19

THE ARABIC VERSION OF THE APOCALYPSE OF BARUCH: A CHRISTIAN TEXT?

Fred Leemhuis
Oude Faculteit der Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Kijk int Jatstraat 26, 9712 EK Groningen, The Netherlands

Many mysteries still surround the Arabic version of the Apocalypse of Baruch, even though our edition shed light on quite a few problems and obscurities. In the introduction to the edition and elsewherei we argued that the Arabic manuscript is a translation of a Syriac manuscript which must have been closely related to the Milan Syriac manuscript, and assessed its importance for a better understanding of the unique Syriac text, and speculated on the possible date of composition of the Arabic version. Obviously additional problems remain to be discussed. Many interesting questions until now receiving only inadequate answers, have to do with the origin of the Arabic version and the milieu wherein it was created. Part of the problem is caused by the simple fact that the outer sheet of the first quire of the manuscript is missing. Thus there is no title page and the colophon gives no further information. The main problem however lies in a number of probably interrelated peculiarities: 1. The translators apparently not more than passable knowledge of Syriac; 2. The translors apparently limited familiarity with both the
3. Old and the New Testaments; The translators apparent use of Koranic

phraseology.

Presently these peculiarities will be dealt with in more detail, but first it should be stressed that the Sinai manuscript in which the Arabic version of the Apocalypse of Baruch is preserved appears to be a rather mechanically executed copy, such as may have been produced in a scriptorium. This of course could have been the

20

scriptorium of a monastery. The same or the same kind of writing is found in the Arabic version of 4 Ezra which is bound together with the Apocalypse of Baruch, but which perhaps is an independent manuscript as may be concluded from the fact that the numbering of the quires starts anew. We may safely conclude that the Sinai manuscript is a copy from an older one. Copying mistakes do occur that are due to misreadings of an older Kufic ductus2 and some of the missing parts are probably due to the fact that lines of the original were skipped.3 In fact, in some cases a skipped line or skipped words have been added in the margins in what appears to be a different hand. All this means that, apart from the fact that the manuscript was preserved in the Monastery of St. Catherine, we do not have external evidence that could point to the background of the translator. It also means that we must try to detect internal evidence that may provide us at least with some clues about a probable background of the translator and/or the people the translation was intended for. Let us therefore look more closely at the three above mentioned peculiarities. On the whole the translator appears to render the general meaning of the Syriac. That is to say, the meaning of straightforward and not too long sentences generally is conveyed adequately. However, when things are more difficult, for instance in longer and more complex sentences, a remarkable vagueness is quite often found, this imprecision conveys the impression that the translator actually did not make more than a random guess at what was really meant by the Syriac. This phenomenon in fact is so general that one example may suffice here. In the final Epistle, the Syriac of 81.4 may be conveyed
in

English

as:

And the Mighty One did according to the multitude of his mercies and the Most High according to the magnitude of his compassion and he revealed to me a word that I might be comforted and he showed me visions that I might not be further sorrowful and he made known to me the mysteries of the times and the coming of the periods he showed me.
-

The Arabic version of the

same

passage may be rendered

as

follows:
Then my Lord the Mighty One, whose mercy encompasses everything in vast grace and compassion, showed to me and made me see things so that I would not grieve. And he explaincd to me what will be at the end of times and what will come at the termination of this world.

21

Of course, this is a sort of translation which may not even be called

paraphrastic anymore; it is too vague and partially misses the point. To this kind of shortcomings on the level of the sentence other phenomena may be added in the sphere of idiomatic expressions and terminology. In the introduction to the text edition examples have
been

given

of a number of literal translations of Syriac idiom into

Arabic, lists of special terms in the Arabic text wich deviate from the

Syriac, and expressions and phrases the translator obviously did not
know.5 These again appear to point in the same direction: either the
not adequately understand the Syriac, or he did not enough Arabic to render adequately his understanding of the Syriac. In the light of what follows the former seems to be more plausible. The translator shows a lack of knowledge of both the New and the Old Testament. Of course, it may be argued that in the text of the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch only indirect Christian influence is visible. In at least two places the Syriac wording appears to allude to master

