Sebastian Paul Brock FBA (born 1938, London) is a British scholar, university professor, and specialist in the field of academic studies of Classical Syriac language and Classical Syriac literature. His research also encompasses various aspects of cultural history of Syriac Christianity. He is generally acknowledged as one of the foremost academics in the field of Syriac studies, and one of the most prominent scholars in the wider field of Aramaic studies.^[1][2]

Education

Brock studied at Eton College, and completed his BA degree in Classics and Oriental Languages (Hebrew and Aramaic) at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. In 1966, he became Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford.

Career

Brock was Assistant Lecturer, and then Lecturer, at the University of Birmingham (Department of Theology) from 1964 to 1967. He continued his academic career as Lecturer in Hebrew, and then Lecturer in Hebrew and Aramaic, at the University of Cambridge, from 1967 to 1974. He was Lecturer in Aramaic and Syriac, and then Reader in Syriac Studies, at the University of Oxford's Oriental Institute, from 1974 to 2003. Since 2003, he has been Emeritus Reader in Syriac Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford.^[3][4]

Brock is one of the main reviewers of the Antioch Bible, a 21st-century English translation of the Peshitta.^[5]

Affiliations and recognition

Brock is a Fellow of the British Academy. He is the recipient of a number of honorary doctorates, holding the PhD Honoris Causa at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris. Brock has been awarded the Medal of Saint Ephrem the Syrian by the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, and the Leverhulme Medal of the British Academy (2009).^[6]

Personal life

Brock is married to Helen Hughes-Brock, an archaeologist specialising in Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece. He is a patron of the Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius.