Description

It is the first work that provides a systematic analysis of the impact of book burning on the textual history of the Quran, the Christian Bible, and the Book of Psalms of the Tanach. The analysis is distinguished by its parallel approach to the Scriptures of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and by the fact that it deals with both oral and written Scriptural traditions. Within this analysis, the author presents his discovery of previously unknown fragments of the first Greek translation of the First Book of Maccabees. Its existence was postulated by scholars, but there had been no material evidence for it. The author uncovers these fragments in quotations given by Eusebius of Caesarea in his commentary on the Book of Psalms (the fourth cent. CE). This early translation preserves a significant variant reading that offers new historical information on the role of book burning in the textual history of the Book of Psalms.