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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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philosophically analyzing the work of one of the twentieth century’s most popular, and peculiar, science fiction authors

Despite his enduring popularity, Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)—whose short stories and novels were adapted into or influenced many major films and television shows, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, The Truman Show, and The Man in the High Castle—has long been a marginal figure in American literature, even in the science fiction genre he helped revolutionize. Here, an influential French philosopher offers a major new perspective on an author who was known as much for his eccentricities and excesses as for his writing. For David Lapoujade, it is precisely the many ways in which Dick’s works seem to hover on the brink of losing all touch with reality that make him such a singular figure, both as a sci-fi author and as a thinker of contemporary life. 

In Worlds Built to Fall Apart, Lapoujade defines sci-fi as a way of thinking through the creation of worlds and argues that Dick does so by creating worlds that fall rapidly to pieces. Whatever his mechanism to bring this about (drugs or madness, alien satellite transmissions or encroaching parallel universes), the effect is always to reveal reality to be a construction, in which certain people determine what appears as real to the rest of us. Orienting Dick within philosophy and drawing connections to a wide variety of other thinkers and artists, this remarkable reading shows how he proposes unstable, fluctuating futures in which tinkering with reality has become the best means of resisting total control.

Engaging with most of Philip K. Dick’s published works, as well as with several of his essays and his notorious psychic autobiography The Exegesis, Lapoujade hones in on the “war of the psyches” that underlies Dick’s critique of reality. He puts Dick’s work in conversation with a vast array of subjects—from cybernetics to schizoanalysis, and from Pop art to David Lynch, J. G. Ballard, and William S. Burroughs—revealing Dick’s oeuvre to comprise a profound reality defined by artifice, precarity, and control.

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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

Essays from experts in the field of Septuagint studies