MF CASR lunch with Florian Neitmann

More or Less Biblical Readings: Early Jewish Texts in a Syriac Lectionary Manuscript from India

The Manuscript Konath 77 is a Syriac lectionary, a book that contains biblical texts to be read in the liturgy of Sundays and Feasts. The manuscript was produced in the fifteenth century, probably in Homs, Syria, but it eventually migrated to Kerala, India. Remarkably, it contains several readings from early Jewish texts that are not universally considered as biblical. In the first part of the talk, I will present some features of the manuscript that reflect the changing canonical status of those texts. In the second part, I will offer some observations on the contexts in which the readings in question are embedded. On what liturgical occasions were they read, and what does the liturgical context reveal about the understanding of those texts? Thus, I aim to shed light on the dynamics inherent in liturgical orders and conceptions of canonicity.

Please join us in person at the MF Library, or watch on Zoom: https://mf-no.zoom.us/j/64105595003?pwd=S0JpdTIyT1dBcjRwTjg2YzVxdmVRQT09

Zoom Meeting ID: 641 0559 5003
Passcode: MFCASR