The history of Mar Behnam and Sarah : martyrdom and monasticism in medieval Iraq / edited and translated by Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, Kyle Smith.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Saint-Laurent, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon, editor, translator.

Smith, Kyle, 1977- editor, translator.

Series:

Persian martyr acts in Syriac ; 7.

Persian martyrs acts in Syriac: text and translation ; 7

Language:

English

Syriac, Modern

Subjects (All):

Christian martyrs--Iraq--Early works to 1800.

Christian martyrs.

Syriac literature--History and criticism.

Syriac literature.

Iraq.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Early works.

Physical Description:

ix, 154 pages : 1 map ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Piscataway, NJ : Gorgias Press, 2018.

Language Note:

In Syriac with English translation on facing pages; notes and introduction in English.

Summary:

"The History of Mar Behnam and Sarah tells the story of two siblings who convert to Christianity under the tutelage of Mar Mattai, a monastic leader and wonderworker from the Roman Empire. After the children refuse to worship pagan gods, they are killed by their own father, the Persian king. Strangely, he is identified as Sennacherib the Assyrian, a pre-Christian ruler better known from the biblical Book of Kings. This is not the only chronological oddity with the text. Although Behnam and Sarah is set in the fourth century, during the golden age of martyrdom in the Sasanian Empire, the text was not composed until hundreds of years later. The composition of the narrative about the two martyrs seems to have coincided with the construction of a twelfth-century shrine that was built in their honor by Syrian Orthodox monks on the Nineveh Plain, near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The beautiful martyrium, which housed intricate relief sculptures and inscriptions in several langauges, was an important pilgrimage site for Christians, Muslims, and Yezidis until it was destroyed in 2015. In this volume of the "Persian Martyr Acts in Syriac" series, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent and Kyle Smith provde the first critical edition and English translation of this fascinating martyrdom narrative, a text that was once widely popular among numerous communities throughout the Middle East"--Back cover.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 141-150) and indexes.

ISBN:

9781463239145

1463239149

OCLC:

1054159485