You have no items in your shopping cart.
Close
Search
Filters

Contributors

A Team of Experts

The Antioch Bible is produced by an international, inter-faith team of specialists, including linguists, historians, Biblical scholars, and experts on rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity.

Each contributor brings a unique perspective to his or her volume that makes it interesting as well as useful; the translator of Leviticus, James Moore, explains the connection between the Peshitta and the Dead Sea Scrolls, while the translator of John, Jeff Childers, uses his knowledge of Syriac interpretation to describe how early Middle Eastern Christians interpreted many of the same passages which are still beloved today. The short bios below will give you an idea of what skills the contributors possess and how they have made their volumes more than a translation.

Contributor

Dayroyo Joseph Bali (Ph.D candidate, Philosophy, University of Athens) completed his academic studies in the field of philosophy and then joined St. Ephrem Seminary, Damascus, in 2007. A year later, he became a monk and in 2011 he was ordained as a priest. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy in the University of Athens working on the influence of Greek Philosophy on the works of Bar Hebraeus. He is fluent in Syriac, Arabic, French, English and Greek. His areas of competence include Medieval Philosophy, Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Syriac History, Literature and Grammar. His future aspirations are to publish English translations of the works of the Syriac Church Fathers and scholars, especially Bar Hebraeus. Dayroyo Bali is preparing the initial draft of the Syriac text of many Old Testament books.

Sebastian Brock, Emeritus Reader in Syriac Studies, Oxford University, and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. Author of a number of contributions in the area of Syriac studie, including: The Luminous Eye: the Spiritual World Vision of St Ephrem, Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise, Singer of the Word of God: Ephrem the Syrian and his Significance in Late Antiquity, Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian): The 'Second Part', ch. IV-XLI. The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, A Brief Outline of Syriac Literature, The Stanzaic Poems of Jacob of Serugh, Treasurehouse of Mysteries: Explorations of the Sacred Text through Poetry in the Syriac Tradition;  (with Susan Harvey) Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, (with George Kiraz) Ephrem the Syrian, Select Poems.   Main editor and author of The Hidden Pearl: The Syrian Orthodox Church and its Ancient Aramaic Heritage, I-III.

Jeff W. Childers (Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Graduate School of Theology, Abilene Christian University). Jeff received the D.Phil. in Syriac Studies at the University of Oxford in 1996 for his research on Syriac translations of Greek Patristic literature. His primary areas of research and writing include the biblical text, New Testament textual criticism, and Syriac Patristics. Jeff recent publications include, Divining Gospel: Oracles of Interpretation in a Syriac Manuscript of John (Manuscripta Biblica 4; de Gruyter), the study of a unique late antique Syriac Gospel manuscript; and Mark the Deacon: Life of Porphyry of Gaza (Translated Texts for Historians 89; Liverpool University Press).

Edward M. Cook received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1986 under Prof. Stanislav Segert. He is currently Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at the Catholic University of America. He has been a Research Scholar with the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, and is currently Associate Editor of the Lexicon.  He is the author of “A Glossary of Targum Onkelos” (2008) and co-author of “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation” (rev. ed., 2005). Prof. Cook is translating Numbers.

Philip Michael Forness received his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher in late antique Christianity in the Near East at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. The two focal points of his research are the consequences of theological debates on ordinary people and cultural exchanges through the transmission of early Christian texts among Middle Eastern Christian communities. His research projects encompass several interrelated subjects and methodologies, including book culture and manuscript studies, the transmission of ideas across linguistic boundaries, and the relationship between doctrine and religious practices. He also holds a particular interest in the reception of the bible and recently published an article on the reading communities for the earliest complete Old Testament manuscript in Syriac. He is translating 1-4 Maccabees.

Anthony Gelston (Emeritus Reader in Theology, University of Durham) received his D.D. at Oxford. He edited the Twelve Minor Prophets for the Peshitta Institute's critical edition of the Syriac Old Testament, and since his retirement has edited the same text for the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, the latter with considerable help from Carmel McCarthy in the final stages of preparation for publication. He also wrote a monograph on 'The Peshitta of the Twelve Prophets' (Oxford, 1987), and has published a number of articles on the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Dr Gelston is English Translation Editor for Deuteronomy.