translator did

New Testament passages: in 3.3 to Phil. 1.23 and in 21.20 to 2 Pet. 3.9. In the edition we preferred the explanation that these allusions were not yet present in the Syriac text used by the translator,6 but on second thought I wish now to stress the possibility that the translator glossed over these allusions, simply because he did not recognise them. This possibility certainly must not be discarded. Anyhow, where quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament are concerned the translators ignorance is striking. The most striking is not that some Old Testament names are mangled: King Zedekiah becomes our friend the king (8.5), gold of Ophir becomes pure gold (10.19), Jeroboam becomes Rehaboam (62.1).7 That the phrase a crown with great glory (15.8) alludes to Isa. 28.5 and 68.3 was apparently not realized, also that the consolation of Zion (44.7) refers to Isa. 51.3 and 19. Abrahams traversing of the halves of the sacrifices (4.4), a reference to Gen. 15.10, apparently meant nothing special to the translator; he omitted the halves and the translation of the literal quotation from:Isa. 49.16 in 4.2 simply misses the point.8 While the translator lacks knowledge of the Bible, he is familiar with Koranic phraseology. The translation of the above mentioned phrase a crown with great glory is a case in point, because it is translated by al-naim al-muqim, the enduring bliss, an expression that, without the article, is also found in the Koran (sura 9.21). But there is more. Not only such noteworthy typical islamic formulas like

22 the complete basmalla (78.1)9 and as-salfmualaikum wa rahmatullah (78.2), but even whole phrases occur which suggest a familiarity with the Koran that is, to say the least, better developed than the translators familiarity with the Bible. In the notes on text and translation of the text edition the conspicuous instances have been mentioned such as: alladhi zvasiat rahmatuhu kulla shai (81.4) = whose mercy encompasses everything (cf sura 7.156 and 40.7); and wa-anta al-uibidu 1-,hayyu lladh la yamfitu wa-la mu aqqiba Iibukmih (21.10) = You are the Only One, the Living who does not die and whose decision cannot be repelled (cf sura 25.58 and 13.41). Five other such cases were easily determined: 14.13, 14, 15.2, 42.4, 77.7 and 83.3;io but upon a reexamination of the text additional candidates which at least have a familiar Koranic ring probably will be met with, like the phrase in 72.2: fa-tati tdifatun minhum watuqtalull tifatun minhum and then a group of them will come and a group of them will be killed&dquo; (cf sura 9.66). In fact many items of the list of special terms in the Arabic text which deviate from the Syriacl3 must in the first place be considered as belonging to an Islamic idiom. Originally I thought that the use of such Koranic phraseology should be explained as an indication of the relatively early date of the translation: dating back to a time that Christian Arabic had not yet developed its own specific idiom.14 This, of course, seemed to be the more probable because it matched the fact that the text shows an abundant and fairly consistent use of the internal passive. This may still be a good explanation, but as it occurs to me now, it does not sufficiently take the first two peculiarities into account. Especially the fact that a Christian translator who must have been at least relatively well educated should not really be familiar with the Bible struck me as somewhat odd. Certainly, many reasons may be found to explain this oddity, but taking all three above-mentioned peculiarities into account I would now venture the possibility that the translator was not a Christian. Already at an early date Muslims were familiar with and translated not only works of the philosophers and the antique sciences,15 but also writings of other religions which seemed of interest to them, as at least may be gleaned from the Fihrist of Ibn alnadim, who mentions Ahmad ibn Abd Allah ibn Salam who, in the time of Harun al-Rashid, translated part of a book of the Abrahamite Sabians, and who moreover actually translated the Suhuf, the Thora, the Gospel and the books of the prophets and the disciples
=

