Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic) Video Resources

I just discovered two videos that Endangered Language Alliance Toronto uploaded last year on the Ge'ez language (classical Ethiopic).

The first one, Ge'ez conversation, has a nine minute conversation between M.H. Haregewoin and Fisseha Tadesse in Ge'ez!  It includes subtitles in Ge'ez and English translation.  This is a great resource if you want to learn how Ge'ez is pronounced.

The second one, Ge'ez: Life of a Dead Language, is a seven minute documentary with Fisseha Tadesse on the Ge'ez language.  It includes some readings of Ge'ez, and some discussion of how the language continues to be studied and live on as a liturgical and literary language.

These are two really fantastic resources.  If you have interest in learning more about Ge'ez, feel free to check out my resource page.

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.

Ethiopic Jubilees Reading Guide: 11:1-10/The Rise of Civilization

Reading Guide

I've been working on a project involving Ethiopic Jubilees and thought I'd make a little of the data available for those who are learning Ge'ez.  I've put together a little reading guide for Jub. 11:1-10, that exciting bit of the book that talks about the beginnings of civilization after the flood.  It turns out that it didn't take long for humans to start killing, enslaving, and oppressing each other.  The reading guide has a list of all of the Ge'ez vocabulary for this section, as well as English glosses and the page reference for the appropriate entry in Leslau's concise lexicon.  I also included a few bullet points that point you to parts of Lambdin or Leslau that will help in translating the text.

You can access the reading guide here.

Happy translating!

iTunes U: Courses in Classics and Biblical Studies

Every time class registration rolled around I would pore over the course listings for the many different departments at the university, wishing I had an endless amount of electives I could take.  Now with things like iTunes U I can sit in on lectures in some of those classes outside of my major that I just wasn't able to fit into my degree program, whether its psychology, history, or physics.  This interdisciplinary online buffet also includes some good resources in my areas of focus, the ancient world and religious studies.  Below are a few that you might want to check out.  I've broken them down into four categories: (1) Biblical Studies, (2) Ancient Greece, (3) Rome, and (4) Religious Studies.  When you're done with all of these, why not move on to learn about Quantum Mechanics?

Biblical Studies

RLST 145: Introduction to the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)

Christine Hayes

Open Yale course

[Check out Hayes' openyalecourses book Introduction to the Bible)

The Hebrew Scriptures in Judaism and Christianity

Shaye J.D. Cohen

Harvard, iTunes U

RLST 152: Introduction to the New Testament History and Literature

Dale B. Martin

Open Yale course 

[Check out Martin's openyalecourses book New Testament History and Literature)

Historical Jesus

Stanford, iTunes U

Beginning Hebrew: Ruth

Steven Schweitzer

AMBS, iTunes U

The Basics of New Testament Textual Criticism

Daniel B. Wallace

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, iTunes U

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece: Myth, Art, War

Gillian Shepherd

LaTrobe, iTunes U

Ancient Greece: City and Society

Gillian Shepherd

LaTrobe, iTunes U

Ancient Handwriting

Medical doctors are not the only ones with bad handwriting.
If you've studied any languages that use a non-roman script, then you may have had your own handwriting let-downs.  You look at the perfectly printed letters in a critical edition or the breathtaking artistry of a scribe in a particularly nice manuscript, and then you go to scribble down a line or two of your own and it looks like -- well, scribbles.

What if we saw learning to write well as part of the process of acquiring an ancient language?  What if we saw it as a way of more fully appreciating the language and perhaps gaining a better understanding of the ancient scribes who copied all of this wonderful stuff for us?

If this is something that interests you, then you might check out The World Encyclopedia of Calligraphy: the Ultimate Compendium on the Art of Fine Writing.  It is an attractive volume with lots of colour photographs.  It offers some introductory information on the art of calligraphy before going into detail on some of the world's most interesting calligraphic traditions.  These include: Roman scripts, Cyrilic, Arabic, Indic scripts, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.  For those who study classics and the Judeo-Christian traditions you might be particularly interested in the sections on: Greek, Ashkenazi Hebrew, Sephardi Hebrew, Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew, Syriac, Georgian, and Armenian.  I picked up the book in a public library in order to learn how to write Ge'ez better.  It does have a section on Ethiopic, although it is quite short (2 pages).  I did learn, however, that to write good Ge'ez your pen angle needs to be anywhere from perfectly flat to 10 degrees, a helpful little tip.

