Browse results
Abstract
This article offers an inaugural analysis of the Septuagint manuscript Rahlfs 516 (Codex Athous Lavra 149), a codex of the libri sapientiales from the second half of the tenth century, previously misdated and overlooked in Septuagint editions. The manuscript contains five Wisdom books of the Septuagint: Job, Sirach, a prologue to the book of Proverbs, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticum. This manuscript, distinguished for its Hexaplaric readings in Job and its extensive parallels with Ra 248 and Ra 161, presents attributions to the Jewish revisers Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. The analysis of this manuscript reveals interesting variants and a novel Symmachus reading in Job 1:6c, as well as a Symmachus attestation in Job 1:16b and a new Hexaplaric reading for Job 15:21b. This study accentuates the imperative of integrating Ra 516 into scholarly discourse and shows its significance for future research.
Abstract
The pericope of David’s heroes is a scholarly junction of textual variation and literary-historical details regarding the military unit of David’s Heroes. This article reevaluates the spectrum of extant textual variants relating to the literary structure of this pericope in its two occurrences, at 2 Sam 23:8–39 and 1 Chr 11:11–47, with emphasis on the question of “warriors of the third rank,” with the aim of arriving at a better understanding of the structure of both the literary pericope and the military unit it describes. The textual reevaluation leads to the conclusion that, contrary to the preferred status of MT-Samuel in leading literary-historical studies, readings extant in other versions are to be preferred, while unique MT-Samuel readings, and the historiographical information they reflect, should be understood as either corruptions, reflections of a secondary tradition, or interpretation.
Abstract
Were there any so-called “variants” in the scrolls? The assumption of contact between any two scrolls has been inferred from corrective additions and deletions. It has usually been claimed that corrections were based on MT. I divide the scrolls into different groups because in each group there could have been a different incentive for correction towards an external source. The strength of the argument depends on this division. In an analysis of the evidence (see the Appendix) in each of the groups, a different correction pattern was detected, and often the corrections were revised towards a text different from MT. In all these cases, the corrections were not made towards external sources, but the source of the scrolls. Strengthened by theoretical arguments, we suggest that the scrolls contain no notations of variants, that is, elements that were copied as variants from other scrolls or were corrected according to external sources.
Abstract
This article presents a fresh transcription of Codex Climaci Rescriptus I, a Christian Palestinian Aramaic manuscript from the Early Period (ca. 6th century), containing parts of Matthew’s Gospel and Mark’s Gospel. The transcription has been made from high resolution multi-spectral images. In addition, an extended introduction examines the codicology of the manuscript and its paratextual features.
Abstract
Free indirect discourse (FID) is a literary, or narrative device which allows access to the thoughts and feelings of a protagonist, from his or her own perspective. FID is formally viewed as lying on the scale between indirect discourse (ID) and direct discourse (DD). It is non-embedded, consisting of a blend of features, few intrinsic to ID, while the rest are associated with DD. The paper aims to discuss the nature of the FID phenomenon in North Eastern Neo-Aramaic, based on folktales told in the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho, while paying close attention to the wider context, and more specifically, to the discourse type surrounding FID.
Abstract
This article examines poems dedicated to the martyr Qūryāqōs by the eminent East Syriac poet and patriarch ʿAḇdīšōʿ of Gāzartā (d. 1570). For the first time the peculiarities of these works and their place in the development of Syriac poetry are examined. Additionally, a critical edition and translation of one of the poems, the turgāmā, is given, based on available manuscripts. A special place in the article is given to the correlation of the poetic texts under consideration with the prose versions of the hagiography of this martyr, which was used as a source by ʿAḇdīšōʿ of Gāzartā.
Abstract
In this article I describe two manuscripts of Targum Chronicles that, for different reasons, were not used in editions and studies of this rare Targum. First, manuscript Berlin, SB Or. fol. 4, Bible with a complete set of Targums. I analyse its textual character and point out its resemblance to manuscript Berlin, SB Or. fol. 1210–1211 (a.k.a. Erfurt 1). And second, manuscript Dresden, SLUB, A.46. Thought to have been lost during the Second World War, the manuscript is in fact partly legible and supplies an important additional witness for the last chapters, at least, of Targum Chronicles. Based on this newly available data I demonstrate the complexity of the textual traditions of Targum Chronicles and the need for a re-evaluation of its transmission and reception.
Abstract
The land of Wetenet is one of the most enduring Red Sea placenames mentioned in Egyptian literature. Its place in the Egyptian conceptual map of the Red Sea has been largely ignored due to it being eclipsed by the much more ubiquitous toponym, Punt. Unlike Punt and its aromatics, Wetenet was visited primarily to secure ebony, with these voyages also providing the stimulus or “field notes” for the elucidating the Eastern Souls, the solar baboons of cosmographic literature. A study of the etymology and geography of this land provides a framework for Wetenet’s possible location, namely in the coastal regions of Sudan or Eritrea.