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Copyright & License:
© 2005 John Marucci,
all rights reserved.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, all material
on this website, including but not limited to text, graphics, and programing
code, is the proprietary intellectual property of the author.
In general, you may download this material to
a single personal computer for private individual use only. You may not
sell, transfer, exhibit, extract, modify, or reverse engineer any part
of this intellectual property without the prior written consent of the
author.
Credits:
I wish to thank Paul Younan, the generous sponsor
of peshitta.org, for making this website possible.
I also wish to thank my wife, Laurie, for her
years of unfailing support, and artistic contributions.
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The Vision
When we sift through
the dust of time, decay, and long forgotten faith we sometimes find unbelievable
treasures crafted by careful hands and ink. Scraps of parchment or vellum,
so old they seem, like the bones of the monks who made them, ready to evaporate
in an alien time. The passionate faith their makers breathed into them
calls out to us in a quiet whisper, and beckons us to resurrect faded ink
on new paper. The calligraphy of a long dead hand becomes a new fascination
for the patient and curious reader. Its pen strokes carry the history,
philosophy, and faith of the past to the present.
Inspired by
this call of the ancient scribal spirit, I have created Beth Sapra, literally
the “scribe’s house“ or “scriptorium,“ to investigate and promote Aramaic,
the language of Jesus Christ, and the Peshitta, the Aramaic version of
the Bible preserved by Oriental Christendom.
Towards this
prayerful objective, it is my intention to revive the millenniums old scribal
arts with modern tools and techniques. To approach this endeavor not as
an anachronism, but as living faith. To cloth the past with the ruminant
of the present.
My primary
focus is to produce legible, elegant, and comprehensible tools for the
study of the Peshitta. You may preview my progress on the Projects
page. Other interesting resources such as books in the public domain will
be added on the
Library page as time and availability
permit. On the Links page you will find other
sites of interest.
I invite you
to join me in a journey through the Aramaic Peshitta, to find an almost
forgotten tradition of language, art and faith. May it enrich your life
as it has mine.
John Marucci
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