James Moore on Elephantine

James Moore has an interview on the Judeans at Elephantine and their socio-religious background that is well worth a listen. He makes the interesting suggestion that Judeans who fled Elephantine might have brought their literary (scriptures?) with them as a possible explanation for their absence from the finds. And I would date the invention of Torah scrolls earlier than he would. :) But all in all fascinating discussion.

The interview is based on his newly published book on the topic.

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

Transformations in Translation: Comparing Qumran Aramaic Job and Old Greek Job

I just saw a new book out by SBL Press that looks like a fascinating contribution:

Transformations in Translation: Comparing Qumran Aramaic Job and Old Greek Job

by Alun Morton Thomas

Blurb from the SBL website:

Using insights gleaned from translation studies, Alun Morton Thomas compares the earliest known Aramaic and Greek translations of the book of Job to explore how translators dealt with idiomatic and linguistic difficulties in translating the Hebrew text. Thomas demonstrates that many of the scribal techniques used in both the Qumran and Old Greek versions of Job resemble practices attested in other Second Temple Jewish texts. The scribal choices Thomas reveals provide insights into early interpretations of the book of Job which stem from the Second Temple period. The volume also delves into how earlier Aramaic and Greek translations relate to later translation attempts in these two languages. Transformations in Translation is a critical resource for scholars and students interested in some of the most difficult passages to translate from Hebrew.

Alun Morton Thomas completed his doctoral studies at Trinity College Dublin, where he was awarded a DAAD fellowship to conduct part of the research for this project at the University of Göttingen. He is currently a pastor in North Wales.

Aramaic Literature from Egypt and the Levant

Tawny Holm has published a useful anthology of Aramaic literature with English translations. She has done a lot of work recently on P. Amherst 63, an Aramaic psalm collection in Demotic script, so I'm sure she will have lots of helpful observations.

Digital Editions of Aramaic and Phoenician Sources

James Moore has released the Digital Editions of Aramaic and Phoenician Sources database. This helpful tool includes an extensive, searchable listing of Aramaic (and other) textual artifacts, map of finds and collections, metadata on each item, transcriptions (with pop-up lexical information), a lexicon, and bibliography. For a particularly relevant example, see his entry for the Elephantine Aḥiqar manuscript. Thanks to James for his hard work and useful contributions!

The Original Language of the New Testament

While most scholars agree that the New Testament was originally written in Greek (even if sometimes using Hebrew or Aramaic sources), some writers have suggested that parts or even all of the NT were originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic. This seems to be a topic that comes up regularly in popular discussions, so I teamed up with Logos to write an article summarizing the key evidence and explaining the mainstream position for lay audiences. See the new article: Was the New Testament Written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek?

Online Aramaic Curriculum

I wanted to draw people's attention to the fact that John Ma and Christopher Tulpin put online a useful introduction to Imperial Aramaic as part of their Arshama project.

Moore on Aramaic Papyrus Fragments in Berlin

James Moore has just released his open access monograph publishing many new documentary papyrus fragments from Elephantine in the Berlin collection. In addition to the editions themselves, he provides helpful reviews of the literature, paleographic analysis, and indices.

Paul Flesher on the Aramaic Targums

 Christopher Dost has posted an interesting interview with Paul Flesher on the Aramaic Targums.

Stylistic Classification of the Hebrew Scripts

For those interested in Hebrew paleography, I just got word that my article on stylistic classification is now published. My goal in this article was to clarify what paleographers mean by "formality" and lay a theoretical framework for stylistic classification of the Hebrew scripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Drew Longacre, “Disambiguating the Concept of Formality in Palaeographic Descriptions: Stylistic Classification and the Ancient Jewish Hebrew/Aramaic Scripts.” Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin 5, no. 2 (2019): 101–128. http://doi.org/10.25592/uhhfdm.739.

Abstract:

The concept of formality in palaeographic analysis is often ill-defined and understood in conflicting ways by the scholars who utilize it. In this article, I attempt to clarify the meaning and significance of formality by suggesting that it is best understood as a multifaceted concept dependent upon the interaction between morphology, execution, and function. From this perspective, formality is an overall impression of the level of handwriting based on the type of model script chosen to reproduce, the skill and care with which it was written, and the purpose(s) for which the embodying manuscript was created. Each aspect can be conceptualized and to some extent analyzed independently in concrete terms other than formality. The resulting, more explicitly-defined nature of formality proposed here then provides a better foundation for hypothesizing about the functions of manuscripts. I apply this schema to the Jewish Hebrew/Aramaic scripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls to show its potential for increased clarity and resolution in stylistic analysis.

Dan Machiela on The Aramaic Language of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Dan Machiela writes on Ancient Jew Review The Aramaic Language of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Why it Matters and What Lies Ahead. In this interesting post he discusses the linguistic dating and classification of this important corpus.

Aramaisms in the Septuagint

New from SBL Press:


L’influence de l’araméen sur les traducteurs de la LXX principalement, sur les traducteurs grecs postérieurs, ainsi que sur les scribes de la Vorlage de la LXX
Anne-Françoise Loiseau
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.
Paper $45.95, ISBN 9781628371567
Hardcover $60.95, ISBN 9780884141938
Kindle, ASIN B01M0PUT0T 
Google Play, ISBN 9780884141921
270 pages • 2016 • Septuagint and Cognate Studies 65