If you come across other resources that might be helpful for those wishing to improve their writing of ancient or medieval scripts, please post them in the comment section below!  Learn World Calligraphy is a title that come up in my searches, but I have not gotten my hands on it yet.

"Deformity and Disability in Greece and Rome."

Nicole Kelley's essay "Deformity and Disability in Greece and Rome," which is part of the edited volume This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities and Biblical Studies, offers an interesting and brief engagement with disabilities and deformities in classical antiquity.  She opens by drawing attention to some of the methodological and definitional problems in trying to understand the historical reality of disabled and deformed persons in the ancient world.  Despite the probability that disability and deformity were very common, the evidence is relatively sparse, and portrayals in art and literature may not always reflect social reality.  The ancients also lacked clearly defined categories like "disabled" or "deformed."  Kelley spends the rest of her essay focusing on two figures from Greek mythology: the god Hephaestus, who is often portrayed as congenitally lame, and Teiresias, the blind prophet.

In her discussion of Hephaestus she gives attention to other sources that address congenital disabilities and deformities, including evidence that idealizes the exposure or elimination of infants who are deemed unfit.  Whether or not these texts reflect actual practice remains an open question.  She also discusses the role of deformed people in entertainment, mentioning, among other things, the evidence that deformed persons were kept as pets in the Roman world and sold in "monster markets."  Kelley's treatment of Hephaestus closes by mentioning the economic prospects of disabled persons, noting that there is evidence that their economic outlook "was not necessarily bleak or characterized by utter dependence on family and friends" (41).      

Disability and Eschatology: Resources in the Hebrew Prophets

One of the ways that communities can challenge ableism is to self-critically reflect on how disability fits into our conceptions of Utopia.  In our idealized visions of the world, are there persons with disabilities?  How we answer this question can reveal a lot about our attitudes towards disability, and can shape the way we engage related issues in our world.  Recently I have been giving some attention to the issue of disability and eschatology, looking in particular at Judeo-Christian visions of idealized or restored futures from a disability justice perspective.  There are of course plenty of eschatological imaginings, both ancient and modern, which leave no room for disability, but rather envision the elimination of persons with disability or their transformation so that they conform to ableist assumptions about ideal bodies/minds.  From a constructive perspective, I personally think it is important for both secular and religious communities to develop eschatological visions which continue to include persons with disabilities, but have social orders in which all are granted equal access and dignity.  So, one of the things I have been doing is looking for examples, particularly in ancient texts, that can be interacted with in constructing these kinds of eschatologies in western worldviews.  Here are a few interesting examples from the Hebrew prophets:

"Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who is in travail, together; a great company, they shall return here.  With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born" (Jeremiah 31:8-9).     

"In that day, says the LORD, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away, and those whom I have afflicted; and the lame I will make the remnant; and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and for evermore" (Micah 4:6-7).

"Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.  At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you together; yea, I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes,” says the LORD" (Zephaniah 3:19-20).

Midrash Vayissa'u

My copy of the much anticipated Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures came in the mail this week.  The book is a buffet of fascinating texts, but I was especially excited to see Martha Himmelfarb's introduction and translation of Midrash Vayissa'u (or Wayiaasa'u) (143-159).  This is a text I have been working with in my thesis research and I have been startled that more English language scholarship has not been devoted to it.  I am hoping that Himmelfarb's contribution encourages further research on this fascinating work.  Her translation of the war with the Ninevites is particularly important, as this tradition has been largely overlooked.   

Midrash Vayissa'u is familiar to students of both the Testament of Judah and the Book of Jubilees, since it preserves traditions about Jacob and his sons' wars with the Amorites and the Edomites that parallel the accounts in these two earlier works.  While I do not think we can rule out some form of influence by Jubilees or the Testament of Judah on this medieval composition (I think this influence was indirect), it seems to be primarily dependent on sources/traditions that it shares in common with Jubilees and the Testament.  This means that despite its later date it can give us insights into texts and traditions that existed in the Hellenistic period, making it interesting not only for those who study medieval Jewish literature, but students of Second Temple Judaism as well. 

If extracanonical traditions about wars between the Israelite ancestors and their neighbors is something you find interesting, then give Midrash Vayissa'u a read.  Himmelfarb's introduction and translation are now the best place to start, and if you are interested in digging further you might check out some of these sources as well.

Primary sources:
A PDF of Lauterbach's edition of the Hebrew text, including handwritten notes, is available here.

Harm W. Hollander and Marinus de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary, 451-456.  Another English translation of Midrash Wayissa'u.  There is also translation and commentary on Testament of Judah's version earlier in the volume.

