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Armenian Gospel Iconography
The Tradition of the Glajor Gospel
Thomas F. Mathews and Avedis K. Sanjian
Harvard University Press, 1991
This is the first monographic study of a single Armenian manuscript, the Glajor Gospel, a fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript. In addition to critical studies of the iconography of the illuminations, Thomas Mathews and Avedis Sanjian provide the history of the Glajor Gospel and the political and cultural setting in which it was produced, as well as the history of the monastery and school of Glajor. All full-page illuminations from the Gospel are reproduced at their original size, with twenty-four color illustrations.
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The Bible in Greek
Translation, Transmission, and Theology of the Septuagint
Siegfried Kreuzer
SBL Press, 2015
Essential reading for scholars and students

This volume presents English and German papers that give an overview on important stages, developments, and problems of the Septuagint and the research related to it. Four sections deal with the cultural and theological background and beginnings of the Septuagint, the Old Greek and recensions of the text, the Septuagint and New Testament quotations, and a discussion of Papyrus 967 and Codex Vaticanus.

Features:

  • A complete list of Kreuzer’s publications on the text and textual history of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint
  • Criteria for analysis of the Antiochene/Lucianic Text and the Kaige-Recension
  • A close examination of the origins and development of the Septuagint in the context of Alexandrian and early Jewish culture and learning
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The Coming of the King James Gospels
A Collection of the Translators’ Work-in-Progress
Ward S. Allen
University of Arkansas Press, 1994

The Coming of the King James Gospels is a primary publication exploring the handwritten annotations of the Oxford New Testament Company, made as members completed Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Their original edited pages, gathered into one binding as the Bodleian Bishops’ Bible ([1602] b.1), offer us the only known surviving record of their monumental work.

Ward Allen’s painstakingly produced collation of this Bishops’ Bible is available for the first time in acessible visual layout. It allows a reader to study simultaneously the three texts, that of the original Bishops’ Bible, the revisions suggested for the 1602 text, and the final King James version of the Gospels. Rejected readings reveal the reasoning which led to the wording of the final text. Beautifully produced, The Coming of the King James Gospels is now a prime resource for all students of the Bible and the English language.

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Crainte de Dieu, Sagesse et Loi
Aspects théologiques à partir de Si 10,19-11,6
Katharina Lentz
SBL Press, 2020

Peu d'études spécifiques ont été consacrées à Ben Sira 10,19-11,6. Lentz examine le texte en hébreu, grec, syriaque et latin, en essayant d'identifier les différences majeures entre ces versions et leurs orientations fondamentales respectives. Dans cette péricope, elle révèle trois thèmes importants: la crainte de Dieu, la sagesse et la loi. En prenant comme point de départ le thème de la crainte de Dieu dans le Deutéronome, les Psaumes et les Proverbes, Job et Qoheleth en plus de Ben Sira, Lentz examine la relation de ce thème avec la sagesse et la loi. La relation étroite entre la crainte de Dieu, la sagesse et la loi devrait inciter les spécialistes à se demander si celles-ci ne représentent pas trois aspects de la même réalité.

Few specific studies have been devoted to Ben Sira 10:19-11:6. Lentz examines the text in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and Latin, trying to identify the major differences between these versions and their respective fundamental orientations. In this pericope she reveals three important themes: the fear of God, wisdom, and the law. Taking as a point of departure the theme of the fear of God in Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Proverbs, Job, and Qoheleth, in addition to Ben Sira, Lentz examines the relationship of this theme with wisdom and the law. The close relationship between the fear of God, wisdom, and the law should lead scholars to ask if these do not represent three aspects of the same reality.

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Empire and Gender in LXX Esther
Meredith J. Stone
SBL Press, 2018

A new perspective on essential aspects of Esther’s plot and characters for students and scholars

Empire and Gender in LXX Esther foregrounds and highlights empire as the central lens in this provocative new reading of Esther. This book provides a unique synchronic reading of LXX Esther with the Additions, allowing the presence and negotiation of imperial power to be further illuminated throughout the story’s plot. Stone explores and demonstrates how performances of gender are inextricably intertwined with the exertion and negotiation of imperial power portrayed in LXX Esther and offers examples of connections to the range of imperial power experienced by Jewish people during the late Second Temple period.

Features:

  • An exploration of the tenets and methodology of imperial-critical approaches
  • Focused attention to the final form of LXX Esther
  • Construction of early audiences for LXX Esther in first-century BCE Ptolemaic Alexandria and Hasmonean Judea
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Faithful Renderings
Jewish-Christian Difference and the Politics of Translation
Naomi Seidman
University of Chicago Press, 2006
Faithful Renderings reads translation history through the lens of Jewish–Christian difference and, conversely, views Jewish–Christian difference as an effect of translation. Subjecting translation to a theological-political analysis, Seidman asks how the charged Jewish–Christian relationship—and more particularly the dependence of Christianity on the texts and translations of a rival religion—has haunted the theory and practice of translation in the West. 

