Browse results

Volume 24 of the Israel Oriental Studies Annual includes eight articles. The Ancient Near Eastern section consists of five articles. Four deal with Hittite and Anatolian subjects (Burgin, Gilan, Cohen and Hawkins); one discusses the “Laws of Hazor” text fragment and its relationship to other cuneiform law collections (Darabi). The Semitic section includes three articles. The first is the second instalment of Etymogical Investigations on Jibbali/Śḥerέt Anthroponyms (Castagna). The second article is a discussion of the relationship between Ethiopian Semitic languages and ancient Egyptian (Cerqueglini). Sealing the Semitic section and volume 24 is a study of spoken Ashkenazic Hebrew among Hassidic communities (Yampolskaya et al.).
Volume Editor:
This book spins around the convening idea of variability to offer fourteen new views into the Pyramid and Coffin Texts and related materials that overarch archaeology, philology, linguistics, writing studies, religious studies and social history by applying innovative approaches such as agency, politeness, material philology and object-based studies, and under a strong empirical focus. In this book, you will find from a previously unpublished coffin or a reinterpretation of the so-called ‘Letters to the Dead’ to graffiti’s interaction with monumental inscriptions, ‘subatomic’ studies in the spellings of the Osiris’ name or the puzzles of text transmission, among other novel topics.
Studia Semitica Neerlandica comprises of studies on the linguistics and literature of one the Semitic languages or the Semitic languages as a whole. Studies on texts written in one of the Semitic languages or texts that deal with the history and culture of groups speaking a Semitic language also fall within the scope of this series.

Free access
In: Textus

Abstract

A curious phenomenon that is attested in the Ugaritic texts, elsewhere in the ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, medieval texts, and beyond is a scribal practice I call sans érasure, a case in which a scribe leaves an error uncorrected and proceeds to write or copy the correct letter, word, line, or verse following the error. In this article, a number of rather clear examples are adduced from the Ugaritic texts, and a number of examples from the Hebrew Bible are proposed. Several of these cases would seem to be recognized in the Masoretic tradition in instances of ‮לא קרי‬‎ (written but not read). Some of the biblical examples resolve longstanding philological cruxes. Among the examples are several from the book of Job and the last verse in Lamentations. An explanation for the practice is suggested.

Full Access
In: Textus

Abstract

The presence of συνοικέω in LXX Deut 22:13 does not account for the verb in the MT (‮בּוֹא אֶל‬‎), especially given how systematic Greek translators were in rendering this Hebrew expression, even in its sexual meaning, into verbs of movement. The existing scholarly literature has tended to overlook this discrepancy between the LXX and the MT. Attention has been paid primarily to the disagreement between the latter and the corresponding quotation in the Temple Scroll (11Q19). This article refutes the arguments that take for granted the deliberate change of MTוּבָא אֵלֶיהָ‬‎ into ‮ובעלה‬‎ by the author of the Temple Scroll and proves that the oddity of the Greek translation is preferably explained by the hypothesis of a Hebrew Vorlage common to the LXX and the Temple Scroll and distinct from the MT. Additionally, this article offers another case of textual variation—albeit in postbiblical literature—between sexual ‮בּוֹא אל‬‎ and ‮בָּעַל‬‎.

Full Access
In: Textus
Author:

Abstract

In the previous installment of Textus, Yehonatan Wormser acutely argued that the so-called dagesh lene in the standard Tiberian tradition was pronounced as a geminate consonant, effectively neutralising the distinction between lene and forte. This he did by invoking the “principle of economy” and comparing the dagesh to the shewa, as well as by drawing evidence from Karaite transcriptions and non-standard Tiberian manuscripts. I argue that his claim is not supported by his evidence: the transcriptions and non-standard manuscripts do not reflect the mainstream Tiberian tradition, but rather a late development; and the principle of economy does not apply in the cases of complementary distribution. Wormser’s analogy between dagesh and shewa is also addressed.

Full Access
In: Textus
Prayer in the Ancient World is the resource on prayer in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. With over 350 entries it showcases 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 Prayer in the Ancient World will also be available online.

Preview of the 'Prayer in the Ancient World’, 2022
This book investigates archaisms and innovations in Tocharian nominal morphology: it provides a comprehensive treatment of the morphology of Tocharian grammatical gender, describing how it historically derived from the Indo-European proto-language and why it typologically deviates from most of the other Indo-European languages. The approach is both synchronic and diachronic, with a heavier focus on diachrony. The volume features a thorough study of a large number of nominal classes and pronominal forms, which are analysed from a derivational and an inflectional point of view in order to clarify their origin and development from the perspective of Indo-European comparative reconstruction. With its wide coverage of intricate phonological and morphological patterns, The Tocharian Gender System is an important contribution to the study of Tocharian nominal morphology as a whole.
In: The Tocharian Gender System