Robert Gordon (Emeritus Regius Professor of Hebrew, University of Cambridge) studied Hebrew and Aramaic at the University of Cambridge, writing his PhD thesis on Targum Jonathan to the Minor Prophets. He taught Hebrew and Old Testament at Glasgow University, and then at Cambridge. His main research interests include the major versions of the Old Testament, and he edited 1 and 2 Chronicles for the Leiden Peshitta project (publ. 2000). He is also the author of Studies in the Targum to the Twelve Prophets: From Nahum to Malachi (Leiden, 1994). Robert is also translating 1 and 2 Chronicles for the Antioch Bible.

Gillian Greenberg started her career in medicine. After retirement from medicine, she studied languages, particularly those in the Semitic group. She joined the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies in University College London, where she did her PhD on translation technique in the Peshitta under Michael Weitzman. She teaches Syriac there. Together with Donald Walter, she is producing a number of translations from the Old Testament including Isaiah, the Twelve Prophets, Jeremiah, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

Charles G. Häberl is a Professor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick, and President of the International Linguistic Association. He is a scholar of Aramaic and of the Aramaic-speaking religious communities of the Middle East, including and especially the Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, as well as the Christians of Mardin province in southern Turkey and the Qalamoun mountains in Syria. After completing his AB at Brown University in 1998 and his AM and PhD at Harvard University in 2006, he joined the faculty at Rutgers and has served as the Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and as Chair of the department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures. In 2016, he received the Anna-Maria Kellen Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin and in 2022 the Willis F. Doney Fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has authored or co-edited five books, including The Book of Kings and the Explanations of this World and (with James F. McGrath) The Mandaean Book of John, and numerous articles.

Aimee Hannoush is a PhD student in History at Princeton University. She is interested in all periods and genres of Syriac history and literature, but with a special focus on the late antique period and liturgy. She has worked on various projects for Beth Mardutho and smaller revision tasks for the Antioch Bible.

John Healey is Professor of Semitic Studies in the University of Manchester, a Fellow of the British Academy and co-editor of Journal of Semitic Studies. His research interests include history of the alphabet, Ugaritic literature, the Hebrew Bible and especially Aramaic epigraphy (Nabataean,  Palmyrene and Syriac). Major publications include: Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period (2009); Leshono Suryoyo: First Studies in Syriac (2005); The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus (2001); The Old Syriac Inscriptions of Edessa and Osrhoene (1999); The Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions of Mada’in Salih (1993). He also translated the Book of Proverbs for The Aramaic Bible project (1991). Prof. Healey is translating Ezra and Nehemiah.

Andreas Juckel is Research Associate at the Oriental Department of the Institute for New Testament Textual Research (Muenster, Germany). He studied Protestant Theology, Semitics and Oriental Christianity at Bonn University (Germany). He edited (based on his Ph.D. dissertation) the first part of the “Book of Instruction” (Ktobo d-Durrosho), a didactic poetry of the 10th-century Bishop Eliyah of Anbar (CSCO 559/560). His special area of research is the textual criticism of the Syriac NT versions, their revisional development, and their relation to the Greek.  He is currently editing the Peshitta Gospels (a remake of the Pusey-Gwilliam-volume published in 1901), and the Harklean Gospels in team-work with several volunteers. His critical edition of the Corpus Paulinum in the Peshitta version will be published by Gorgias Press at the beginning of 2013. He is co-editor of the Antioch Bible.

Daniel King (Senior Translation Consultant, SIL International; Associate Research Fellow in Syriac Studies and Semitic Languages at Cardiff University) studied classical languages at Cambridge before moving into the fields of Syriac studies and theology. He specializes in late ancient theology and philosophy. He has published many articles on the Syriac philosophical tradition and on Syriac Bible translations. Works include The Syriac World (Routledge, 2019) and The Earliest Syriac version of Aristotle’s Categories (Leiden, 2010), as well as contributing translations of the Pauline Epistles, Hebrews, and James in the Antioch Bible.

George A. Kiraz is the founder and director of Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute, the Editor-in-Chief of Gorgias Press, and a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He earned an M.St. degree in Syriac Studies from the University of Oxford (1991) and an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge (1992, 1996). He has published extensively in the fields of computational linguistics, Syriac studies, and the digital humanities. Some of his latest books include The Syriac Orthodox in North America (1895–1995): A Short History (2019) and Syriac-English New Testament (2020), Water the Willow Tree (2022),New Syriac Primer (4th edition 2024), Algorithmic Musings in Syriac (2024).