Bringing together central issues in translation studies with episodes in Jewish–Christian history, Naomi Seidman considers a range of texts, from the Bible to Elie Wiesel’s Night, delving into such controversies as the accuracy of various Bible translations, the medieval use of converts from Judaism to Christianity as translators, the censorship of anti-Christian references in Jewish texts, and the translation of Holocaust testimony. Faithful Renderings ultimately reveals that translation is not a marginal phenomenon but rather a crucial issue for understanding the relations between Jews and Christians and indeed the development of each religious community.
 
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A History of German Jewish Bible Translation
Abigail Gillman
University of Chicago Press, 2018
Between 1780 and 1937, Jews in Germany produced numerous new translations of the Hebrew Bible into German. Intended for Jews who were trilingual, reading Yiddish, Hebrew, and German, they were meant less for religious use than to promote educational and cultural goals. Not only did translations give Jews vernacular access to their scripture without Christian intervention, but they also helped showcase the Hebrew Bible as a work of literature and the foundational text of modern Jewish identity.

This book is the first in English to offer a close analysis of German Jewish translations as part of a larger cultural project. Looking at four distinct waves of translations, Abigail Gillman juxtaposes translations within each that sought to achieve similar goals through differing means. As she details the history of successive translations, we gain new insight into the opportunities and problems the Bible posed for different generations and gain a new perspective on modern German Jewish history.
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Jewish Fictional Letters from Hellenistic Egypt
The Epistle of Aristeas and Related Literature
L. Michael White
SBL Press, 2017

The first Greek text of the Epistle of Aristeas published in more than a century

The Greek text Epistle of Aristeas is a Jewish work of the late Hellenistic period that recounts the origins of the Septuagint. Long recognized as a literary fiction, the Epistle of Aristeas has been variously dated from the third century BCE to the first century CE. As a result, its epistolary features, and especially those in which the putative author, Aristeas, addresses his brother and correspondent, Philocrates, have largely been ignored. In light of more recent scholarship on epistolary literature in the Greco-Roman world, however, this volume presents for the first time a complete Greek text and English Translation with introduction, notes, and commentary of the Epistle of Aristeas with key testimonia from Philo, Josephus, and Eusebius, as well as other related examples of Jewish fictional letters from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.

Features

  • Relevant excerpts from Eupolemus, 2 Maccabees, 3 Maccabees, and the Greek Additions to Esther with translations and introductions
  • A critical introduction to ancient Greek letter-writing
  • An outline of epistolary features in the text
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L'influence de l'arameen sur les traducteurs de la LXX principalement sur les traducteurs grecs poste
Anne-Françoise Loiseau
SBL Press, 2016

Further your understanding of the methods and peculiarities of the ancient Greek translators and revisers of the Hebrew Bible

Loiseau presents examples of Greek translations of verses from the Hebrew Bible that clearly illustrate the influence of Aramaic or Late Hebrew on the semantics of the Septuagint translators. The author postulates that the Greek translators based their translations on Hebrew-Aramaic equivalents maintained as lists or even on proto-targumim such as those found at Qumran, both predecessors of the later Aramaic targumic translations. Loiseau's examples provide convincing explanations for different coincidences occurring between the Greek translations and the interpretative traditions found in the targumim and help elucidate a number of puzzling translations where two Aramaic words that are very similar graphically or phonetically were erroneously interchanged.

Features

  • Unique insight into ancient Jewish exegesis
  • English summary
  • The first extensive illustration of the influence of the Aramaic or Late Hebrew on the Septuagint
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LXX Isaiah 24
1-26:6 as Interpretation and Translation: A Methodological Discussion
Wilson de Angelo Cunha
SBL Press, 2014

Explore how interpretation affects translation

In this volume Cunha argues that the differences found between the Septuagint text of Isaiah and the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text must be weighed against the literary context in which they are found. The author demonstrates that LXX Isa 24:1–26:6 can be seen as a coherent ideological composition that differs greatly from the way scholars have interpreted MT Isa 24:1–26:6. This coherence comes across through the use of certain lexemes and conjunctions throughout the passage. The book lays the case that a scribe or translator already had an interpretation before he started the process of translation that shaped his translation of the Hebrew text into Greek.

Features:

  • An introduction sketching the history of research on LXX Isa 24:1–26:6
  • A focused comparision of the Masoretic Text to the Septuagint
  • A thorough discussion of the coherence of LXX Isa 24:1–26:6
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Manifold Greatness
The Making of the King James Bible
Edited by Helen Moore and Julian Reid
Bodleian Library Publishing, 2011

Published to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible, Manifold Greatness tells the story of the creation and immediate afterlife of the King James translation of the Bible, first published in 1611. Revolutionary at its time, the King James translation quickly became the dominant authorized translation of the Christian Bible in English. There are more than one billion copies in print, making it the best-selling book of all time, and its effect on the English language is incalculable, both in common speech and in literature. 

