The Christian-Jewish Debate at Tomei (Thmuis), Egypt, circa 620, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Blurb

The editors provide the Arabic editio princeps of The Christian-Jewish Debate at Tomei (Thmuis), Egypt together with the first complete translation into a modern language. The English translation is on the literal side, to aid non-Arabic readers. They analyse the Greek original of the text, its survival solely in an expanded eighth-century Arabic version, and the manuscript and transmission history. They investigate authorship, provenance, and the wider Christian, Jewish, and Islamic contexts. They argue that the narrative reflects an essentially historical encounter circa 620 between the leader of the Jewish community of Thmuis and two monks from a large local monastery, ultimately leading to the baptism of 375 Jews, for which bishop Yasib required voluntary assent. They reconstruct the Jewish presence in Thmuis, known only from this source, and explore two traditions about the community's origins. They clarify the two dates assigned to the debate, the intersection of the Festival of Tabernacles with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and the extended section on the 72 traits of God. The editors show that the Jewish background of this last section favours its origin in the lost Greek text rather than as an Arabic addition. They examine the early attestation of the Year of the Martyrs in the text, trace the history of Thmuis, its bishops, its monastery, and the city's disappearance, and assess the new information about the Patriarch Benjamin's election. Finally, they explain why the text was translated so early into Arabic and how its scriptural testimonies could address Jewish as well as Muslim objections to Christianity in a period without a complete Arabic Bible.