George is an ordained Deacon of the rank of Ewangeloyo (Gospler) in the Syriac Orthodox Church where he also serves on several Patriarchal, Synodal, and local committees.
 
 Dr. Kiraz prepares the Syriac text for the Antioch Bible and together with Andreas Juckel  edits the series.

Robert Kitchen is the Minister of Knox-Metropolitan United Church, Regina, Saskatchewan. His interest lies in early Syriac ascetical and monastic literature, having translated The Book of Steps (with Martien Parmentier) (Cistercian, 2004) and The Discourses of Philoxenos of Mabbug, also for Cistercian (2014). With Kristian S. Heal he has co-edited Breaking the Mind: New Essays in the Syriac Book of Steps (Catholic University of America Press, 2013). He is translating Acts.

Tarsee Li received his Ph.D. from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Semitic Linguistics in the School of Theology at Oakwood University. His research interests focus on Hebrew, Aramaic, and other Northwest Semitic languages, and he has written various book chapters, journal articles, and monographs, including The Verbal System of the Aramaic of Daniel: An Explanation in the Context of Grammaticalization (2009) and Greek Indicative Verbs in the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Gospels: Translation Technique and the Aramaic Verbal System (2013).

Jonathan A. Loopstra (Professor, History Department at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ontario) teaches Patristics and the history of the Middle East and Mediterranean in Late Antiquity.  Through his teaching and research, Jonathan endeavors to shed light on the history, theology, and languages of various Christian communities in the Near East. Dr. Loopstra received a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, a Masters of Studies (Mst) in Syriac from Oxford University, and a Masters of Arts from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago. Dr. Loopstra translated the Book of Job.

Jerome A. Lund (Retired and living in Norway) studied Christian theology including New Testament textual criticism and Syriac in the USA (M. Div., Los Angeles Baptist Theological Seminary) and Semitic philology in Israel (M.A., Ph.D., Hebrew University of Jerusalem). He has published articles on various Aramaic dialects including Syriac and on Hebrew and the Masorah in peer reviewed journals and written a number of encyclopedic type articles. He has also authored and co-authored several books including Aramaic Documents from Egypt, A Key-Word-in-Context Concordance (Eisenbrauns, 2002) and The Old Syriac Gospel of the Distinct Evangelists – A Key-Word-in-Context Concordance (Gorgias Press, 2004). Dr. Lund translated Revelation.

Patrick J. Madden received his B.A. in philosophy from St. Joseph Seminary College, Covington, LA, 1970; M.Div., St. Meinrad Seminary, Indiana, 1974; M.A., Liturgy, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, 1979; M.A., Latin, University of Michigan, 1988; Ph.D., Biblical Studies, Catholic University of America, 1995. There specialized in New Testament and took most of his electives in Semitic languages, Hebrew and various Aramaic dialects including Syriac. In 2019 he continued Syriac studies at Beth Mardutho,  and thus became involved in the AB project. His life has been a mixture of academic and pastoral work.  He is currently a retired Catholic priest of the Diocese of Shreveport, LA.

Carmel McCarthy is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA), having taught Hebrew and Syriac in the Department of Near Eastern Languages at University College Dublin since 1968. It was at this same university that she received her initial degrees of BA and MA in Near Eastern Languages in 1966 and 1968 respectively, in both cases attaining first class honours. Prof. McCarthy is translating Deuteronomy.

Mark R. Meyer (B.S.E.E., North Carolina State University; M.S.E.E., The John Hopkins University; M.Div., Capital Bible Seminary; M.A., Ph.D., The Catholic University of America) is Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis at Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, Maryland, where he has been teaching since 1993. He is conversant in the Semitic languages and has taught nearly all of them throughout his tenure at the seminary. Meyer has recently written a book, A Comparative Dialectical Study of Genitive Constructions in Aramaic Translations of Exodus (Gorgias Press, 2012). Prof. Meyer is translating Exodus.

James D. Moore (Ph.D candidate in Bible and Near Eastern Studies, Brandeis University) His primary research interests are in ancient Near Eastern scribal culture and the development of religious texts. He teaches writing seminar courses at Brandeis University on ancient scribal culture and on ancient myth and legend in modern cinema. He has published on the sacrificial system found in the Hebrew and Syriac versions of Leviticus, and he has contributed to Oxford Biblical Studies Online and The Routledge Dictionary of Ancient Mediterranean Religions among other publications. James is translating Leviticus.

