ABSTRACT
Already we have had occasion to review some of the contacts of Syrian Christians with Arabs, all of the latter living north of that line between Aqabah and Basra which tends to mark the northern limit of what we now understand as Arabia. Such an understanding sells far short what was accepted as 'Arabia' in the time span which concerns us in this volume. Arabs lived in those border areas almost to Damascus in the west and as far north as Kurdistan and Nisibis in the east, as well as south to Yemen. Indeed the chief city of northern Mesopotamia, Nisibis, lay in an area referred to as 'the land of the Arabs'. And when we are told that after his conversion St. Paul went to 'Arabia' (see Galatians 1:17) it was probably to a district south of Damascus where he was unlikely to meet Jews.
