New research shows that Syriac scribes were not merely transmitters of texts, but genuinely contributed to shaping of Syriac literature and culture 

OXFORD / JERUSALEM — A new study published in the journal PLOS ONE highlights the essential role played by non-authors like scribes, compilers, and editors in shaping ancient Syriac texts, not just in their preservation. The philological study Material philology and Syriac excerpting practices: A computational-quantitative study of the digitized catalog of the Syriac manuscripts in the British Library, relied on a digital analysis of approximately 1,000 Syriac manuscripts, and some 20,000 excerpts, held at the British Library. It was conducted using advanced computer tools.

For his research, scholar Noam Maier of The Digital Humanities Center at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, introduced a new metric called “excerpts per manuscript” to track the practice of “quotation” in these texts — the process of collecting, selecting and reordering portions of earlier texts. Maier finds that quotation was a widespread practice, some manuscripts contained hundreds or even thousands of excerpts, “highlighting the immense intellectual and literary activities implicated in their production.”

The study, or ‘big picture’ analysis of Syriac excerpting, as he calls it, also finds that manuscripts with the highest excerpts-per-manuscript values are concentrated in late antiquity (sixth-ninth c. AD). A period of intense literary compilation and knowledge organization for the canonization of texts within Christian, Jewish, and Greco-Roman traditions. “Syriac excerpting can be seen as a specific form of canonization of textual authorities,” Maier states. It is an original act of interpretation and knowledge organization.

Maier likens the production of a pre-modern manuscript to that of a YouTube compilation video, such as ‘top 90s hit songs.’ Each compilation is the production of a video compiler (non-author) that selected (‘excerpts’) and ordered individual clips found in videos across the internet. The compiled video is often accompanied with background music, images, inserted texts, a description or comment section, links, and measures of the views (likes and dislikes).

The study demonstrates that scribes were not merely passive transmitters of texts but actively contributed by reworking and adapting the content to the needs of their time, making them important cultural actors in the development of Syriac literature. The study also highlights the importance of re-reading old catalogs, such as the extensive British Library catalog, using modern digital tools and digitization projects, which allows for the discovery of contributions by non-authors to the textual heritage.