23

from Hebrew, Greek and Sabian into Arabic.i6 It is not improbable that these books of the prophets and disciples included pseudepigraphical apocalyptic writings. After all, interest in apocalyptic writings was not something exclusively Christian. Without more data it is rather difficult to point to any group in particular, but a plausible suggestion is easily given. For the second half of the ninth and the first half of the tenth century, which seems to be the period in which the translation of the Apocalypse of Baruch came into being, one should consider the sphere of the Isamiliyya as a probable milieu where such translations were sought after. The description of the coming of the era of the Messiah in the Apocalypse of Baruch (chs. 70-74) could easily be coupled with ideas about the coming of the Nlahdi in pre-Falimid times. Other themes, like Baruchs occultation in 76.2 were probably easily recognized by Ismailis. I will not try to pinpoint a specific group, because I am not sufficiently at home in the writings and ideas of the different Shiite groups. However, it is certain that the Ikhwan al-Safa very much valued the writings of earlier prophets. One of their leaders, the qcz4i al-Zandjani, for instance, is specifically accused by the famous Mutazilite qcz4f Abd al-Djabb8r alHamadham to have copied asfr al-awwalfn (= stories of the ancients) and that others helped him with it. 17 Even when one is not thoroughly familiar with the Epistles of the Sincere Brethren and Loyal Friends, the value they attach to the writings of earlier prophets becomes clear from almost every part of the RasiI. The prophets are, according to the Ikhwan, to be valued even more than the philosophers, because the religion of the prophets is one, whereas that of the philosophers is not.18 The prophets are to be valued highly, because of their obedience to the angels in writing down in the revealed books the inspiration and announcements they received.l9 With the revealed books are meant: the Torah, the Gospel, the Koran, and the Suhuj2O of the prophets.21 The study of these is fitting for the initiates who have attained a high degree of wisdom and who are thoroughly versed in the sciences of religion so that they may know the secret meaning of the creation of the first earthly Adam, the purposes of matters that have gone by with the times, and what is to be expected in the future, like the abiding in &dquo;limbo&dquo;, the revivification and the resurrection, as well as the essence of the descending levels of the Fires.22 That they apparently really did know the texts about which they wrote seems clear; there are, according to Y. Marquet, quotations and stories taken from the

24

Hebrew Bible~3 as well as from Rabbinic texts; there are also borrowings from the New Testament (Christian influence is, in any
case, very

strong)o24

course, no proof that the Ikhwan al-Safa, their predecessors or any other similar group or sect did know, did make, or did order a translation of the Apocalypse of Baruch. But it does not seem unlikely. There seems to be no reason why this particular Jewish apocalypse, which was transmitted in a Syriac Christian form, could not have been of interest for at least certain groups of Arabic-speaking Muslims. Anyhow, we know for certain that the great theologian and historian al-Iabari, who lived in Baghdad at the time that the history of the Ismaili movement appears to begin, recorded a piece of an Ezra legend which clearly evokes 4 Ezra 14.1849.25 Moreover, he, as well as the historian and geographer alMasd a generation later, transmitted the information that Jeremiahs scribe Baruch, the son of Neriah, was known to have composed writings of his own.26 A problem with the suggestion that the Arabic version of the Apocalypse of Baruch may after all be of Muslim origin is the question of the language. If it is not a Christian text then its language is not (early) Christian Middle Arabic, although morphologically and syntactically it very much looks like it. And if the phraseology and

This

is, of

the contents of a text should be the criterion that decides whether given Middle Arabic text is Muslim or Christian then we are really getting into trouble, because we considered Koranic phraseology to be a characteristic of early Christian Arabic translations.27
not
a

NOTES
1. F. Leemhuis, A.F.J. Klijn, G.J.H. van Gelder, The Arabic Text of the Apocalypse of Baruch. Edited and translated with a parallel translation of the Syriac text (Leiden, 1986); Leemhuis, The Mount Sinai Arabic Version of the Apocalypse of Baruch, Actes du deuxième congrès international détudes arabes chétiennes. Khalil Samir, S.J. (OCA, 226), Rome, 1986, pp. 73-79. 2. Esp. reading f ā and wau for l, ā cf. Arabic Text, p. 5; and d ā for t k Leemhuis, Mount Sinai Manuscript, p. 75.

3. As in 19.1, see Arabic Text, p. 35. 4. As in 52.1, see Arabic Text, p. 77. 5. See Arabic Text, pp. 7-9; see also Leemhuis, Mount Sinai Manuscript,

p. 76.

