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[German Version] This Christian composition of apocalyptic and apologetic/polemics character, of which Syriac and Arabic versions exist, originates from the 1st half of the 9th century. The text was originally written in Syriac, probably in the area of western Syria. It begins with the account of an apocalyptic vision which is attributed to a certain Baḥīrā, a…

[German Version] was born in Baṣra in Iraq. Little is known of his life. He was a member of the eastern church (Nestorians; Syria). In the third decade of the 9th century, he wrote two apologies of Christianity in Arabic: the Book of Questions and Answers, and the Book of Evidence. His works attracted the attention of Islamic scholars. At least one of them, Abū l-Hūdail al-ʿAllāf (died 840), wrote a refutation of ʿAmmār al-Baṣrī's doctrinal beliefs. Sydney H. Griffith Bibliography M. Hayek, Ammar al-Basri, apologie et controverses, 1986 B. Landron, Chrétiens et musulmans en Irak: …

[German Version] Christian Literature in Arabic first appeared in the 8th century in Palestine (in the environs of Jerusalem and the monastic communities of the Judean desert), where the scriptures were first translated into Arabic for liturgical use, along with patristic and monastic texts originally composed in Greek and Syriac. The oldest known original work of Christian theology in Arabic also appeared in this Melk milieu, the now anonymous treatise, written c. 755 ce, and entitled by its first modern editor On the Triune Nature of God. There is no reliable documentary eviden…

[German Version] Christian document with apologetic and polemic content composed in the 1st half of the 9th century in the Arabic language. The author, called al-Kindī in the text, was, in all likelihood, a Nestorian (Syria). In the original version, the text is accompanied by a letter that supposedly stemmed from a Muslim by the name of al-Hāšimī that recommended Islam, rejected Christian faith, and cited the Apology of Kindī. An introduction described the theater of this exchange of ideas as the court of Caliph al-Maʾmūn …

[German Version] Ḥabīb ibn Ḫidma (died after 828), often called at-Takrītī on account of his association with the Mesopotamian city of Takrit. He was active in the first half of the 9th century as a scholar and teacher of the Syrian Orthodox Church (Jacobites, Syria). Many modern scholars believe he may even have been a bishop. Abū …

[German Version] (777, Merv - 855, Baghdad), philosopher and physician. Following a lifetime in the Church of the East (Nestorians, Syria), after the age of seventy he converted to Islam at the behest of the caliph al-Mutawakkil. Thereupon he composed a refutation of Christianity in Arabic. Modern editors ascribe to Ali The Book of Religion and Empire, which refers to this refutation and argues that the Bible foretells the coming of Muḥammad. Although some scholars dispute this attribution, text…

[German Version] I. Translations into Ancient Languages – II. Christian Translations into European Languages since the Middle Ages– III. Translations into Non-European Languages in Modern Times I. Translations into Ancient Languages 1. Translations of the Old Testament into Greek a. The first written translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint (LXX), owes its name to the circumstance that the Letter of Aristeas refers to 72 elders who had come to Alexandria from Jerusalem in order to translate the Torah of the Jews into…