Critical Editions of the Commentaries of Dionysius bar Ṣalībī on Obadiah, Jonah, and Nahum with Introduction and English translation

Abstract

Presented here are critical editions of six commentaries of Dionysius bar Ṣalībī (d. 1171) written in Syriac along with English translations thereto. These commentaries are the literal and the spiritual commentaries of Dionysius bar Ṣalībī on Obadiah, Jonah, and Nahum. This particular group of commentaries on the prophets was selected due to their manageable size and because they cohere in that their subject matter are prophetic books primarily concerned with particular gentile nations. Bar Ṣalībī himself groups them in this way in his literal explanation of the prophet Haggai where he places the twelve prophets into categories. Obadiah, Jonah, and Nahum are the full company within the category of those who “prophesied concerning the nations”