I did John bar Penkaye a courtesy that closed-minded nincompoop would never, in life, have done for me: translate some of his stuff. So: why did I do that? I mean, apart from that I promised in writing to do it, and that I wanted into the language...
I'll admit that three-to-four weeks of learning Syriac, and from written material only at that, wasn't enough to get the perfect handle on the text, nor even a good handle. Partly, I think, I just wanted to shame professional scholars of Syriana, because they hadn't translated this particular section. I have translated this badly, as a beginner. That's better than anyone who has not translated this at all, in whose ranks belongs Alphonse Mingana. If you will pardon me.
As Yulia Furman pointed out, John is a guide into the Syriac portion (only) of Sabrisho's library. The reception-history of these tomes is valuable.
For us Christians anyway, the most valuable part of the fourteenth chapter will be what that chapter says about Eastern reception of Nestorius' creeds. Historians of Islam have focused on the fifteenth chapter; Islam-skeptics especially focus on that chapter. But as a Christian I suggest we pay more attention to the Christian creeds, which lie in the fourteenth. Thanks to Sebastian Brock we (well, those of us who bought his essays - I haven't) can read the creeds' originals. But we also want to engage with a lower-IQ reader of those creeds, on how they are used against us. Also I suspect John was quoting the cliff-notes.
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