Moberg, Axel Bo Holmberg Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portal Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University The International Balzan Prize Foundation George A. Kiraz Sebastian P. Brock Aaron M. Butts Lucas Van Rompay Ute Possekel Daniel L. Schwartz David A. Michelson Data cleaning, editorial proofreading, and TEI editing by Ute S. Posssekel Data cleaning and initial valid TEI encoding by David Michelson XSLT transformations by Winona Salesky Data cleaning, editorial proofreading, TEI schema, and TEI encoding and editing by Daniel L. Schwartz Conversion to semantic XML by George A. Kiraz Electronic Edition Version 1.5 Published by Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA www.gorgiaspress.com for Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute Published with the collaboration of Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portal Published and hosted with the collaboration of the Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University

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Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage: Electronic Edition George A. Kiraz Sebastian P. Brock Aaron M. Butts Lucas Van Rompay Ute Possekel Daniel L. Schwartz David A. Michelson Data cleaning, editorial proofreading, and TEI editing by Ute S. Posssekel Data cleaning and initial valid TEI encoding by David Michelson XSLT transformations by Winona Salesky Data cleaning, editorial proofreading, TEI schema, and TEI encoding and editing by Daniel L. Schwartz Conversion to semantic XML by George A. Kiraz Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage Sebastian P. Brock Aaron M. Butts George A. Kiraz Lucas Van Rompay Piscataway, N.J. Gorgias Press for Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute 2011 Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute ISBN: 978-1-59333-714-8
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Moberg, Axel https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Moberg-Axel http://syriaca.org/bibl/387 378 Axel Moberg http://syriaca.org/person/640 person Professor of Near-Eastern languages at Lund University, Sweden, 1908–37, and Vice Chancellor of the same university, 1926–36. (1872–1955)

Professor of Near-Eastern languages at Lund University, Sweden, 1908–37, and Vice Chancellor of the same university, 1926–36. In his research, Moberg dedicated himself mainly to Syriac and Arabic. He started his career under the mentorship of K. V. Zetterstéen at Uppsala University and submitted an edition of an Arabic Mamluk text as his doctoral dissertation in 1902. Throughout his career, Moberg continued to work on Arabic materials. He also translated classical and popular Arabic literature into Swedish and was known as a distinguished lecturer. His main scholarly contributions, however, were in the field of Syriac. With his research on the Syriac grammar of Bar ʿEbroyo and on ‘The Book of the Ḥimyarites’ (see Ḥimyar ), he became famous as a Syriac scholar whose achievements continue to play a role in contemporary Syriac scholarship.

One of Moberg’s main contributions was his study of the Syriac grammar of Bar ʿEbroyo. Between 1907 and 1913 he translated the text into German along with text-critical notes (2 vols.). In 1922, he expanded his studies in this field by producing a complete critical edition of the Syriac text based on a wide range of mss. Bar ʿEbroyo’s grammar is a pioneering work in which the author seeks to regenerate Syriac grammar by using the methods and the terminology of the classical Arabic grammarians.

In the spring of 1920, Moberg was asked to examine a Syriac ms. containing a collection of well-known liturgies. More interesting were the fragments in the boards of the volume that consisted of portions of much older mss. Having taken out, cleaned, and treated the leaves in the boards of the ms., Moberg discovered that most of them belonged to a work on the Ḥimyarite martyrs of Nagran . In 1924, Moberg published an edition, translation, and study of these fragments, which shed new light on the history of South Arabia in the 6th cent. This study is the one most connected to Moberg’s name and the one that has had the most lasting influence on other scholarly research.

Select publications by Moberg Buch der Strahlen. Die grössere Grammatik des Barhebräus. Übersetzung nach einem kritisch berichtigten Texte mit textkritischem Apparat und einem Anhang: Zur Terminologie (2 vols.; 1907–13). Le livre des splendeurs. La grande grammaire de Grégoire Barhebraeus. Texte syriaque édité d’après les manuscrits avec une introduction et des notes (1922). The Book of the Himyarites. Fragments of a hitherto unknown Syriac work (1924). Secondary Sources G.  Vitestam, ‘Moberg, Carl Axel’, Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon 25 (1985–87), 574–6.
Bo Holmberg