Texts and their transmission

Person

Marianna Klar

Scholar of Quranic narrative in its late-antique literary contexts.

Ninth-century North African Qur'an folio with Sura 54:13–27. It illustrates later manuscript transmission, not Dhul Qarnayn's passage or Marianna Klar. Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.39.2.a

Person

Yasin Kara

Author of a 2026 study comparing Dhul Qarnayn with the Syriac Alexander tradition.

Original diagram of two models discussed in Kara’s study: direct dependence between texts (01) or a shared narrative milieu feeding two versions (02). The arrows are hypothetical, not evidence of a documented transfer

Person

Kevin van Bladel

Philologist and historian of the Near East and the transmission of learning across languages.

A Persian scene of Alexander building the wall, dated 1481. It is a later witness to the story, not the Syriac text studied by van Bladel or his portrait. Walters Art Museum, W.604.315A

Person

Lysimachus

A successor of Alexander who ruled Thrace; his coins showed Alexander with Ammon’s horn.

Gold stater issued in the name of Lysimachus, 286–281 BCE; the horned head is Alexander, not Lysimachus. The Met, 52.127.4

City

Tangier

City in northern Morocco by the Strait of Gibraltar, proposed in one interpretation of the Quran's meeting of the seas.

Tangier and its port from the sea, 18 September 2008; a modern city view, not a confirmed location of Moses' story

Person

Heraclius, Byzantine emperor

Byzantine emperor who ruled 610–641 CE; his victory over Persia informs dating proposals for some Syriac Alexander texts.

Gold solidus of 629–631 CE bearing official representations of Heraclius and his son Heraclius Constantine; a Byzantine coin, not a photographic likeness

Person

E. A. Wallis Budge

British Egyptologist and ancient-language scholar (1857–1934) who published a historical English translation of Syriac Alexander texts.

Person

Brannon M. Wheeler

Scholar of the history of religion and early Islamic exegesis.

Person

Herod the Great

Late-first-century-BCE king of Judaea in the journey-to-Egypt story.

Person

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Italian artist (1727–1804) who depicted the Holy Family resting beside a palm.

Person

Callimachus of Cyrene

Third-century-BCE Greek poet whose Hymn to Delos evokes Apollo's birth.

Person

Suleiman A. Mourad

Islamic-history scholar who proposed a comparative route for Mary and palm narratives.

Person

Stephen J. Shoemaker

Scholar of early Christian Mary traditions and late-antique Near Eastern religion.

Person

Brandon W. Hawk

Scholar of medieval literature and Christian apocrypha.

Person

Mary Dzon

Medieval-literature scholar who studied Jesus and clay birds across traditions.

Translator

Paul Peeters

Scholar and translator who published Syriac, Arabic and Armenian infancy texts in 1914.

Entity

North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature

Research society maintaining a guide to Christian apocryphal texts and witnesses.

Person

Irenaeus of Lyon

Late-second-century Christian writer who mentioned the child Jesus and a teacher.

Translator

Alexander Walker

Nineteenth-century English translator of several apocryphal infancy narratives.

Person

Tony Burke

Scholar of Christian apocrypha who edited Greek and Syriac infancy traditions.

Person

Gabriel Nocchi Macedo

Greek and Latin papyrologist who co-edited the Hamburg fragment.

Person

Lajos Berkes

Papyrologist who co-edited a papyrus with the clay-sparrow episode.

Person

Richard Kalmin

Professor of Talmud and rabbinics who studies rabbinic narratives and Jewish Babylonia.

Person

Jillian Stinchcomb

Scholar of biblical reception who studies the Queen of Sheba across Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions.

Translator

Aaron Bernstein (translator of Cassel)

Named translator of the 1888 English edition of Paulus Cassel's Esther commentary.

Person

Paulus Cassel

German theologian and writer (1821–1892) whose Esther commentary included an appendix on the Second Targum.

Person

Michael Beshay

Scholar of late-antique religions who studies traditions about Mary and Solomon across communities.

Person

Nils Arne Pedersen

Aarhus University scholar of church history and early Christian literature, coauthor of a study of Solomonic rings.

Person

Ittai Gradel

Roman historian (1965–2026) and coauthor of a study of rings bearing a Solomonic formula.

Person

Dennis C. Duling

Scholar of ancient Jewish and Christian texts who studied the Solomon-as-exorcist tradition.

Person

F. C. Conybeare

British scholar and translator (1856–1924) who published the Testament of Solomon in 1898.

Person

Sarah L. Schwarz

Religion scholar who has studied the textual diversity and demonology of the Testament of Solomon.

Person

Benaiah son of Jehoiada

A court figure in Kings under David and Solomon, reused in the Talmudic tale as the man who brings Ashmedai.

Entity

Ornias

A harmful spirit named in the Greek Testament of Solomon, whose capture begins the ring-and-Temple narrative.

Person

Eleazar in Josephus's exorcism report

A Jewish man whose exorcism Josephus says he witnessed before Vespasian; distinct from the biblical Eleazar son of Aaron.

Person

Vespasian

Roman emperor from 69 to 79 CE; Josephus names him among the audience of an exorcism linked to Solomon.

Roman gold aureus bearing Vespasian's portrait and name, minted in 70 CE. A contemporary witness to the emperor, not to Josephus's exorcism scene. Met 99.35.154; public domain

Ancient text

Babylonian Talmud

A large rabbinic compilation in Hebrew and Aramaic, formed in Mesopotamia through stages; its final redaction remains debated.

A page from Daniel Bomberg's Babylonian Talmud, printed in Venice between 1525 and 1539, photographed by Warburg. This page is from Sukkah, not Gittin 68, and the edition postdates the Talmud's composition. Public domain

Entity

The shamir in the Talmudic story

A remarkable stone-cutting creature in Gittin 68's Temple-building story, not an identified archaeological tool.

Entity

Ashmedai

The 'king of demons' in the Babylonian Talmud's Gittin 68 story about Solomon and the shamir.

Person

Queen of Sheba

The ruler in narratives of Solomon's encounter with Sheba; neither First Kings nor the Quran gives her a personal name, and her historical identification is unresolved.

Solomon's meeting with the Queen of Sheba in British embroidery, ca. 1700: later artistic reception, not a historical portrait. Met 64.101.1307; public domain