Psalms Monograph Submitted

At long last, after too many years' delay, I am happy to announce that I have finally sent in the final version of my monograph on the early history of the Hebrew Psalter. It will appear in the FAT I series with Mohr Siebeck. I still have to wait for and check proofs and produce the indices, but the content is finalized and with the publisher now. Thanks to all who helped throughout the process and for everyone else who has been patient throughout the process.

Dershowitz Kennicott Key

I just saw that Idan Dershowitz has made his Kennicott key available on his website. This is a great resource for looking up information and images of the manuscripts collated by Kennicott in the 18th century.

COMSt 12/1

The COMSt 12/1 (2026) special issue on variants is now out, with discussions relevant here. See especially the article by Shlomi Efrati on variants in the medieval Targum Onkelos tradition

From the website:

Table of Contents

• pp. 1-6: Front matter 
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19338

Criticism of the Variant: Philological Discussions in Traditional Commentary Cultures

eds Alessandro Bausi, Christian Brockmann, and Eva Wilden

• pp. 7-16: Introduction (Eva Wilden)
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19344

1 Scribes and Scholars

• pp. 17-42: Glosses, Variants and Corrections in the Margin of Gregory the Theologian’s Manuscripts: The Case of Vaticanus graecus 462 (Caroline Macé)
  DOI:  10.25592/uhhfdm.19346
• pp. 43-58: Copyists Coping with their Models – A Case Study from Mt Athos (Jost Gippert)
  DOI:  10.25592/uhhfdm.19352
• pp. 59-77: Rectifying an Obvious Error – Hints of Text-critical Sensitivity in Late Medieval Targum Manuscripts (Shlomi Efrati)
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19356

2 Commentators

• pp. 81-102: Restoring the Text, Conveying the Truth: Criticism of the Variants in Latin Texts during the Middle Ages (Riccardo Macchioro)
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19358
• pp. 103-121: ‘There is Also the Reading x’ – the Discussion of Variants in Tamil Commentaries (Eva Wilden)
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19360
• pp. 123-144: The Variant is Salient: a Case in the ʾAndǝmtā Commentary Tradition (Mersha Alehegne Mengistie)
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19366

3 Variant Versions

• pp. 147-162: Variance in Arabic Poetry, Prophetic Tradition and the Qur’an (Tilman Seidensticker)
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19380
• pp. 163-185: Variants, Recension, and Transmission of Khlong Lokkanit (the Thai Version of Lokanīti, the Poem on Worldly Conduct) (Peera Panarut)
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19382
• pp. 187-215: Primary Textual Variance of Neidhart’s Songs (1220–1240 ce): The Contribution of Textual Criticism to Cultural History (Anna Kathrin Bleuler)
  DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.19384

A Handbook of Neo-Aramaic

I just learned of a new Brill book on the fascinating topic of modern Aramaic dialects that will be of interest to those working with Aramaic or Semitics more generally. From the web page:

A Handbook of Neo-Aramaic

Brill's Handbooks in Linguistics, 6

Simon Hopkins and Steven E. Fassberg (eds)

Hardback

ISBN: 978-90-04-72511-9

EUR  €269.00

The Handbook of Neo-Aramaic aims to provide an introduction to, and details of the complex world of Neo-Aramaic. This large family of endangered Neo-Semitic languages is (or until recently was spoken by Jewish, Christian and Mandaean minorities in parts of the Middle East. Most members of these communities now live in various diasporas.

Following a series of general chapters dealing with historical background, classification, salient linguistic features, Neo-Semitic context, contact languages (Kurdish, etc.), manuscripts and printed texts, Neo-Aramaic in the media etc., the book presents grammatical sketches of 15 different Neo-Aramaic dialects (some never described before), followed by a series of maps, illustrations, and a bibliography.

The book hopes to provide material of interest both to the beginner and the more advanced specialist. Contributors are: Werner Arnold, Roberta Borghero, Michael L. Chyet, Eleanor Coghill, Alinda Damsma, Steven E. Fassberg, Samuel Ethan Fox, Charles G. Häberl, Simon Hopkins, Otto Jastrow, Olga Kapeliuk, Geoffrey Khan, Nineb Lamassu, Alexey Lyavdansky, Alessandro Mengozzi, Matthew Morgenstern, Hezy Mutzafi, Yona Sabar, Shabo Talay, Aziz Tezel, and Michael Waltisberg. 

HT Agade

Middle Babylonian Scribes

Brill announces a new book on Middle Babylonian scribes that might be of interest for early Israelite/Judahite scribalism:

Administrative Reality and Scribal Apparatus in the Middle Babylonian Period, with Accompanying Texts

Harvard Semitic Monographs, Volume: 67

Author: Jonathan S. Tenney

This book provides editions of 325 Akkadian texts, reconstructs aspects of the political recording process, and presents evidence of legal, epistolary, and administrative intertextuality at Kassite Nippur. Combining ideas from scholars in Assyriology and Political Science, it states that scribes working for political and institutional entities in Mesopotamia used abstractions of society, geography, processes, and even time, to establish bureaucratic order over a chaotic world. If such abstractions were employed in a bureaucratic environment that practiced post factum documentation, then administrative writing presents a reductionist "administrative reality" that affects the epistemological underpinnings of Assyriological investigations into Mesopotamian history and society.

Hexapla Institute Blog

John Meade has (re?)started up the Hexapla Institute blog as part of the reboot of the Hexapla Institute as a whole with two articles on Origin's Hexapla and the Early Jewish Revisers. According to his newsletter, the Hexapla Institute is now a registered 501(c)(3) and looking to foster more intensive work on the Hexapla. Sign up for their newsletter for updates.

Greek Manuscripts on Mt. Athos

Katie Leggett has posted a very thorough and informative article on the Greek manuscripts on Mt. Athos. While she focuses on the 1037 recorded Greek New Testament manuscripts, her detailed discussion of the collections and catalogues is very valuable also for setting context for the Old Testament manuscripts. For comparison, I did a quick search of the Göttingen Verzeichnis from 2012 and found 250 Septuagint manuscripts from Mt. Athos dating from the 9th–16th centuries. Of these, not surprisingly, almost 200 contain the Psalms.