A truly useful introduction to the Syriac language is a rare find. This practical initiation to the study of this ancient language of the Christian church speaks with clarity and authority. A fruitful integration of scholarly introduction and practical application, this primer is more than a simple grammar or syntactic introduction to the language. Writing in a style designed for beginners, Kiraz avoids technical language and strives for a reader-friendly inductive approach. Readings from actual Syriac texts allow the student to experience the language first hand and the basics of the grammar of the language are ably explained. The book comes with downloadable material so that readers may listen to all reading sentences and text passages in the book.

This book is a classic in the history of the Oriental Churches, which are sometimes portrayed as heretical in general church history books, if mentioned at all. Written by a Copt, it portrays the history of the faith of these non-Chalcedonian Churches with first-hand knowledge of their traditions. The author covers Alexandrine Christianity (the Copts and the Ethiopians), the Church of Antioch (Syriac Orthodox), the “Nestorian” Church of the East, the Armenian Church, the St. Thomas Christians of South India, the Maronite Church, as well as the Vanished Churches of Carthage, Pentapolis, and Nubia.

More than one hundred years after the publication of the BFBS volume of the Peshitta NT (1920), a critical edition of the Praxapostolos is still a desideratum. This edition fills the gap for the Corpus Paulinum. It expands the collations of the Scottish scholar John Pinkerton (1882–1916) up to some 60 manuscripts, incl. 5 lectionaries and 7 ‘masoretic’ manuscripts; it is based on the (slightly modified) BFBS text, which was established by the majority vote of Pinkerton’s collated manuscripts. The present edition turns the editorial principle of ‘majority vote’ into a textual history, considering the East-West-bifurcation of textual traditions, and the development of the Textus receptus by standardization. 9 printed editions are included, among which are 6 of the Textus receptus (incl. the editio princeps of 1555), thus covering the transmission of the Corpus Paulinum from the beginnings up to the 16th century.

As part of the Gorgias Handbook Series, this book provides a political and military history of the Sasanian Empire in Late Antiquity (220s to 651 CE). The book takes the form of a narrative, which situates Sasanian Iran as a continental power between Rome and the world of the steppe nomad.