Journal of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory.

A new English translation of the two apologetic works by the 9th-century East Syrian theologian ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī. The Book of the Proof and The Book of Questions and Answers were written to defend Christian beliefs in the face of Muslim criticism.

How many lives can one man save? Never enough, Horton realized. As his ship backed away from Smyrna’s wharf, he could better see the helpless, teeming crowd on the waterfront trapped between the sea and a raging inferno. He was not consoled by rescuing his shipload of refugees, nor by the many other Christian, Jewish, and Muslim lives he had saved during his service as American consul. His focus was on the people before him threatened with fire, rape, and massacre. Their persecution, he later said, made him ashamed he “belonged to the human race.” Helping them would not be easy, however. His superiors were blocking humanitarian aid and covering up atrocities with fake news and disinformation to win Turkish approval for American access to oil. When Horton decried their duplicity and hard-heartedness, they conspired to destroy his reputation. Undaunted, Horton pursued his cause until it went to the President and then Congress for decisions that would set the course for America’s emergence as a world power. At stake was the outcome of WWI, the stability and liberality of the Middle East, and the likelihood of more genocide.

Ishoʿdad of Merv’s (fl. 850 AD) Commentary on Daniel provides an important witness to East Syriac exegetical technique. In it Ishoʿdad typically emphasizes an historical reading of the Old Testament above any kind of allegorical, spiritual, or even Christological interpretation. Most notable is Ishoʿdad’s belief that the Maccabees fulfilled several of the visions described in the book of Daniel, even including the Heavenly Kingdom of Daniel chapters 2, 7, and 8, and the physical resurrection of Daniel 12. These interpretations dramatically depart from most eastern and western commentators who considered Daniel’s visions to portend the rise of the Roman Empire and the advent of Christ. Ishoʿdad’s commentary is translated here into English for the first time.