This accessible and richly illustrated visual history contains eighty color illustrations, including images of rare manuscripts, artifacts, and archival material such as the annotated Bodleian Bishops’ Bible of 1602, pages from the Wycliffite and Tyndale Bibles, and an edition of the Bishop’s Bible owned by Elizabeth I. Eight chapters contributed by leading academics in the field discuss the history of biblical translation, the political background of the project, the Oxford Translators—including Henry Savile, John Rainolds, and John Harmar—and their working milieu, the cultural politics, and the reception and influence of the King James Bible up until the 1769 publication of the Oxford Standard Edition, which was the first revision of the original 1611 translation.  Also included is a look at the later reception of the King James Bible in America, including a chapter specifically on the King James Bible and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Manifold Greatness
brings together key research and documentation to provide a lively and comprehensive visual account to celebrate one of the most important occasions in publishing and modern religious history.

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The New Testament in Byzantium
Derek Krueger
Harvard University Press

The New Testament lay at the center of Byzantine Christian thought and practice. But codices and rolls were neither the sole way—nor most important way—the Byzantines understood the New Testament. Lectionaries apportioned much of its contents over the course of the liturgical calendar; its narratives structured the experience of liturgical time and shaped the nature of Christian preaching, throughout Byzantine history. A successor to The Old Testament in Byzantium (2010), this book asks: What was the New Testament for Byzantine Christians? What of it was known, how, when, where, and by whom? How was this knowledge mediated through text, image, and rite? What was the place of these sacred texts in Byzantine arts, letters, and thought?

Authors draw upon the current state of textual scholarship and explore aspects of the New Testament, particularly as it was read, heard, imaged, and imagined in lectionaries, hymns, homilies, saints’ lives, and as it was illustrated in miniatures and monuments. Framing theological inquiry, ecclesiastical controversy, and political thought, the contributions here help develop our understanding of the New Testament and its varied reception over the long history of Byzantium.

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NO Rhetoric(s)
Versions and Subversions of Resistance in Contemporary Global Art
Edited by Sara Alonso Gómez, Isabel J. Piniella Grillet, Nadia Radwan, and Elena Rosauro
Diaphanes, 2021
An incisive examination of the intersection of global art and political resistance.

NO Rhetoric(s) examines a subject intensely debated during the last three decades but rarely a topic of its own: art as an agent of resistance, whether as a rhetorical stance or critical strategy. In the face of today’s discourse on revolt and insurrection, it is necessary to ask whether the gesture of “negation” still has an emancipatory potential. NO Rhetoric(s) contributes a deeper understanding of the different logics of resistance at play between art and politics. Showcasing a diverse array of voices, this volume presents contributions on topics as varied as sexual dissidence, ecology, and geopolitics in the digital age. Through this interdisciplinary show of force, the collected authors, artists, and scholars shed light on how art approaches the most urgent issues facing today’s society.
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The Old Greek of Isaiah
An Analysis of Its Pluses and Minuses
Mirjam van der Vorm-Croughs
SBL Press, 2014

A concise study of a large number of examples of pluses and minus providing insight into translation from Hebrew to Greek

Van der Vorm-Croughs focuses this translation study on the processes leading to pluses and minuses including linguistic and stylistic aspects (i.e., cases in which elements have been added or omitted for the sake of a proper use of the Greek language), literary aspects (additions and omissions meant to embellish the Greek text), translation technical aspects (e.g., the avoidance of redundancy), and contextual and intertextual exegesis and harmonization. This work also covers the relation between the Greek Isaiah and its possible Hebrew Vorlage to try to determine which pluses and minuses may have been the result of the translator’s use of a different Hebrew text.

Features:

  • Eleven categories for the pluses and minuses of the Greek Isaiah
  • Examination of translation techniques and translator errors
  • Use of Joseph Ziegler’s critical edition
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Postclassical Greek and Septuagint Lexicography
William A. Ross
SBL Press, 2022
A long-standing tradition within biblical scholarship sets the Greek text of the Septuagint constantly in relationship with its supposed Hebrew or Aramaic Vorlage, examining the two together in terms of their grammatical alignment as a standard. Yet another tradition frames the discussion in different terms, preferring instead to address the Septuagint first of all in light of its contemporary Greek linguistic environment and only then attempting to describe its language and style as a text. It is this latter approach that William A. Ross employs in this textually based study of the Greek versions of Judges, a so-called double text in the textual history of the Septuagint. The results of his study offer a window into the Old Greek translation and its later revision, two distinct stages of Greek Judges with numerous instances of divergent vocabulary choices that reflect deliberateness in both the original selection and the subsequent change within the textual development of the book. Ross’s study illustrates the practicalities and payoff of a Greek-oriented lexicographical method that situates the language of the Septuagint squarely within its contemporary historical and linguistic context.

