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Judaism & the Jewish World: Research Projects

Early 4th-century sarcophagus
from Rome with menorah

Bible of Edessa Project

Alison Salvesen

The Peshitta Syriac translation of the Hebrew Bible was probably the work of non-rabbinic Jews in northern Mesopotamia (Osrhoene or Adiabene) in the second century CE. The Peshitta Institute in Leiden is carrying out a project to provide English translations of all the books, with notes on the relationship to the Hebrew and Greek texts of scripture, and on their reception history. The members of the editorial board of this project are: Prof. Bas ter Haar Romeny (Leiden), Dr Wido van Peursen (Leiden), Prof. Jan Joosten (Strasbourg), Dr Alison Salvesen (Oxford), and Dr Gill Greenberg (London).

European Seminar on Advanced Jewish Studies:
Greek Scripture and the Rabbis

Project Leader: Dr Alison Salvesen

Up to the present, views of Scripture in Judaism from antiquity to the rise of Islam have been shaped by the fact that rabbinic literature is written in Hebrew and Aramaic, even though many Jews in the eastern Mediterranean and their religious leaders knew only Greek. Even the recent Cambridge History of Judaism (2006) failed to include a chapter on the role of Greek language and literature. The purpose of the project will be an investigation of Jewish Greek versions of the Bible among Jewish communities of the first to sixth centuries CE, both from rabbinic sources and from internal indicators in what remains of the translations themselves

Hexapla Project

Alison Salvesen

The ‘Hexapla Project’ is collecting and publishing the fragmentary biblical texts which pertain to the Hexapla, produced by the Christian scholar Origen in the third century CE. These texts are all that remain of early revisions of an original translation (from Hebrew into Greek) of the Jewish Scriptures commonly known as the Septuagint, and represent a key witness to the thought and worldview of Judaism in Late Antiquity and also to interaction between Christians and Jews. The members of the editorial board are: Dr Peter Gentry (Louisville, Kentucky and the Septuaginta-Unternehmung, Göttingen), Dr Alison Salvesen (Oxford), and Prof. Bas ter Haar Romeny (Leiden).

For further details, see: Hexapla Project website