Description

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What happened to ancient Greek thought after Antiquity? What impact did Abrahamic religions have on medieval Byzantine and Islamic scholars who adapted and reinvigorated this ancient philosophical heritage? Reason and Revelation in Byzantine Antioch tackles these questions by examining the work of the eleventh-century Christian theologian Abdallah ibn al-Fadl, who undertook an ambitious program of translating Greek texts, ancient and contemporary, into Arabic. Poised between the Byzantine Empire that controlled his home city of Antioch and the Arabic-speaking cultural universe of Syria-Palestine, Egypt, Aleppo, and Iraq, Ibn al-Fadl engaged intensely with both Greek and Arabic philosophy, science, and literary culture. Challenging the common narrative that treats Christian and Muslim scholars in almost total isolation from each other in the Middle Ages, Alexandre M. Roberts reveals a shared culture of robust intellectual curiosity in the service of tradition that has had a lasting role in Eurasian intellectual history.

About the Author

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Alexandre M. Roberts teaches in the Department of Classics at the University of Southern California.

Praise For…

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"Roberts has produced not only an impressive work of intellectual and social history but also an accomplished exemplar of the exploration of unpublished sources with insightful philological and linguistic examinations."

— Al-‘Usur al-Wusta

"This monumental work will be of great interest to scholars. . . .Reason and Revelation is a welcome contribution to the intellectual history of the pre-modern Middle East that should inspire a great deal of scholarship to come."
— Medieval Encounters

"Reason and Revelation remains a truly impressive scholarly accomplishment. This rich portrait of a previously neglected figure, requiring impressive command of both classical literature and Arabic manuscript studies, should inspire future work on the fascinatingly multi-lingual, multi-religious traditions of learning that bridged the medieval Mediterranean’s many worlds."
— The Catholic Historical Review

"Roberts’s is an important book, not just for its many new editions of texts by Ibn al-Fadl,̣ but also for the light it sheds on his life and historical context. Scholars of Christian Arabic will find it essential reading, as will those investigating Byzantine intellectual culture and its interactions with the world of Islam."
— Speculum

"Ultimately Reason and Revelation sharpens our understanding of “translation” in the premodern period and points the way forward for further scholarship on the intricacies and implications of translation."
— Studies in Late Antiquity