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Reading the Bible in Ancient Traditions and Modern Editions
Studies in Memory of Peter W. Flint
Andrew B. Perrin
SBL Press, 2017

A collection of essays commemorating the career contributions of Peter W. Flint

An international group of scholars specializing in various disciplines of biblical studies—Dead Sea Scrolls, Septuagint, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Second Temple Judaism, and Christian origins—present twenty-seven new contributions that commemorate the career of Peter W. Flint (1951–2016). Each essay interacts with and gives fresh insight into a field shaped by Professor Flint’s life work. Part 1 explores the interplay between text-critical methods, the growth and formation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and the making of modern critical editions. Part 2 maps dynamics of scriptural interpretation and reception in ancient Jewish and Christian literatures of the Second Temple period.

Features

  • Essays that assess the state of the field and reflect on the methods, aims, and best practices for textual criticism and the making of modern critical text editions
  • Demonstrations of how the processes of scriptural composition, transmission, and reception converge and may be studied together for mutual benefit
  • Clarification of the state/forms of scripture in antiquity and how scripture was extended, rewritten, and recontextualized by ancient Jewish and Christian scribes and communities
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Reinventing the South
Versions of a Literary Region
Mark Royden Winchell
University of Missouri Press, 2006
Before the Civil War, the South had a flourishing culture. In the dormant decades following the surrender at Appomattox, however, southerners devoted most of their energies to survival, neglecting such luxuries as literature. It was not until the 1920s that the South experienced a significant rebirth of literary activity.
Mark Royden Winchell’s book is divided into two sections. The first, entitled “The Nashville Renascence,” examines this resurgence of literature. This movement was partly an attempt to define or reinvent southern culture both socially and aesthetically, and the Fugitives and Agrarians were at the forefront. Essays in this section explore the political and social vision of the Agrarians; discuss prominent charter Agrarians John Gould Fletcher and Robert Penn Warren; and examine the influence the Fugitives and Agrarians have had on later southern literature, even into the twenty-first century.
The second section of the book, “The Lower South,” deals with writers outside the Nashville tradition, including William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, as well as two novelists who combine elements of southern and western regionalism—William Humphrey and Cormac McCarthy. All of these figures belong to a “lower South,” a region unrelated to the Nashville literati and with an audience less insistently highbrow.
Winchell’s thoughtful and well-informed book includes the most extensive discussions to date of the work of Monroe K. Spears and Walter Sullivan. The essays in this cohesive collection build upon one another to demonstrate how the literary imagination can create different visions of a regional culture and different versions of a regional myth.
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A Restless Search
A History of Persian Translations of the Bible
Kenneth J. Thomas
SBL Press, 2015

A literary detective story, a historical survey, and an important contribution to translation studies

This book from Kenneth J. Thomas is both a philological and linguistic analysis of Persian translations and a call for interfaith cooperation. Thomas appraises biblical translation efforts from the fifth to the twenty-first centuries of Persian history when successive translators and groups of translators, sometimes of different faiths, worked to reshape and refine versions of the Bible in the supple Persian language of their times. Restless, impelled, and wide-ranging, this is a story of translations commissioned by shahs, undertaken by Christian and Jewish communities, and produced by teams working outside the country.

Features

  • Demonstration of the effects of the lack of a standard Persian vocabulary for key biblical terms on literary style and word choice
  • Technical analyses and overviews of Persian biblical translations
  • A careful examination of sixteen centuries' worth of Bible translations
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The Samaritan Pentateuch
An Introduction to Its Origin, History, and Significance for Biblical Studi
Robert T. Anderson
SBL Press, 2012
The Samaritan Pentateuch (SP) is the sacred scripture of the Samaritans, a tenacious religious community made famous by Jesus’ Good Samaritan story that persists to this day. Not so widely known is the impact of the SP outside the Samaritan community. Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in this scripture, as evidenced by several translations of the SP as well as reference in Qumran scroll studies to the SP or an SP-like tradition in an effort to describe some of the textual evidence present in the scrolls. This volume presents a general introduction to and overview of the SP, suitable for a course text and as a reference tool for the professional scholar.
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The SBL Commentary on the Septuagint
An Introduction
Dirk Büchner
SBL Press, 2017

Explore the groundwork for a new commentary series from SBL Press

This book contains verse by verse commentary on selections from the Greek text of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint. Each chapter is from a different bible book, for which there will eventually be a full commentary published in the Society of Biblical Literature Commentary on the Septuagint. The commentary series focuses on the actual process of translation, so its authors try to describe and explain the kinds of decisions the ancient Alexandrian translators made about how to render Hebrew into Greek.

