Arabic childhood gospel

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The Arabic childhood gospel is an apocryphal New Testament gospel . It was probably written in Syriac in the 6th century. The work is available in various manuscripts in Arabic and Syrian, which are dated very late. Most of the manuscripts date from the 16th and 17th centuries. The oldest manuscript of the Arabic childhood gospel dates from 1299 and was written in Arabic in Mardin . Today's Turkish Kurdistan and Northern Iraq are commonly assumed to be the origin of the manuscripts. Gerhard Schneider and Massimo Bernabo also state that the manuscripts are characterized by influences from the Koran.

The Arabic Gospel of Childhood can be divided into three parts: The birth of Jesus, miracles in Egypt and miracles of the boy Jesus. The first part about the birth of Jesus is strongly reminiscent of the Proto-Gospel of James , which is likely to have formed the basis for this. Much of the childhood stories, however, probably originated in the childhood gospel according to Thomas and apparently even became known to Mohammed through translation into Arabic . Some of this - more precisely, the wonderful virgin conception and birth  - can be found in the Koran. However, since the oldest Bible in Arabic, the Mt. Sinai Codex 151, dates from the end of the 9th century, modern science notes that there was no definite evidence of an Arabic Bible in written form prior to the emergence of Islam.

The central theme of the Arab childhood gospel is the sojourn in Egypt, which is mentioned in Mt 2,13 ff, but then no longer mentioned.

The central figures are the miraculous child Jesus and his mother Mary, who acts as a mediator, especially in the middle part, during the stay in Egypt.

In more recent research, Tony Burke raised the possibility that there may never have been an Arabic or Syrian childhood gospel in the 6th century.

literature

  • Text edition (Latin-German) in: Apokryphe Kindheitsevangelien, trans. and a. by Gerhard Schneider, Fontes Christiani 18, Freiburg 1995, 173–195.
  • Massimo Bernabò - Sara Fani - Margherita Farina - Ida G. Rao: Le miniature del Vangelo [dell'infancia] arabo della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana di Firenze, codice Orientali 387 (Mardin, 1299 dC) . In. Orientalia Christiana Periodica 83 (2017) 293-447.

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tony Burke: Arabic Infancy Gospel, 3.1. Manuscripts and Editions. June 2017, accessed in 2019 .
  2. ↑ Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodl. Or. 350, fols. 1r – 34r (Date: perhaps 15th / 16th cent.) .
  3. ^ Cairo, Coptic Museum, 6421 (I) (Macomber CMB 8-5I), fols. 96r – 97v (15th / 16th cent.) .
  4. ^ Cairo, Coptic Patriarchate, Count 457, fols. 152v – 172r (17th / 18th cent.) .
  5. ↑ Hamburg, State and University Library, Cod. Orient. 21, fols. 1v-26r (1650) .
  6. ↑ Vatican, Biblioteca apostolica, syr. 159, fol. 98v-104r (1622/1623) .
  7. ↑ Le miniature del Vangelo arabo della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana di Firenze, codice Orientali 387 (Mardin, 1299 dC), Orientalia Christiana Periodica 83/2, 2017, pp. 300 . "L'indicazione cronologica del colofone, che data dalla morte di Alessan-dro, è normal per la cronologia in Siria; il “14 febbraio dell'anno 1610 di Alessandro” corrisponde all'anno 1299 dC “
  8. ↑ Evangelia infantiae apokrypha - Apokryphe Kindheitsevangelien, translated and introduced by Gerhard Schneider, in: Fontes christiani, Vol. 18, Freiburg, 1995. [Schneider], s. 52-53 .
  9. ↑ Evangelia infantiae apokrypha - Apokryphe Kindheitsevangelien, translated and introduced by Gerhard Schneider, in: Fontes christiani, Vol. 18, Freiburg, 1995. [Schneider], s. 53ff .
  10. ↑ Massimo Bernabo: Le miniature del Vangelo arabo della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana di Firenze, codice Orientali 387 (Mardin, 1299 dC), Orientalia Christiana Periodica 83/2 . S. 300 : "The verso page of the last chapter (f. 48v) [...] begins with the Islamic Basmala formula [...]: in the name of God (org. Allah), the Most Merciful (Ar-Rahman), the Most Gracious (Ar-Rahim) "/ Sul verso dell'ultima pagina (f. 48v), staccato a sé dopo la conclusionedel racconto, la stessa persona che ha scritto le didascalie nelle miniature, che non è quella che ha scritto il testo del codice ha inserito un trisagio, cioè un inno di lode a Dio ripetuto tre volte, il quale inizia con la basmala: (“Nel nome di Dio, il Clemente, il Misericordioso”)
  11. ↑ Bassam Michael Madany: Review of the Arabic text of MT. SINAI ARABIC CODEX 151 . "The Sinai Arabic Codex 151 was indeed a most exciting discovery. It appears to be the oldest Arabic translation of the New Testament in existence. "
  12. ^ Sidney H Griffith, "The Gospel In Arabic: An Inquiry Into Its Appearance In The First Abbasid Century", Oriens Christianus, Volume 69, p. 166 . "All one can say about the possibility of a pre-Islamic, Christian version of the Gospel in Arabic is that no sure sign of it's actual existence has yet emerged. / All that can be said about the possibility of a pre-Islamic, Christian version of the Bible in Arabic is that no reliable evidence of its existence has emerged ”
  13. ↑ Tony Burke: “'Arabic' Infancy Gospel No More”. 2017, accessed in 2019 : “What if, instead, Arab. Gos. Inf. Is an extraction from Hist. Vir.? If so, there never was a Syriac infancy gospel. There are other problems also, not the least of which is that Hist. Vir.'s parallels to the Protevangelium of James are far more expansive than those in Arab. Gos. Inf. Does this mean that Hist. Vir. expanded the original infancy gospel with further material from Prot. Jas., or that Arab. Gos. Inf. Reduced it? And what do we call the text? Arab. Gos. Inf. Has become the standard title, but it is misleading and has contributed to the neglect of the Syriac text. If we call it Gospel of the Infancy, do we risk it being accidentally overlooked by subsequent scholars and bibliographers? "