency of taking into account the Semitic dimension of the Gospels: the general agreement of its text with the other major traditions of transmission, strongly supports the historicity of the Gospels, and its scriptural fidelity gives a basis for reliable translation and hermeneutic theories. Finally, it invites a reception of the Scriptures that is neither idolatrous nor profane, while respecting their sacredness, and a renewed polyphonic mode of reading the sacred text.
Résumé Cette étude est la première monographie sur les quatre Evangiles syriaques anciens, d'après leurs diverses sources. Sa substance est une traduction complète interlinéaire et annotée (tome 2), dans le but de rendre aussi accessible que possible cette tradition textuelle encore peu propagée, et de comparer ses principales versions manuscrites entre elles et avec le texte grec standard (NA28), en relevant plus de 1 500 variantes au sens large du terme. Après une analyse détaillée de l'arrière-plan littéraire, historique et géographique de la Vetus Syra, la recherche se concentre sur ses principaux éléments internes, et permet de restreindre l'estimation de la date de rédaction et de fixation au début de la période large avancée jusque-là. Parmi les contributions notables de cette thèse: les comparaisons entre hellénismes et aramaïsmes dans les Evangiles, la recension des archaïsmes et des traits judéo-araméens occidentaux, et son étude statistique synthétique des corrélations et non-corrélations de langage entre grec et syriaque par évangile, ce qui indique un rassemblement du texte à une période précoce, avant l'existence de codices complets, et donne un éclairage sur le processus complexe et encore largement méconnu de formation des Evangiles. Puis, les leçons spécifiques du texte par rapport au grec standard sont recensées (par exemple le respect des Nomina sacra, le langage non abstrait, les coutumes juives), témoignant de la réalité historique et en particulier sémitique de l'Incarnation. La thèse élargit ensuite les perspectives de l'enseignement de la Vetus Syra à la théologie fondamentale, invitant à l'urgence d'une prise en compte de la dimension sémitique des Evangiles: la convergence générale de son texte avec les autres grandes traditions de transmission soutient fortement l'historicité des évangiles, et sa fidélité scripturaire donne les bases d'une théorie de la traduction et d'une théorie de l'herméneutique. Elle invite finalement à un accueil ni idolâtre ni profane des Ecritures, dans le respect de sa sacralité propre, et à un mode de lecture polyphonique renouvelé du texte sacré.

Works concerning astrology and divination comprise one of the least studied Syriac literary genres. The most common of these is that simply titled Spar-Sammané (Book of Medicines). It is a work which arouses strong feelings of mystery in most Assyrians today, with a great number of original manuscripts jealously guarded by their owners from inquisitive eyes. The Spar-Sammané exists in many different recensions and versions, with most manuscripts originating from northern Iraq and southeast Turkey  – largely within an East Syriac milieu. At the present time, an uncritical edition of only one manuscript has ever been published and translated into English – by Sir E.A. Wallis Budge in 1913. The translation of another version into Neo-Aramaic was published in Chicago during the 1990s. Between September and December 2009 this writer has, for the first time, managed to document and digitise eight versions of this book in Classical Syriac and Neo-Aramaic, still kept in private collections which he was given access to in Dohuk (Iraq) and villages of the Khabur region (Syria). The aim of this paper will be to provide an introduction on Syriac literature concerning astrology and divination, an overview of the different versions known to exist in both manuscript and print form, and will briefly touch on some of what is contained in different versions of the Spar-Sammané.