Features

  • Translations from and commentary on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Esther, Job, and Psalms
  • Contributions from eight experts on the Septuagint
  • Guidelines and procedures used in the production of the translations in the series
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Textual History and the Reception of Scripture in Early Christianity
Johannes de Vries
SBL Press, 2013
The essays in this volume summarize an international research project on early Christian citations from Israel’s scriptures. These quotations are not only theologically significant but are also part of the textual history of the Septuagint and adjacent textual traditions of the Greek and Hebrew Old Testament. The essays discuss relevant manuscripts (Bible codices, papyri, etc.) up to the fifth century, signs and marginal notes (e.g., the diplé) that were used in the ancient scriptoria, and the specifics of the reception history in early Christianity from Matthew to 1 Peter and from the apostolic fathers to Theophilos of Antioch. The contributors are Felix Albrecht, Ronald H. van der Bergh, Heinz-Josef Fabry, Kerstin Heider, Martin Karrer, Christin Klein, Arie van der Kooij, Siegfried Kreuzer, Horacio E. Lona, Martin Meiser, Maarten J. J. Menken, Matthias Millard, Darius Müller, Ferdinand R. Prostmeier, Alexander Stokowski, Martin Vahrenhorst, Christiane Veldboer, and Johannes de Vries.
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Toward a Theology of the Septuagint
Stellenbosch Congress on the Septuagint, 2018
Johann Cook
SBL Press, 2020

Innovative Septuagint research from an international group of scholars

Toward a Theology of the Septuagint: Stellenbosch Congress on the Septuagint, 2018 focuses on the question of whether it is appropriate and possible to formulate a theology of the Septuagint. Nineteen English and German essays examine Old Testament, New Testament, and extrabiblical texts from a variety of methodological perspectives to demonstrate that such a theology is indeed necessary and possible.

Features

  • Nuanced discussion of whether and how a theology of the Septuagint can be written
  • Extensive methodological discussions
  • Close textual studies of biblical, Greek philosophical, and Jewish sources
  • Abstracts of each essay
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    Tradition and Innovation
    English and German Studies on the Septuagint
    Martin Rösel
    SBL Press, 2018

    Explore the opportunities and challenges of Septuagint studies

    Recent research into the Septuagint has revealed numerous examples of modifications of the meaning of the Hebrew text in the course of its translation into Greek. This collection of essays by one of the leading scholars on the Septuagint shows how complex the translation of individual books was, provides reasons for differences between the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, and paves the way for a theology of the Septuagint. Articles introduce the field of Septuagint studies, the problem of the Letter of Aristeas, and the Hellenistic environment and the hermeneutics of Hellenistic Judaism.

    Features:

    • A methodological discussion of whether and how a theology of the Septuagint can be written
    • Essays introducing the field of Septuagint studies and its Hellenistic environment and the hermeneutics of Hellenistic Judaism
    • Fifteen English and German essays covering twenty-five years of Septuagint research
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    A Translator’s Defense
    Giannozzo Manetti
    Harvard University Press, 2016
    Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459) was an Italian diplomat and a celebrated humanist orator and scholar of the early Renaissance. Son of a wealthy Florentine merchant, he turned away from a commercial career to take up scholarship under the guidance of the great civic humanist, Leonardo Bruni. Like Bruni he mastered both classical Latin and Greek, but, unusually, added to his linguistic armory a command of Biblical Hebrew as well. He used his knowledge of Hebrew to make a fresh translation of the Psalms into humanist Latin, a work that implicitly challenged the canonical Vulgate of St. Jerome. His Apologeticus (1455–59) in five books was a defense of the study of Hebrew and of the need for a new translation. As such, it constituted the most extensive treatise on the art of translation of the Renaissance. This ITRL edition contains the first complete translation of the work into English.
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    A User's Guide to the Nestle-Aland 28 Greek New Testament
    David Trobisch
    SBL Press, 2013
    This guide introduces the complex new edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, 28 Edition, explaining its structure, the text-critical apparatus and appendices, and the innovations of the new edition.
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    Versions of Academic Freedom
    From Professionalism to Revolution
    Stanley Fish
    University of Chicago Press, 2014
    Through his columns in the New York Times and his numerous best-selling books, Stanley Fish has established himself as our foremost public analyst of the fraught intersection of academia and politics. Here Fish for the first time turns his full attention to one of the core concepts of the contemporary academy: academic freedom.
     
    Depending on who’s talking, academic freedom is an essential bulwark of democracy, an absurd fig leaf disguising liberal agendas, or, most often, some in-between muddle that both exaggerates its own importance and misunderstands its actual value to scholarship. Fish enters the fray with his typical clear-eyed, no-nonsense analysis. The crucial question, he says, is located in the phrase “academic freedom” itself: Do you emphasize “academic” or “freedom”? The former, he shows, suggests a limited, professional freedom, while the conception of freedom implied by the latter could expand almost infinitely. Guided by that distinction, Fish analyzes various arguments for the value of academic freedom: Is academic freedom a contribution to society's common good? Does it authorize professors to critique the status quo, both inside and outside the university? Does it license and even require the overturning of all received ideas and policies? Is it an engine of revolution? Are academics inherently different from other professionals? Or is academia just a job, and academic freedom merely a tool for doing that job?
     