25
6. See Arabic Text, p. 6. 7. As Bogaert rightly remarked in his review. Salbanassar is already called so in the Syriac, though in the Arabic version he has become king of the Amorites (62.6). See P.-M. Bogaert, review of the text edition in Le Muséon 100 (1987), pp. 420-21. 8. See further the introduction to the edition, pp. 8-9. 9. Van Koningsveld suggested that this formula indicates that we have here the beginning of an independent work. His suggestion was based on the combination of the basmalla and the fact that in the Arabic version the ā ā h ā ā k n b fi-l-kit which he took to mean thus it was Epistle begins with kadh [found] in the Book. However, from 77.17 and 19 it becomes clear that both b and sah ā kit fa apparently refer to the same thing: the Epistle of Baruch. Cf. ī van P.Sj. Koningsveld, An Arabic Manuscript of the Apocalypse of Baruch, JSJ (1974/5), p. 206. 10. See the notes on text and translation in Arabic Text. 11. This is what was meant in the edition. In the MS the punctuation is as is given in note 159 on p. 107. 12. I now think that a reading fa-yub ā tifatun ā minhum fa-tuqbalu ā minhum =and a group of them will be refused and a group of them t ifatun will be refused and a group of them will be accepted, should be preferred. 13. Arabic Text, pp. 7-8. 14. Ibid., pp. 4-5; and Leemhuis, Mount Sinai Manuscript, p. 75. 15. See for instance G. Endress, Die Ubersetzungen wissenschaftlicher und philosophischer Literatur ins Arabische, Grundriß der Arabischen Philologie, Band II Literaturwissenschaft, ed. H. Gätje, Wiesbaden, 1987, pp. 416-31. 16. Ibn al-Nadim: al-Fihrist, ed. G. Flügel, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1871, pp. 2122. 17. Abd al-Djabbār b. Ahmad al-Hamadhānī, Kit b tathb ā t dal ī il alā nubuwwa, ed. Abd al-Karīm Uthmān, Beirut, n.d., p. 611. 18. Ras il ikhwan alā n al-waf ā wa-khull saf ā , ed. Dār Sādir, Beirut, ā 1957. Vol. IV, pp. 180-181, in the 48th Epistle (the 7th of the 4th section) on the manner of missionary propaganda, which by Y. Marquet is considered to be the oldest of all the Epistles and to date back to before the victory of the Fatimides in 909 CE. See Y. Marquet, Ihwân al-Safâ, Ismailiens et Qarmates, in Arabica, vol. 24, 1977. P. 234. 19. Ras il, vol. 3, p. 454 in the 42nd Epistle (the 1st of the 4th section) and ā

passim.
20. Pl. of hifa (leaf of a) book. The use of the term suhuf ā sa by the Ikhwan is in accordance with the Koran where it is used to denote forerunners of the Koran (e.g. sura 53.36). It is in this respect not without interest that the Epistle of Baruch five times is indicated with sah fa, and not with the more ī neutral kit b, as it is another five times. ā 21. See vol. 4, p. 180 in the 48th Epistle (the 7th of the 4th section) and

passim.

26
22. Ras il, vol. 3, pp. 511-512, in the 42nd Epistle (the 1st of the 4th ā section). On p. 512 the Psalter is added to the standard list. 23. An example I came across speaks for itself: In vol. 4, p. 294, in the 52nd Epistle (the 11th of the 4th section) whole phrases of the story of Saul and

the witch of Endor appear to be taken directly from 1 Samuel 28. 24. Y. Marquet, Ikhwān al-Safā, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edition, Leiden 1960, vol. III, p. 1075. 25. Tabarī, Tar kh 1/269-270. This was already pointed out by B. Heller in ī 1904 (see Uzair, Handwörterbuch des Islam, ed. A.J. Wensinck, J.H. Kramers, Leiden, 1941), p. 779. 26. Tabarī, Tarikh 1/1116. Tabarī depended on Ibn Sad as his isnād clearly indicates. However, in the edition of Beirut, Baruch is spelled as rakh, Ibn Sad, Al-tabaq u B , ed. Dār Sādir Beirut n.d., vol. 1, ā t al-kubr ā ī al-dhahab, d ũ p. 57. G.J.H. van Gelder drew my attention to Masdī, Mur ed. Meynard/Courteille/Pellat, vol. 3, p.6. § 1445. It may well be that Masūdi depended on Tabarĩ, but the name Baruch is spelled with ā like in the Arabic Baruch Apocalypse. In all three cases, however he is ibn Nariya and not ibn Nardja (or Narkha) as in the Sinai MS. As an addition to the note on 21.1 in the text edition (p. 143) it may be said that the misreading of
in early Arabic writing is not at all ā unpointed ā as a unpointed kh y implausible so that the spelling of Baruchs patronymic in the Sinai MS may be another copying mistake. 27. See note 14 above, and H. Staal, Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151, I, Pauline Epistles, transl., coll. (CSCO, 453), Louvain, 1983, p. V. I am inclined to consider the possibility that the manuscript leaf of about 830 CE that I mentioned in note 10 on p. 75 of Leemhuis (Mount Sinai Manuscript) has at least partial Muslim origins. The Psalter is called ū mushaf da al-nabi d and it is said to contain prophecies about the Messiah, al-mun n, his son ī fiq ā Abi Shālum and Talut and Djālut.
an