[1][2] Besides publishing original articles, travel guides and phrasebooks in English and German, and broadcasting in Arabic, Stephan also produced several translations of books and inscriptions, utilizing his fluency in all these languages, as well as Ottoman Turkish and Syriac.

[3] Educated at the Schneller School, a German Protestant orphanage that operated in Jerusalem, he worked for the Mandatory Palestine authorities, first in the Treasury, and then in the Department of Antiquities.

[7] It was featured in The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society (JPOS), and the biblical scholar and philologist William Foxwell Albright called Stephan "a young man of promise".

[8] The research and contributions of these mostly Jerusalemite Palestinians was motivated by their belief that the "native culture of Palestine", best represented in the ancient "living heritage" and traditions of the fellaheen, had to be urgently documented in the face of encroaching "colonialism and modernity".

Mara'a ("Woman"), published by Cairo-based Sarkis magazine,[13] named after the Lebanese family who founded it, was addressed to the Arab world and a contribution to the debates generated by the Nahda, where Stephan argued for gender equality as a means to national development in all fields.

[5] While working at the Department of Antiquities, he co-authored papers with Dimitri Baramki and published other articles and translations of Ottoman documents and inscriptions from Jerusalem in their Quarterly.

His signing of articles under the European sounding name of "St H Stephan" may have been a deliberate reaction to those circumstances, and is the source of misattributions of some his works to other authors.

Albright gave input to its composition, and the vocabulary included indicates it was aimed at visiting archaeological students, as well as foreign officials, tourists, and merchants.