Short Questionnaire, an Armenian question-and-answer text that survives in a seventeenth-century manuscript, draws on Armenian parabiblical traditions to systematically explore biblical events from creation to the exodus. The volume includes Michael E. Stone’s translation, extensive commentary, and twenty-seven essays that trace the history of parabiblical concepts and events from the Second Temple and early Christian periods down to the second millennium. Including stories of Satan’s fall from the garden, the raven’s role in Abel’s murder, the burial places of Adam and Eve, and Noah’s fourth son, the book forms a dictionary of Armenian parabiblical traditions for scholars and students interested in reception history in early Judaism and Christianity.

Michael E. Stone taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1966 to 2007, where he was Gail Levin de Nur Professor of Religious Studies and Professor of Armenian Studies. He was awarded the earned, senior doctoral degrees, Doctor of Letters by the University of Melbourne and Doctor of Armenian Studies by the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and he holds an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College. He has been awarded the major Israeli national prize, the Landau Prize for Contribution to the Humanities, and, most recently, the Medal of Gratitude from the President of Armenia for his contributions to the field of Armenology. Now retired, he continues an intensive program of research and writing.