Craig E. Morrison (Associate Professor in Syriac and Aramaic, Pontifical Biblical Institute) received his S.S.D. from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in 2001. He is the author of The Character of the Syriac Version of The First Book of Samuel (Brill 2001) and co-edited with Richard Taylor Reflections on Lexicography: Explorations in Ancient Syriac, Hebrew, and Greek Sources. (Gorgias Press, 2014). Dr. Morrison is translating Genesis.

Robert Owens (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins) is Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at The General Theological Seminary in New York.  He has published a number of studies relating to the ancient Syriac Bible, including The Genesis and Exodus Citations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage (Brill, 1983), and has contributed Syriac materials to the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon.  He is currently preparing Numbers for the Bible of Edessa project of the Peshitta Institute. He is a member of the International Syriac Language Project.  He is translating Proverbs, Qoheleth, and Song of Songs.

James Prather is an instructor of computer science at Abilene Christian University (Abilene, Texas). He also holds a Master of Divinity and is working to complete a Master of Arts in Hebrew Bible. His primary areas of research include Human-Computer Interaction, Ethiopic 3 Reigns, and the War Scroll (1QM). Together with Jeff Childers, he is translating the Gospel of John.

Morgan Reed is a M.A./PhD student at the Catholic University of America. He received a B.A. in Pastoral Studies from Moody Bible Institute and continued graduate coursework at Dallas Theological Seminary in Hebrew Bible, Greek, Syriac and textual criticism. His research focuses on the reception of the Hebrew Bible into the Syriac tradition. Morgan collates the text of Mosul against the Leiden edition.

Seth M. Stadel (D. Phil. 2022, University of Oxford) is a Research Associate on the ERC-funded project, “Domestic Slavery and Sexual Exploitation in the Households of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East, from Constantine to c. AD 900 / AH 287.” His research focuses on Eastern Christian biblical interpretation, the intertwined histories of Syriac Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Islam, slavery in the medieval world, and pre-modern legal literature.  

Hannah Stork is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University. Her dissertation focuses on the emergence of the Syriac grammatical tradition in late antiquity and the early Islamic period. She has taught summer Syriac at Beth Mardutho for a number of years and serves on the Antioch Bible English Translation Review Committee. She will also be translating the book of Wisdom.

Jack Tannous (Associate Professor of History and Hellenic Studies, Princeton University) studies the late antique and medieval Middle East and is interested in all periods of Syriac and Christian Arabic literature and history.

Richard A. Taylor (Senior Research Professor of Old Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary) holds a PhD in Semitic languages and literatures from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. His research interests include the Hebrew Bible and its ancient versions, especially the Peshitta. His doctoral dissertation was a text-critical analysis of the Syriac version of the book of Daniel, a revised form of which appeared in the Brill series entitled Monographs of the Peshitta Institute, Leiden. Dr. Taylor has translated Psalms and is on the Translation Oversight Committee.

Eric Tully (Assistant Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is interested in linguistic approaches to Biblical Hebrew, textual criticism, and the latter prophets in the Hebrew Bible. His book The Character of the Peshitta Version of Hosea is forthcoming from Brill. Dr. Tully is translating Ruth.

Donald M. Walter (Professor Emeritus, Philosophy and Religion, Davis and Elkins College) completed his doctoral dissertation under Charles T. Fritsch, James Barr, and Philip C. Hammond, and became the editor of Psalms and later Jeremiah for the Peshitta Institute’s critical edition of the Old Testament. He has served as an editor of the first volume of the Concordance to the Torah also issued by the Institute, and his major works include Studies in the Peshitta of Kings (Gorgias Press, 2009). With Gillian Greenberg, Dr. Walter is producing a number of translations from the Old Testament including Isaiah, the Twelve Prophets, Jeremiah, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

James Walters (Rochester Christian University). His primary interests are: Syriac literature of the 4th century (Aphrahat and Ephrem), the reception and transmission of biblical and apocryphal texts in Syriac, and the history of Christianity in the middle east in late antiquity. Walters has translated a number of volumes in the Antioch Bible series.