Position:

University Research Lecturer; Supernumerary Fellow in Oriental Studies, Mansfield College

Faculty / College Address:

Oriental Institute / Mansfield College

Email:

alison.salvesen@orinst.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests:

My main research is in the area of ancient interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. This includes the Greek Septuagint, the later Jewish Greek versions, the Aramaic Targums, the Peshitta Syriac version, and St Jerome's Vulgate translation. I also work on the reception history of these versions during the formative periods of rabbinic Judaism and of Christianity.

Current Projects:

I am a member of the Executive Committee of the Hexapla Institute and Project, which is creating an electronic database of the surviving material from Origen's multicolumnar Old Testament. My own work for the project is an edition of the Greek fragments of the Book of Exodus.

I am an editor of the Bible of Edessa Project, overseeing a series of annotated English translations of the books of the Peshitta Syriac Old Testament and Apocrypha.

I am also working on an introduction to the Syrian Orthodox scholar and bishop, Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), which will incorporate selected highlights of his works in modern English translation.

Courses Taught:

I regularly teach Biblical Hebrew prose composition; Targum Aramaic; Introduction to Septuagint studies; Septuagint texts; early versions and exegesis of the Hebrew Bible; textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible.

Recent Publications:

• I-II Samuel in the Syriac Version of Jacob of Edessa, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute, Leiden, 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1999) (xlix + 170, 125 pp.).
• "Symmachus and the dating of Palestinian Targum Tradition" Journal of the Aramaic Bible 2 (2000) 233-45.
• "Jacob of Edessa's knowledge of Hebrew" in Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Texts. Essays in Memory of Michael Weitzman, eds. A. Rapoport-Albert and G. Greenberg (Sheffield 2001) 457-67.
• "Infants or Fools in Eden? An Ambiguity in Early Syriac Tradition" in Hamlet on a Hill. Semitic and Greek Studies presented to Professor T. Muraoka on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday, eds. M.F.J. Baasten and W.Th. van Peursen (Leuven 2003), 433-440.
• "A Convergence of the Ways? The Judaizing of Christian Scripture by Origen and Jerome" in The Ways that Never Parted, eds. A. Yoshiko Reed and A. Becker, Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum (T'bingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003).
• "Psalm 135(136).25 in a Jewish Greek inscription from Nicea", in Semitic Studies in Honour of Edward Ullendorf, ed. G. A. Khan (Leiden/Boston, 2005), 212-221.
• "Pigs in the Camps and the Breasts of my Lambs: Song of Songs in the Syriac Tradition", in Perspectives on the Song of Songs-Perspektiven der Hoehliedauslegung ed. A. Hagedorn. BZAW 346 (Berlin, 2005), 260-273.
• "The Growth of the Apocrypha" in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies", eds J. Rogerson and J. Lieu (Oxford, 2006), 489-517.
• "The Genesis Texts of Jacob of Edessa: a Study in Variety" in Text, Transmission, and Tradition: Studies on the Text of the Peshitta and its Use in the Syriac Tradition, Festschrift for Konrad Jenner, eds B. ter Haar Romeny and W. van Peursen (MPIL; Leiden, 2006).
• "Without shame or desire: attitudes towards childhood in early Syriac writers" Scottish Journal of theology 59/3 (2006), 1-20.
• “Messianism in Ancient Bible Translations in Greek and Latin” in Redemption and Resistance, eds. M. Bockmuehl and J.N. Carlton Paget (Edinburgh, 2007), 245–61.
• “Jacob of Edessa’s Life and Work: A Biographical Sketch”, and “Jacob of Edessa’s Version of 1–2 Samuel: Its Method and Text-Critical Value,” in Jacob of Edessa and the Syriac Culture of His Day, eds. R.B. ter Haar Romeny and K.D. Jenner (MPIL; Leiden: 2008), 1–10, 127–144.
• “The Peshitta of 2 Samuel 11–12 and its Reception History” in Malphono w-Rabo d-Malphone: Studies in Honor of Sebastian P. Brock, ed. G. Kiraz (Piscataway, NJ, 2008), 559–573.
• “La version de Jacques d’Édesse” in L’Ancien Testament en syriaque, Etudes Syriaques 5, eds. F. Briquel-Chatonnet and Ph. Le Moigne (Paris, 2008), 121–140.
• “The Authorial Spirit? Biblical Citations in Jacob of Edessa’s Hexaemeron”, Aramaic Studies 6.2 (2008), 207–225.
• “The relationship of LXX and the Three in Exodus 1–24 to the readings of Fb” in Jewish Reception of Greek Bible Versions, eds. N. de Lange, J. Krivoruchko, and C. Boyd-Taylor (Mohr, Tübingen, 2009), 103-127.
• “Keeping it in the Family? Jacob and his Aramean Heritage according to Jewish and Christian Sources”, in The Exegetical Encounter between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity, eds. E. Grypeou  and H. Spurling. Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series, 18 (Brill, Leiden, 2009), 205-220.

Further Info:

• Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database