    No reader of Fish will be surprised by the deftness with which he dismantles weak arguments, corrects misconceptions, and clarifies muddy arguments. And while his conclusion—that academic freedom is simply a tool, an essential one, for doing a job—may surprise, it is unquestionably bracing. Stripping away the mystifications that obscure academic freedom allows its beneficiaries to concentrate on what they should be doing: following their intellectual interests and furthering scholarship.
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    Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema
    Studies in Ford, Wilder, Coppola, Scorsese, and Others
    Carl Freedman
    Intellect Books, 2013
    No society is without crime, prompting Nathaniel Hawthorne’s narrator to make his famous statement in The Scarlet Letter that, however high its hopes are, no civilization can fail to allot a portion of its soil as the site of a prison. Crime has also been a prevailing, common theme in films that call us to consider its construction: How do we determine what is lawful and what is criminal? And how, in turn, does this often hypocritical distinction determine society?

    Film, argues Carl Freedman, is an especially fruitful medium for considering questions like these. With Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema, he offers a series of critical readings spanning several genres. From among the mob movies, Freedman focuses on Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy—arguably the foremost work of crime cinema—crafting a convincing argument that the plot’s action is principally driven by the shift from Sicily to America, which marks the shift to a capitalist society. Turning his attention to other genres, Freedman also looks at film noir and Westerns, in addition to films for which crime is significant but not central, from horror movies like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining to science fiction and social realist films like The Grapes of Wrath. In recent years, television has welcomed innovative works like Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, and The Sopranos, and Freedman discusses how television’s increasingly congenial creative environment has allowed it to turn out productions whose ability to engage with these larger social questions rivals that of films from the height of cinema’s Golden Age.
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    Versions of Pygmalion
    J. Hillis Miller
    Harvard University Press, 1990

    The literary school called “deconstruction” has long been dogged by the charge that it is unprincipled, its doors closed to the larger world of moral and social concern. J. Hillis Miller, one of America’s leading teacher-critics, sets the record straight by looking into a series of fictions that allow him to show that ethics has always been at the heart of deconstructive literary criticism. Miller proves his point not by assertion but by doing—deconstruction is here in the hands of a master teacher.

    Miller’s controlling image is Ovid’s Pygmalion, who made a statue that came alive and whose descendants (the incestuous Myrrha, the bloodied Adonis) then had to bear the effects of what he did. All storytellers can be seen as Pygmalions, creating characters (personification) who must then act, choose, and evaluate (what Miller calls the “ethics of narration”). If storytellers must be held accountable for what they create, then so must critics or teachers who have their own stories to tell when they write or discuss stories. If the choices are heavy, they are also, Miller wryly points out, happily unpredictable.

    The teacher’s first “ethical act” is the choice of what to teach, and Miller chooses his texts boldly. As an active reader, the kind demanded by deconstruction, Miller refashions each story, another ethical act, an intervention that may have social, political, and historical consequences. He then looks beyond text and critical theory to ask whether writing literature, reading it, teaching it, or writing about it makes anything happen in the real world of material history.

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    The Vulgate Bible
    Swift Edgar
    Harvard University Press, 2010

    The Vulgate Bible, compiled and translated in large part by Saint Jerome at the intersection of the fourth and fifth centuries CE, was used from the early Middle Ages through the twentieth century in the Western European Christian (and, later, specifically Catholic) tradition. Its significance can hardly be overstated. The text influenced literature, visual art, music, and education during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and its contents lay at the heart of much of Western theological, intellectual, artistic, and even political history of that period. At the end of the sixteenth century, as a variety of Protestant vernacular Bibles became available, professors at a Catholic college first at Douay, then at Rheims, translated the Vulgate into English, among other reasons to combat the influence of rival theologies.

    This volume elegantly and affordably presents the text of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, beginning with the creation of the world and the human race, continuing with the Great Flood, God’s covenant with Abraham, Israel’s flight from Egypt and wanderings through the wilderness, the laws revealed to Moses, his mustering of the twelve tribes of Israel, and ending on the eve of Israel’s introduction into the Promised Land. This is the first volume of the projected six-volume set of the complete Vulgate Bible.

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    front cover of The Vulgate Bible
    The Vulgate Bible
    Swift Edgar
    Harvard University Press, 2010

    This is the third volume of a projected six-volume set of the complete Vulgate Bible. Compiled and translated in large part by Saint Jerome at the turn of the fifth century CE, the Vulgate Bible permeated the Western Christian (and later specifically Catholic) tradition from the early medieval period through the twentieth century. It influenced literature, visual arts, music, and education during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and its contents lay at the heart of Western theological, intellectual, artistic, and even political history during that period. At the end of the sixteenth century, as Protestant vernacular Bibles became available, professors at a Catholic college first at Douay, then at Rheims, translated the Vulgate Bible into English, primarily to combat the influence of rival theologies.

    Volume III presents the Poetical Books of the Bible. It begins with Job’s argument with God, and unlike other Bibles the Vulgate insists on the title character’s faith throughout that crisis. The volume proceeds with the soaring and intimate lyrics of the Psalms and the Canticle of Canticles. Three books of wisdom literature, all once attributed to King Solomon, also are included: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Wisdom. Ecclesiasticus, an important deuterocanonical book of wisdom literature, concludes the volume. The seven Poetical Books mark the third step in a thematic progression from God’s creation of the universe, through his oversight of grand historical events, and finally into the personal lives of his people.

