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Despite the ubiquitous use of Greek by the Christian church of the late antique Southern Levant, many Christians in the region also-or only-spoke Aramaic. Today, this dialect: Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA), is relatively sparsely attested in the form of regional inscriptions and, particularly, in the form of vernacular translations of Greek biblical, liturgical and theological texts. These translations survive predominantly as undertexts within palimpsest manuscripts.
Codex Climaci Rescriptus (CCR) is one of the most important palimpsest manuscript sources for the recovery of CPA texts. CCR was created around the tenth century; its superior text consists of Syriac translations of two theological works by John Climacus. This tenth century manuscript was manufactured using recycled parchment from at least eleven older, obsolete manuscripts whose texts had been scraped off in preparation for reuse. Two of these eleven manuscripts form the focus of the present study. The first-CCR II-was originally a manuscript of the Pauline Epistles in CPA translation; the second-CCR XI-was originally an Apostolos manuscript (i.e., it contained the Acts of the Apostles and the Catholic Epistles).
Cutting-edge multispectral imaging technology has been brought to bear on CCR in the last decade, enabling more detailed and accurate reconstructions of its various undertexts. With the benefit of this technology, this study offers a detailed codicological introduction to each of CCR II and CCR XI, fresh editions of the undertexts themselves, as well as a commentary that begins to evaluate the ongoing significance of this manuscript for biblical and linguistic studies.
About the author
Dr Kim Phillips is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Hebrew Bible Manuscript Research, a Research Associate at the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library, and an Affiliated Lecturer in Biblical Hebrew at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. His research interests include the development and transmission of the Hebrew Bible, Jewish Biblical exegesis, and Aramaic Bible translations.
