Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania The Book of the Himyarites The Book of the Himyarites. Fragments of a Hitherto Unknown Syriac Work by Axel Moberg Review by: James A. Montgomery The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Oct., 1928), pp. 151-152 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1451769 . Accessed: 07/12/2014 23:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. . University of Pennsylvania Press and Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Jewish Quarterly Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 7 Dec 2014 23:48:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=upenn http://www.jstor.org/stable/1451769?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp THE BOOK OF THE HIMYARITES' IN the first place this work is a fine and careful piece of palaeogra- phical restoration of fragments of an ancient manuscript, which pre- serves the scribal date as of 932. There were found in the boards binding a Syriac collection of liturgies, in private hands in Sweden, a large num- ber of mutilated leaves of an ancient MS, 58 in number, of which 49 make the contents of the present volume, all that remains of a martyr story concerning the persecutions suffered by the Christians in South Arabia. To this the author gives the name the Book of the Himyarites. The text has been prepared with great conscientiousness, along with 34 pages of notes bearing upon the readings and decipherments, and eight photographic plates as samples of the original. In addition to a translation there is an extensive introduction treating of the historical problems raised by the manuscript. Its subject matter is the martyrdom of the Christians in Nejran in the Himyarite land at the hands of the Jews, headed by their king Masrfiq, and the sequel, how the Christian Abyssinian king Kaleb came to their rescue and destroyed the Jewish dominion. It is a new document concerning the well-known Christian and Muslim tradition about the Christians of Nejran, which is partic- ularly known from the Martyrium S. Arethi (in several versions) and the Syriac Letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham, both of which have received extensive critical treatment by Noldeke, Halevy, and others. The author discusses most judiciously the authenticity of this document and its relations with those others. He is able to prove that the abundant data in the way of historical facts and especially of the good South Arabic names of persons and places, as also the whole color of the story, indicate a product of first rate historical importance, composed, as he sums up p. Ixviii, "shortly after the second Abyssinian expedition, i. e. shortly after A. D. 525, based mainly on oral records delivered, partly even before that expedition, by persons-whom the author considered trustworthy-who came from Yaman and proclaimed themselves to 'Skrifter utgivna av Kungl. Humanistiska Vetanskapssamfundet i Lund. VII. (Acta Reg. Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis. VII.) The Book of the Himyarites. Fragments of a Hitherto Unknown Syriac Work. Edited, with Introduction and Translation, by AXEL MOBERG. With eight Facsimiles. Lund. C. W. K. GLEERUP (also Lon- don, Oxford, Paris, Leipzig). 1924. Pp. clxxii+61. 151 This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 7 Dec 2014 23:48:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp 152 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW have been eyewitnesses of the events they recounted." The Letter of Simeon he also holds to be a contemporary document, hastily written and not so well informed as the present history, while the Martyrdom of Aretas is quite secondary, being based on our story or its recensions. With these results approved, we have now an almost firsthand document bearing upon South Arabian Christianity, unique except for the few Christian expressions in some of the South Arabic inscriptions left by the Abyssinian invaders. It is a welcome addition to a field for which our information from Arabic, Syriac and Byzantine sources is extensive but most fragmentary, and one which in the present development of Arabian studies is attracting much renewed attention; we may note Aigrain's massive article on Christian Arabia in the Dict. de I'histoire et de la geographie ecclesiastiques, 3, col. 1158-1339, and Cheikho's Arabic work Christianity and Christian Literature, Beyrouth, 1912-23, as also the renewed examinations into the contributions of Christianity to Islam in such recent books as those by Andrae, Archer and Bell. Also for the philologist the large number of names is a valuable addition to the South Arabian nomenclature; all these the author has carefully analyzed and compared with our epigraphical and literary sources. On p. lxxvi he discusses whether the element 'ildh can be South Arabic; but the word does occur in that dialect, e. g. in CIS iv, 149, 11.4,7, nnK1H "her god." and ib, 74, 11.1, 17, the proper name n-yDo. Also the epithet used by the Jewish king, p. cvii, "the Merciful One," tmnn is good South Arabian, and it was from native quarters that Muhammad obtained his standing phrase "the Merciful and Compassionate." One reference is of interest to Jewish scholars; the Jewish king sends to the beleaguered Christians with demand for their surrender a deputa- tion including "Jewish priests who were come from Tiberias" (p. cv). Altogether this fascinating production whets our hopes for more such finds, hidden where they may be, in Genizahs or book bindings. THE GREAT BOOK OF THE MANDAEANS2 A scholar who attended the last German Bible Congress reported to the reviewer that it stood under the ban of the Manichaean-Mandaic discussion. The discoveries in the Far East have vastly increased our 2Quellen der Religionsgeschichte, Band 13, Gruppe 4. Ginza, Der Schatz, oder das Grosse Buch der Mandder. Ubersetzt und erklart von MARK LIDZBARSKI. G6ttingen; VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT, Leipzig; J. C. HINRICHS'sche BUCHHANDLUNG. 1925. Pp. xvii+619. This content downloaded from 128.235.251.160 on Sun, 7 Dec 2014 23:48:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Article Contents p. 151 p. 152 Issue Table of Contents The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Oct., 1928), pp. 97-209 An Old Portuguese Work on Manuscript Illumination [pp. 97-135] Two Autograph Letters from a MS in the British Museum (Or. 9166) [pp. 137-143] The Tombstone of Moses Ibn Abi Zardil (d. 1354) [pp. 145-150] Critical Notices Review: The Book of the Himyarites [pp. 151-152] Review: The Great Book of the Mandaeans [pp. 152-154] Review: Palestinian Customs [pp. 154-155] Review: The Wilderness of Sinai [pp. 155-156] Review: The Relation of the Bible Translations of the Jews in Romance Languages to the Ancient Versions and the Jewish Inscriptions in the Catacombs [pp. 157-182] Review: Comparative Semitic Grammar [pp. 183-196] Books Received [pp. 197-209]