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    front cover of The Vulgate Bible
    The Vulgate Bible
    Angela M. Kinney
    Harvard University Press, 2010

    This is the fourth volume of a projected six-volume Vulgate Bible. Compiled and translated in large part by Saint Jerome at the turn of the fifth century ce, the Vulgate Bible permeated the Western Christian tradition through the twentieth century. It influenced literature, art, music, and education, and its contents lay at the heart of Western theological, intellectual, artistic, and political history through the Renaissance. At the end of the sixteenth century, professors at a Catholic college first at Douay, then at Rheims, translated the Vulgate Bible into English to combat the influence of Protestant vernacular Bibles.

    Volume IV presents the writings attributed to the “major” prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel), which feature dire prophecies of God’s impending judgment, punctuated by portentous visions. Yet profound grief is accompanied by the promise of mercy and redemption, a promise perhaps illustrated best by Isaiah’s visions of a new heaven and a new earth. In contrast with the Historical Books, the planned salvation includes the gentiles.

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    front cover of The Vulgate Bible
    The Vulgate Bible
    Angela M. Kinney
    Harvard University Press, 2010

    This is the fifth volume of a projected six-volume Vulgate Bible. Compiled and translated in large part by Saint Jerome at the turn of the fifth century ce, the Vulgate Bible permeated the Western Christian tradition through the twentieth century. It influenced literature, art, music, and education, and its contents lay at the heart of Western theological, intellectual, artistic, and political history through the Renaissance. At the end of the sixteenth century, professors at a Catholic college first at Douay, then at Rheims, translated the Vulgate Bible into English to combat the influence of Protestant vernacular Bibles.

    Volume V presents the twelve minor prophetical books of the Old Testament, as well as two deuterocanonical books, 1 and 2 Maccabees. While Jewish communities regarded the works of the twelve minor prophets as a single unit (the Dodecapropheton), the Vulgate Bible treats them individually in accordance with Christian tradition. The themes of judgment and redemption featured prominently in the major prophets (Volume IV) are further developed by the minor prophets. The books of 1 and 2 Maccabees conclude the volume. Their doctrinal controversies and highly influential martyrdom narratives anticipate the development of Christian hagiography both as a genre and as a theological vehicle.

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    front cover of The Vulgate Bible
    The Vulgate Bible
    Angela M. Kinney
    Harvard University Press, 2010

    This volume completes the six-volume Vulgate Bible. Compiled and translated in large part by Saint Jerome at the turn of the fifth century ce, the Vulgate Bible permeated the Western Christian tradition through the twentieth century. It influenced literature, art, music, and education, and its contents lay at the heart of Western theological, intellectual, artistic, and political history through the Renaissance. At the end of the sixteenth century, professors at a Catholic college first at Douay, then at Rheims, translated the Vulgate Bible into English to combat the influence of Protestant vernacular Bibles.

    Volume VI presents the entirety of the New Testament. The gospel narratives delineate the story of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. Acts continues the account of the first Christians, including the descent of the Holy Spirit, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (the Apostle Paul), and the spread of Christianity through sermons and missionary journeys. Collected epistles answer theological and pragmatic concerns of early church communities. Of these epistles, Romans is notable for its expression of Paul’s salvation theory, and Hebrews for its synthesis of Jewish and Hellenistic elements. The apocalyptic vision of Revelation concludes the volume with prophecies grisly and glorious, culminating in the New Jerusalem.

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    front cover of The Vulgate Bible, Volume II
    The Vulgate Bible, Volume II
    Swift Edgar
    Harvard University Press, 2010

    This is the second volume, in two parts, of a projected six-volume set of the complete Vulgate Bible.

    Compiled and translated in large part by Saint Jerome at the turn of the fifth century CE, the Vulgate Bible was used from the early medieval period through the twentieth century in the Western Christian (and later specifically Catholic) tradition. It influenced literature, visual arts, music, and education during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and its contents lay at the heart of Western theological, intellectual, artistic, and even political history during that period. At the end of the sixteenth century, as Protestant vernacular Bibles became available, professors at a Catholic college first at Douay, then at Rheims, translated the Vulgate Bible into English, primarily to combat the influence of rival theologies.

    Volume II presents the Historical Books of the Bible, which tell of Joshua’s leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, the judges and kings, Israel’s steady departure from God’s precepts, the Babylonian Captivity, and the return from exile. The focus then shifts to shorter, intimate narratives: the pious Tobit, whose son’s quest leads him to a cure for his father’s blindness; Judith, whose courage and righteousness deliver the Israelites from the Assyrians; and Esther and Mordecai, who saved all the Jews living under Ahasuerus from execution. These three tales come from books that were canonical in the Middle Ages but now are often called “apocryphal,” with the partial exception of the Book of Esther.

