An Introduction to Classical Ethiopic for Students of Early Judaism and Christianity

Ge'ez (classical Ethiopic) is one of those languages that many students of early Jewish and Christian literature know is important, and would like to be able to work with to some extent, but which remains a bit inaccessible.  Formal classes in Ge'ez are rarely offered. While there are good grammars in English, German, and Italian, they don't always offer the easiest entryway into Ge'ez for the autodidact or for the classroom.

One project I have been working on is writing an introductory Ge'ez grammar which is meant to be a stepping-stone into the language and is specifically designed with students of early Jewish and Christian literature in mind. The intended audience includes those focusing on the so-called Pseudepigrapha, as well as those working on the textual criticism and textual history of "biblical" literature. It will naturally also be useful for those who are interested in learning Ge'ez in order to interact with other important Ethiopic texts. After working through the grammar readers will have a good, basic understanding of the language, and be equipped to start engaging relevant texts, tools, and resources. Those who want to go deeper with the language could then continue on to more extensive resources, like Lambdin, Dillmann, or Tropper.

A few of the features of the grammar:

• Paradigms and examples presented both in the Ethiopic script and in transliteration.
• Footnotes indicating where more extensive discussions can be found in works like Lambdin, Dillmann, Tropper, and Weninger.
• Extensive exercises with helps, notes, and commentary so that from the beginning one is working through texts.
• Vocabulary, exercises, and examples drawn primarily from Jubilees, 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and "biblical" texts like Daniel, Ezekiel, Matthew, and Acts.
• Info boxes that point out common features (especially orthographic variation) that one will encounter in manuscripts.
• Tips and "tricks" for recognizing forms.

If there are features that you personally would find helpful in a grammar like this, please let me know!

Ethiopic Jubilees Reading Guide: The Creation, Part I

I've added another reading/vocabulary guide for Ethiopic Jubilees, based on the data from the concordance I'm creating for the book (which is coming along!).  You can download it here.  From my Academia.edu profile you can also download two other Jubilees reading guides and one for Ethiopic 1 Enoch.

Ethiopic Jubilees Reading Guide: The Aqedah, 17:15-18:16

I've uploaded another Ethiopic Jubilees reading guide based on my concordance data.  This one lists all of the vocabulary for Jubilees' version of the Aqedah, the near-sacrifice of Isaac.  I haven't included any grammatical or syntactical notes on this one -- I may create some separate documents/resources with those later on.

Jubilees 17:15-18:16 offers a fascinating take on the famous story from Genesis 22, which includes a Job-esque challenge from Prince Mastema (a Satan figure) and the early Jewish tradition that Abraham underwent (and passed) a series of divine tests.  You can access the vocabulary guide here.  Also feel free to check out the previous reading guide for Jub. 11:1-10.

Happy translating!

Getting Wrapped up in the Story: A Molasses Slow Reading of the Text

There are a lot of ways to read a text.  Over the last two weeks I have been concording (making a concordance -- if "concording" wasn't a verb before, it is now) a portion of Ethiopic Jubilees.  This work involves going through the Ge'ez word by word, prefixed preposition and conjunction by prefixed preposition and conjunction.  While the work should probably be dull and laborious, it's actually been pretty enjoyable.  Part of the enjoyment comes from the fact that Ge'ez is fun (according to one out of one bloggers surveyed), and from the many cool little things one generally discovers when peering behind the English veil to see the original, or in this case versional language of an ancient text.  But I've also found myself enjoying the narrative more.  In particular, I've found myself more emotionally wrapped up in the story.  That's right, it turns out concording is an oddly emotional experience.

I've worked through chapters 11-20, from the beginnings of Abram's life up to the point where he starts talking about the possibility of his death (21:1).  This means I've covered a lot of narrative time (Abe is now 175 years old).  But as is characteristic of much Israelite and early Jewish narrative, that 175 years has taken very little discourse time.  A lot of time in the story world has been condensed into 10 chapters and 250ish verses.  When there's such a disparity between narrative time and discourse time we do not always have the opportunity to become emotionally wrapped up in a story and its characters.  We read about a character's birth and then, after twenty minutes of reading, we read about their death.