Dr. Marlene Kanaan from the Faculty of Arts & Sciences represented the University of Balamand in the XIIIth Symposium Syriacum and the XIth Congress of Christian Arab Studies, which were held at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations - Inalco in Paris, from Monday, July 4 to Saturday, July 9, 2022.

This double colloquium aims at honoring the work of great researchers from all over the world, on the Syriac and Arab Christian heritage. Professors and researchers from internationally recognized institutions, such as Harvard, Oxford, Ottawa, Lausanne, Louvain, Rome, Cambridge, etc., meet to exchange updates on inventive projects in progress and give a series of conferences.

The symposiums are held every four years in a different country. Ergo the next series of conferences will take place in 2026 in Bucharest, Romania. The papers and works presented generate publications of international distribution. This year the symposium brought together eminent university figures and ensured the presence of Balamand on the international scene.

It is worth noting that, this year does not mark Dr. Kanaan’s first participation in this double symposium as she has published several studies since 2004. Her intervention this year was under the title: “Ḫabar Būloş al-Rasūl or the Apocalypse of Paul according to an unpublished Arabic text”.

She presented and studied an unpublished Arabic text preserved by a 17th century manuscript, Balamand-123 relating to an Apocrypha attributed to the Apostle Paul, that dates back to the 4th century according to Greek Core. The Arabic translation of this text dates back to the 9th or 10th century. Dr. Kanaan’s study has followed Apostle Paul’s peregrination in history. The text is unpublished and has never been referenced by researchers working on the Arab Apocalypse of Paul. Her speech was very well received by the audience and raised many thought-provoking questions. Dr. Kanaan’s article was selected for publication.