    [more]

    front cover of The Vulgate Bible, Volume II
    The Vulgate Bible, Volume II
    Swift Edgar
    Harvard University Press, 2010

    This is the second volume, in two parts, of a projected six-volume set of the complete Vulgate Bible.

    Compiled and translated in large part by Saint Jerome at the turn of the fifth century CE, the Vulgate Bible was used from the early medieval period through the twentieth century in the Western Christian (and later specifically Catholic) tradition. It influenced literature, visual arts, music, and education during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and its contents lay at the heart of Western theological, intellectual, artistic, and even political history during that period. At the end of the sixteenth century, as Protestant vernacular Bibles became available, professors at a Catholic college first at Douay, then at Rheims, translated the Vulgate Bible into English, primarily to combat the influence of rival theologies.

    Volume II presents the Historical Books of the Bible, which tell of Joshua’s leading the Israelites into the Promised Land, the judges and kings, Israel’s steady departure from God’s precepts, the Babylonian Captivity, and the return from exile. The focus then shifts to shorter, intimate narratives: the pious Tobit, whose son’s quest leads him to a cure for his father’s blindness; Judith, whose courage and righteousness deliver the Israelites from the Assyrians; and Esther and Mordecai, who saved all the Jews living under Ahasuerus from execution. These three tales come from books that were canonical in the Middle Ages but now are often called “apocryphal,” with the partial exception of the Book of Esther.

    [more]

    front cover of XIV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Helsinki, 2010
    XIV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Helsinki, 2010
    Melvin K. Peters
    SBL Press, 2013
    This volume represents the current state of Septuagint studies as reflected in papers presented at the triennial meeting of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS). It is rich with contributions from distinguished senior scholars as well as from promising younger scholars whose research testifies to the bright future and diversity of the field. The volume is remarkable in terms of the number, scholarly interests, and geographical distribution of its contributors; it is by far the largest congress volume to date. More than fifty papers represent viewpoints and scholarship from Belgium, Canada, Cameroon, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Korea, The Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
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    front cover of XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
    XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
    Munich, 2013
    Wolfgang Kraus
    SBL Press, 2016

    Essays from experts in the field of Septuagint studies

    The study of Septuagint offers essential insights in ancient Judaism and its efforts to formulate Jewish identity within a non-Jewish surrounding culture. This book includes the papers given at the XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS), held in Munich, Germany, in 2013. The first part of this book deals with questions of textual criticism. The second part is dedicated to philology. The third part underlines the increasing importance of Torah in Jewish self-definition.

    Features:

    • Essays dealing with questions of textual criticism, mostly concerning the historical books and wisdom literature and ancient editions and translations
    • Philological essays covering the historical background, studies on translation technique and lexical studies underline the necessity of both exploring general perspectives and working in detail
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    front cover of XVI Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
    XVI Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies
    Stellenbosch, 2016
    Gideon R. Kotzé
    SBL Press, 2019

    Essays from experts in the field of Septuagint studies

    This latest volume from the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) includes the papers given at the XVI Congress of the IOSCS, South Africa, in 2016. The articles contribute to the study of the Septuagint and cognate literature by identifying and discussing new topics and lines of inquiry and developing fresh insights and arguments in existing areas of research. Scholars and students interested in different methods of studying the Septuagint corpora, the theology and reception of these texts, as well as the works of Josephus will find in this collection critical information for future work in Septuagint studies.

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    front cover of Zer Rimonim
    Zer Rimonim
    Studies in Biblical Literature and Jewish Exegesis Presented to Professor Rimon Kasher
    Michael Avioz
    SBL Press, 2013

    An engaging collection of essays in honor of Professor Rimon Kasher

    Zer Rimonim includes papers of interest to Professor Kasher in the areas of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East and Jewish interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. Contributors from a variety of Israeli universities include Yairah Amit, Elie Assis, Jonathan Ben-Dov, Joshua Berman, Gershon Brin, Hezi Cohen, Tmima Davidovitz, David Elgavish, Brachi Elitzur, Yitzhaq Feder, Joseph Fleishman, Gershon Galil, Tova Ganzel, Isaac Gottlieb, Edward L. Greenstein, Jonathan Grossman, Mayer Gruber, Jair Haas, Jonathan Jacobs, Bustenay Oded, Yosef Ofer, Jordan S. Penkower, Yosi Peretz, Frank Polak, Meira Poliak, Moshe Rachimi, Ayelet Seidler, Yael Shemesh, Shimon Shtober, Nili Shupak, Uriel Simon, Miriam Sklarz, Yechiel Tzeitkin, Shmuel Vargon, Eran Viezel, and Yair Zakovitch.

    Features:

    • Essays in modern Hebrew
    • Coverage of topics related to the Hebrew Bible, key rabbinic interpreters, and Karaitic and Byzantine interpretations
    • English table of contents, front matter, and abstracts
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