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The Aleppo Codex : a true story of obsession, faith, and the pursuit of an ancient Bible

This true-life detective story unveils the journey of a sacred text--the tenth-century annotated bible known as the Aleppo Codex--from its hiding place in a Syrian synagogue to the newly founded state of Israel.Winner of the 2014 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish LiteratureA thousand years ago, the most perfect copy of the Hebrew Bible was written. It was kept safe through one upheaval after another in the Middle East, and by the 1940s it was housed in a dark grotto in Aleppo, Syria, and had become known around the world as the Aleppo Codex.Journalist Matti Friedman s true-life detective story traces how this precious manuscript was smuggled from its hiding place in Syria into the newly founded state of Israel and how and why many of its most sacred and valuable pages went missing. It s a tale that involves grizzled secret agents, pious clergymen, shrewd antiquities collectors, and highly placed national figures who, as it turns out, would do anything to get their hands on an ancient, decaying book. What it reveals are uncomfortable truths about greed, state cover-ups, and the fascinating role of historical treasures in creating a national identity.".

The Chronicle of Michael the Great (the Edessa-Aleppo Syriac codex) : books XV-XXI from the year 1050 to 1195 AD

"The voluminous Chronicle of Michael the Great, Syriac Orthodox patriarch from 1166 to 1199, covers human and ecclesiastical histories, stretching from the biblical account of the Creation to the year 1195. The current edition and translation of Books XV to XXI, based on the 16th century Edessa-Aleppo Syriac Codex, discuss history from 1050 to 1195, during which, warring nations, including Turks, Crusaders, Arabs, Greeks and Armenians, coveted extensive domains lost to the Abbasid Caliphate for ever. The two centuries covered by the present book witnessed the rise and fall of the Crusaders, the ever fighting Turkish tribes, which eventually controlled Eastern Anatolia and Syria in the name of the Abbasid Caliphate, and Fatimid violent siege and capture of Jerusalem from the Crusaders. The author was an eyewitness of some fifty years of crucial historical, celestial, and seismic happenings. Although internal politics of the Syriac Orthodox Church marred his patriarchate, he admirably remained clear-minded, unbending administrator, and profoundly Christian"--Michael the Great was elected patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox church in a most instable period. He nevertheless, found time, clarity of mind, and determination to write a voluminous world chronicle, which he completed four years before he died in November 7, 1199. The present edition and its translation begin with Book XV and end with Book XXI, the last Book in the Chronicle, thereby covering more than 160 years, from AD 1031 to AD 1195.

Keter Aram Tsova