A Jew Reads the Gospels in Syriac: Azariah de Rossi’s Critique of the Vulgate (1577)
We are deeply honoured to welcome Professor Joanna Weinberg, Professor Emerita in early modern Jewish history and Rabbinics, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford, to lead the Eastern Christianity in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group.
Abstract: In 1577, shortly before his death, the Italian Jewish scholar Azariah de’ Rossi (1511?-1577) produced a pioneering and ambitious study on the Aramaisms in the Gospels. Written in Italian for a Christian readership, de’ Rossi set out to demonstrate that passages that had apparently become corrupt or obscure in the Vulgate, particularly those containing Aramaic expressions, could be emended or clarified by means of the ancient Syriac version (i.e. the Peshitta). De’ Rossi was one of very few scholars in the West who had tried to learn Syriac. In this session, we will discuss the significance of de’ Rossi’ project and examine some examples of his learned reflections.
