Thomas Presbyter – Ian D. Morris

Misspelling Muhammad 2: Revenge of the Teth

December 23, 2014 3 Comments

In a previous post I gave some general examples of how spelling and pronunciation can drift between languages: the d in Muhammad is spelt in some early sources with an emphatic t (teth) or regular t (taw), so I wanted to show that… Continue Reading →

Misspelling Muhammad: Why Robert Spencer is wrong about Thomas Presbyter

November 20, 2014 15 Comments

In the British Library collections is an eighth-century manuscript of a seventh-century text in Syriac, attributed to Thomas Presbyter. It’s a funny little jumble of geography, genealogy, chronicle and king-list. Why it survived I don’t know. But we’re very lucky it… Continue Reading →