Language of Jesus

Half of this week's 98 DigitaVaticana digitizations are books in various forms of Aramaic, famously the language spoken by Jesus. In scholarship and librarianship, old manuscripts in Aramaic are described as "Syriac," whereby as far as I know no especial connection to Syria or to a particular Syriac-liturgy church is intended. It's simply from the classical Latin word for Aramaic.

Aramaic was once spoken over vast swatches of the Middle East, has many dialects and has left "Syriac" liturgical and literary texts which are so antiquated as to be unintelligible to most of the dwindling number of speakers of modern colloquial Aramaic.

The latest round of digitizations (which began June 20 and was completed June 22) brings the posted total to 4,708 manuscripts. The count on the new front page of the portal is currently just 4,595. Actual availability is somewhere between those two numbers. About a third of the following list was triggering "Client Error" when I put up this post, but this can only get better.

You will notice that I am now doing extra work for you, dear reader, processing the links so that the first link leads directly to the manuscript front page while the "Details" link leads to a catalog page.

Obtaining permalinks to specific manuscript page remains a major headache, as one now has to guess them. The method involves noting the folio number, doubling it, adding 6 and converting it to a three-digit format, then writing it on the end of the URL, testing it, correcting it, etc. No fun.

[Late add: Digi has just added a JPEG download button which you can now creatively mis-use to discover the permalink with less effort. On a page you want to refer to, press the JPEG icon, then hover over the "Download" button and you will see the page number in the browser's status bar.]

1. Borg.ar.129, Details,
2. Borg.ebr.3, Details,
3. Borg.ebr.4, Details,
4. Borg.ebr.10, Details,
5. Borg.ebr.12, Details,
6. Borg.ebr.13, Details,
7. Borg.ebr.20, Details,
8. Borg.sir.28, Details,
9. Borg.sir.67, Details,
10. Borg.sir.74, Details,
11. Borg.sir.93, Details,
12. Borg.sir.112, Details,
13. Borg.sir.117, Details,
14. Borg.sir.160, Details,
15. Borg.sir.169, Details,
16. Chig.R.VI.37, an early 15th century-Hebrew bible, Details,
17. Ott.gr.14.pt.2, Details,
18. Reg.lat.1988, Vergil's Georgics in a Renaissance manuscript with this opening. Details.
    
    
19. Ross.604, Seneca, with this opening. Details
    
20. Urb.ebr.59, Details,
21. Urb.gr.82, key manuscript of Geography of Ptolemy, full blog post separately - Details,
22. Urb.gr.149, Details,
23. Vat.ar.32, Details,
24. Vat.ar.158, Details,
25. Vat.ar.317, Details,
26. Vat.copt.1, Details,
27. Vat.copt.6, Details,
28. Vat.ebr.17, Details,
29. Vat.ebr.151, Details,
30. Vat.ebr.152, Details,
31. Vat.ebr.153, Details,
32. Vat.ebr.154, Details,
33. Vat.ebr.155, Details,
34. Vat.ebr.157, Details,
35. Vat.ebr.159, Details,
36. Vat.ebr.168, Details,
37. Vat.ebr.169, Hebrew divorce bills, 15th century. Details.
38. Vat.ebr.172, Details,
39. Vat.ebr.174, Details,
40. Vat.ebr.177, Details,
41. Vat.ebr.182, Details,
42. Vat.ebr.185, Details,
43. Vat.gr.2220, Details,
44. Vat.lat.428, Augustine, City of God, 11th/12th century. Details.
45. Vat.lat.654, Details,
46. Vat.lat.655, Details,
47. Vat.lat.665, Details,
48. Vat.lat.680, Details,
49. Vat.lat.763, Details,
50. Vat.lat.768, Details,
51. Vat.lat.770, Details,
52. Vat.lat.776, Details,
53. Vat.lat.1645, Details, another Seneca with very beautiful scenes in the initials, like this princess on a cellphone on fol 67r:
    
54. Vat.lat.2194, Details,
55. Vat.lat.4781, Details,
56. Vat.lat.8210, Details,
57. Vat.lat.9967, Details,
58. Vat.lat.9974, Details,
59. Vat.sir.1, Details,
60. Vat.sir.14, Details,
61. Vat.sir.16, Details,
62. Vat.sir.20.pt.1, Details,
63. Vat.sir.20.pt.2, Details,
64. Vat.sir.21, Details,
65. Vat.sir.22, Details,
66. Vat.sir.23, Details,
67. Vat.sir.24, Details,
68. Vat.sir.148, Details,
69. Vat.sir.152, Details,
70. Vat.sir.154.pt.1, The older parts of this date from the 8th or 9th century and contain a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew which George of Beeltan wrote while he was imprisoned in Baghdad in about the year 770. George was patriarch of Antioch 758-790 and his citations of earlier theologians such as Julius Africanus are useful in recovering that deeper past. Details,
71. Vat.sir.154.pt.2, ditto, Details.
72. Vat.sir.155, This contains writings of Mar George or Georgi, bishop of the Arab Tribes (died 724), a philosopher and scholar. Details,
73. Vat.sir.156.pt.1, Details,
74. Vat.sir.156.pt.2, including this structure on folio 187v: Details,
    
75. Vat.sir.182, Details,
76. Vat.sir.203, Details,
77. Vat.sir.216, Details,
78. Vat.sir.266, Details,
79. Vat.sir.267, Details,
80. Vat.sir.272, Details,
81. Vat.sir.273, Details,
82. Vat.sir.275, Details,
83. Vat.sir.278, Details,
84. Vat.sir.279, Details,
85. Vat.sir.447, Details,
86. Vat.sir.470, Details,
87. Vat.sir.471, Details,
88. Vat.sir.502, Details,
89. Vat.sir.508, Details,
90. Vat.sir.510, Details,
91. Vat.sir.525, Details,
92. Vat.sir.540, Details,
93. Vat.sir.556, Details,
94. Vat.sir.578, Details,
95. Vat.sir.596, Details,
96. Vat.sir.622, Details,
97. Vat.turc.145, Details,
98. Vat.turc.388, Details, 

This is Piggin's Unofficial List 55. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to Digita Vaticana.