Gaston's introduction to and translation of the text in the Chronicle of Jehrameel. 

English translations and introductions to the Testament of Judah and Jubilees can be found in Charlesworth's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

A critical Greek text of Testament of Judah can be found in Marinus de Jonge's The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text. 

James C. VanderKam's critical edition has the versional texts and English translation of Jubilees.

A GRE Quantitative Prep Strategy

I have not had time to post much of interest here lately, as I've been using any spare time to study like a madman for the GRE.  But I thought I'd take a very short break to share one of the preparation strategies I have been using, in case others find it helpful.  Even though modern test prep has nothing to do with the ancient world and might be an odd fit for this blog, it is relevant for those of us who want to study the ancient world in graduate programs!

For some of us in the humanities the quantitative reasoning portion of the GRE can pose a challenge, unless you are that rare person who majored in philosophy and minored in mathematics.  Here is a strategy that I have been finding helpful:

(1) Manhattan Prep offers a number of GRE resources, including 6 full online practice tests.  You can take one for free and buying one of their test prep books gives you access to the other 5.  ETS, the company behind the GRE, has two practice tests of their own.  Taking these tests is a great way to get a feel for the kinds of problems that show up on the GRE and the amount of time you have to work through them.  It is also a great way to identify your weaknesses.  After taking these tests I go back through and look at which problems I got wrong, read the explanations, and do them again the right way.

(2) Sometimes I get a quantitative question wrong because of a silly mistake.  But sometimes it is because I am a bit fuzzy on the mathematical concepts needed to answer it.  In these cases I have been making use of Khan Academy.   Several friends recommended I check this site out, and it has proved very helpful.  There are video tutorials on arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and just about anything else you will encounter on the GRE.  If I don't understand a concept that comes up on the practice test I go to Khan, search for the video that addresses it, and then perform the practice problems they provide on the website.

This two phase approach of reviewing missed questions on the practice test followed by some time watching the relevant resources at Khan Academy has helped me bump my quantitative score up a few points in the practice tests.  Consider giving it a try!      

Glottolog: A Great Source for Ancient Language Bibliography

A friend recently brought Glottolog.org to my attention.  It is a world language reference website that includes some really helpful bibliographies.  Each language is assigned a unique "glottocode" and is organized according to its language family.  The entries for each glottocode include bibliographies for that language.  A few that might be particularly interesting to you:

geez1241 (Ge'ez)

lati1261 (Latin)

anci1242 (Greek)

anci1244 (Ancient Hebrew)

sama1313 (Samaritan)

ugar1238 (Ugaritic)

aram1259 (Aramaic; with further sub-categories of Eastern Aramaic, Western Aramaic, and Old Aramaic, and those sub-categories are broken down even further into categories like Mandaic)

clas1252 (Classical Syriac)

Review: "Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."

Since the Torah portion for this week is Lech Lechah, which begins with the calling of Abram, I thought it would be an appropriate time to post a brief review of Jon D. Levenson's fascinating new book on Abraham.  

In an age of ecumenism and interfaith dialogue Abraham is often touted as a source of unity and fraternity among western religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all of which are called "Abrahamic faiths."  But while Jews, Christians, and Muslims all cherish father Abraham, they have distinct traditions and sources that they use to understand the patriarch.  Thus Abraham can actually illustrate the differences between the faiths as much as, or perhaps more than, he can serve as a source of unity.  In his Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam Jon D. Levenson questions the idea of Abraham as a unifier by exploring the different ways these western faiths have received and understood the patriarch, with particular attention given to Abraham in the Jewish tradition.  

At its heart Inheriting Abraham is a fascinating work on the history of interpretation that also raises important questions about the nature of religious traditions and contemporary interfaith dialogue.  Levenson gives a good deal of attention to what the book of Genesis tells us about Abraham.  But along the way he emphasizes that the book of Genesis by itself cannot tell us what Abraham has meant and continues to mean for the Abrahamic faith communities.  For Muslims Genesis is not canonical, so it is actually the Qur'an that provides the primary source for understanding Abraham's significance.  While Jews and Christians do consider Genesis canonical, both faiths have additional traditions about the patriarch that shape their understanding.  The Protestant impulses ingrained in our culture might urge us to get behind these traditions to the "real" Abraham, but the figure that we would end up with would not be the Abraham who is meaningful to Jews, Christians, or Muslims.  And how can an Abraham who is foreign to these faith traditions or which privileges one tradition's methods or sources over another foster real unity or dialogue?  In his conclusion Levenson argues: