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Mapping “I Am” in the Gospel of John
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This book introduces a new methodological framework based on the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics which can examine the linguistic features of the New Testament text. By applying a two-step discourse analysis model that includes a functional-semantic analysis and a rhetorical-relational analysis, this book argues that the twenty-eight occurrences of “I am” in Jesus’s utterances throughout the Gospel of John reinforce John’s portrayal of Jesus’s divinity. In the light of John’s construing of Jesus’s divinity, this new analysis of the Johannine “I am” phrases demonstrates how Johannine Christology is expressed through the narrative of John’s Gospel with various textual characteristics.
The aim of this volume is to re-evaluate some of the temporal, intermedial and geographical boundaries built around the long-established discipline, the study of incunabula.
This volume starts by setting out the past and future landscapes of incunabula studies, looking particularly at copy-specific features. The following chapters use research on specific editions or subjects in order to engage with the two key themes: production and provenance of early books.
By examining a wide range of copy-specific aspects of individual books, the volume showcases how printed books were produced in the fifteenth century and subsequently used and transformed by readers and owners during their long journeys till they fell into their current owners’ hands.
Prayer in the Ancient World (PAW) is an innovative resource on prayer in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. The over 350 entries in PAW showcase a robust selection of the range of different types of prayers attested from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, early Judaism and Christianity, Greece, Rome, Arabia, and Iran, enhanced by critical commentary.
The project illustrates the variety of ways human beings have sought to communicate with or influence beings with extraordinary superhuman power for millennia. By including diverse examples such as vows and oaths, blessings, curses, incantations, graffiti, iconography, and more, PAW casts a wide net. In so doing, PAW privileges no particular tradition or conception of how to interact with the divine; for example, the project refuses to perpetuate a value distinction between “prayer,” “magic,” and “cursing.”

Detailed overviews introduce each area and address key issues such as language and terminology, geographical distribution, materiality, orality, phenomenology of prayer, prayer and magic, blessings and curses, and ritual settings and ritual actors. In order to be as comprehensive as practically possible, the volume includes a representative prayer of every attested type from each tradition.

Individual entries include a wealth of information. Each begins with a list of essential details, including the source, region, date, occasion, type and function, performers, and materiality of the prayer. Next, after a concise summary and a brief synopsis of the main textual witnesses, a formal description calls attention to the exemplar’s literary and stylistic features, rhetorical structure, important motifs, and terminology. The occasions when the prayer was used and its function are analyzed, followed by a discussion of how this exemplar fits within the range of variation of this type of prayer practice, both synchronically and diachronically. Important features of the prayer relevant for cross-cultural comparison are foregrounded in the subsequent section. Following an up-to-date translation, a concise yet detailed commentary provides explanations necessary for understanding the prayer and its function. Finally, each entry concludes with a bibliography of essential primary and secondary resources for further study.
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Scholarship surrounding the standard varieties of Ancient Greek (Attic, the Koine, and Atticistic Greek) focused from its beginnings until relatively recently on determining fixed uniformities or differences between them. This collection of essays advocates for understanding them as interconnected and continuously evolving and suggests viewing them as living organisms shaped by their speakers and texts. The authors propose approaches that integrate linguistics, sociolinguistics, and literary studies to explore how speakers navigate linguistic norms and social dynamics, leading to innovations and reshaping of standards. Each contribution challenges the dichotomy between standards and deviations, suggesting that studying linguistic diversity through socio-literary interconnectedness can enrich our understanding of language history and cultural wealth.
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Abstract

This chapter examines the usage of the dual in the corpus of Aristophanes and aims to determine firstly that the usage of the dual is a genuine product of Aristophanes’ text, rather than a later addition from Atticist or Byzantine scribes. It then analyses the usage of the dual within the plays, quantitatively analysing possible influencing factors before determining the importance of animacy as a driving factor.

Open Access
In: Redefining the Standards in Attic, Koine, and Atticism

Abstract

The chapter discusses the earliest evidence for the “speaking Attic” (ἀττικίζειν) in Classical Greek and looks in particular at passages from fifth century BCE comedy. Eupolis fr. 99 PCG is chosen as a special case study in which the correct speaking of the Attic language or Attic behaviour on stage is evaluated. It is argued that Old Attic comedy contributed in a special way to the anchoring of Attic as standard Greek. On the one hand, Attic playwrights used the local dialect and thus behaved “normally”. On the other hand, the characters on stage speak in non-Attic languages for different reasons, so that the audience experiences linguistic diversity in the theatre. Through the vivid and distorted embodiment of this ongoing process on stage, comic playwrights have shaped a significant part of this linguistic diversity.

Open Access
In: Redefining the Standards in Attic, Koine, and Atticism

Abstract

The presence of Xenophon in the paideia of the Imperial age has been well established. The works of Dio of Prusa and Arrian have already showed the success of Xenophon’s literature in this period. However, if, according to the Suda, he deserved to be called “Attic bee”, reservations about the Attic purity of Xenophon’s language have been expressed since ancient times, namely in Atticist lexicography. Nevertheless, the fact that a severe Atticist like the orator Ælius Aristides often chose to imitate Xenophon, suggests that this classical author must have been considered as a pure Attic model. Certainly, the Atticism of Aristide is not just linguistic as it shows the presence of a wider archaism. His Leuctran Speeches and his Panathenaicus reuse many expressions and themes that come from Xenophon’s different works.

This chapter presents some cases of linguistic and literary reception of Xenophon in the works of Aristides, which can provide new evidence for the debate on Xenophon’s “controversial” inclusion in the Attic canon.

Open Access
In: Redefining the Standards in Attic, Koine, and Atticism
In: Redefining the Standards in Attic, Koine, and Atticism
Author:

Abstract

While the concepts of ‘standard’ and ‘Koine’ have become central in current discussions of language variation and change in the Classical and especially Post-classical periods, they are surrounded by confusion. In this contribution, I propose to supplement a Koine/standard-based approach by focusing on linguistic norms: while linguistic norms have received some attention in current scholarly work, the different methods to retrieve them have not been explicitly compared, and they have not been based on a firm theoretical understanding of the concept of ‘norm’. On the basis of a new norm typology, I show that the different methods that can be used to retrieve linguistic norms do not overlap: they retrieve different types of norms. Rather than preferring one approach over the other, I suggest that future research may invest in a combined approach.

Open Access
In: Redefining the Standards in Attic, Koine, and Atticism
Author:

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the metalanguage used in the Atticist lexica and the types of linguistic labels that the lexicographers used to describe the language of Menander. In particular, I focus on the label Ἀλεξανδρεωτικός and its association with Menander’s language. The analysis of the lexicographers’ critique of Menander’s phonology, morphology and syntax and the association between Menander and certain chronological (i.e. νέα Ἀτθίς, νεώτεροι) and geographical labels (i.e., Ἀσιανός, Ἀλεξανδρεωτικός) give us insights into the lexicographers’ understanding of language varieties and the process of language change and reveal the positioning of the Atticist lexicographers towards the interactions between Attic and Koine.

Open Access
In: Redefining the Standards in Attic, Koine, and Atticism