Isho'yahb's Bible

John bar Penkaye, clergyman of the Eastern Church, owned a Biblical canon. If he knew any text, it was in Syriac as of the middle AD 680s. (He'd say: 60s, by the "Tayyaye" reckoning. He doesn't use AG.) Here is Mar Emmanuel from f. 47a of his copy:

the five books of the Torah, Joshua, the Book of Judges, Samuel, the Psalms of David, The Proverbs of Solomon, Qohelet, the Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Ben Sira, Job, the Book of Kings, Isaiah the Prophet, the Twelve [minor prophets], Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Ezra, Baruch, Judith, Ruth, Esther, and the three Books of the Maccabees

John also used Josephus but not as "5 Maccabees", G-d forbid. We aren't told if "Ezra" extends to 1 Esdras or Nehemiah or any other Ezra apocalypse; we aren't told how much Baruch; we aren't told how much Daniel. As for 1-2 Chronicles, er. Is that part of "Ezra"?

I was pondering Isho'yahb III's Bible a generation prior. Rubens Duval offers a Scripture Index, as to that. Here is the Torah and Judges but not Joshua. 1 Samuel is cited as well as 2 Kings, so we can assume 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings, whether they be split like Bar Penkaye implies or bundled all together as "Reigns" like in the Greek. The Psalms are 11 then 31, 34, 36 (he likes this one), 44, 55, 67, 93, 102, 105, 125-7, 141, 144. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes / Qohelet, Job... Ben Sira. Then the major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah including Lamentations, Ezekiel. Daniel 3 and 7:10, so we'll just assume whatever the New Testament quotes, not from the Greek. Only Hosea 4:9 from the Twelve Minor. No Chronicles, no Ezra-Nehemiah.

On to the New Testament. John bar Penkaye doesn't state his references. I assume he preferred the Peshitta over Sahdona's Old-Syriac. Mar Emmanuel doesn't find where John cites 2-3 John, 2 Peter, or Jude... or the Revelation. As for Isho'yahb before him, Isho'yahb didn't cite Philemon, any of the Johannine Epistles, or 2 Peter. But.

Rubens Duval found at least a parallel, between end of Metropolitan Isho'yahb's #11 and Jude 25 / Revelation 7:12. So Duval, for Whom are kingship (malkuta) and power (shultana) and virtue (hayla) and glory (teshbohta) in heaven and earth, now and always (hasha wab-kulzaben) and aeon on aeons ('alm-'almen), amen. That literal doxology, for Jude, went: glory, greatness, power, authority from all aeons to all aeons; for John of Patmos: praise, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, strength to aeon of aeons.

These are not the only doxologies in the New Testament however. I find 1 Timothy 1:17 to the King (malka) ... be honor and glory (teshbohta) forever and ever. Amen. Also 1 Peter 4:11 which flips teshbohta first.

What we have here is simple hymnody, which floated around the Syrians in the seventh century as it had floated among the Greeks in the first.