The Syriac Peshiṭta New Testament: A Reader’s Edition

Edited by Timothy A. Lee

Book 1 in Syriac Peshiṭta Readers

This is the first Syriac reader for the New Testament. It guides the reader through the Syriac New Testament Peshitta, glossing the uncommon words and parsing difficult word forms. It is designed for two groups of people. First, for students learning Syriac after a years’ worth of study this series provides the material to grow in reading ability from the primary texts. Second, this series is designed for scholars, linguists, theologians, and curious lay people looking to refresh their Syriac, or use them in preparation for their work of study, and teaching.

The book immerses the reader in the biblical texts in order to build confidence reading Classical Syriac as quickly as possible. To achieve this, all uncommon words that occur fewer than 25 times in the Syriac New Testament are glossed as footnotes. This enables the beginner or intermediate student to continue reading every passage unhindered. Therefore, this book complements traditional language grammars and is especially ideal for beginner and intermediate students learning to read Syriac. However, even advanced readers will appreciate the glossing of the occasional rare word.

Other features include:

• Maps from the New Testament period with Syriac place names
• Paradigm charts of Syriac nouns and verbs
• A glossary of all the words not glossed below the text

The base text is the Antioch Bible which includes the Peshitta for the canonical Syriac books, and later translations (probably Philoxenian) for the rest which makes this ideal for readers.