History

Allan Johnson, a famous scholar of ancient civic administration, addresses the origins of the new tribe Ptolemais introduced in 3rd century BC Athens under obscure circumstances.

Prof. Ogle traces the Classical roots of descriptions of feminine beauty in poetry of the English renaissance.

Fay's commentary and emmendation of Goetz and School's edition of Varro's de Lingua Latina.

Sihler's critique of Ferrero's history of Rome, using Cicero and Caesar's work to evaluate the Italian scholar's use of source material.

Edgerton's review of Hertel's text of the Paficatantra with specific reference to Hertel's interpretation of the Beast myth.

Allan Johnson, a famous scholar of ancient civic administration, traces the development of Athenian financial administration in the Hellenistic era.

Leech argues against a simplistic view of the Greeks as radical fatalists, underlining their view of the equally prevalent Greek ideas of individual freedom and self-determination.

The Teaching of Addai is a Syriac document convincingly dated by some scholars in the fourth or fifth century AD. I agree with this dating, but I think that there may be some points containing possible historical traces that go back even to the first century AD, such as the letters exchanged by king Abgar and Tiberius. Some elements in them point to the real historical context of the reign of Abgar ‘the Black’ in the first century. The author of the Doctrina might have known the tradition of some historical letters written by Abgar and Tiberius.

Given the twenty-first century association between the Holy Land and the Bible, we may assume that such a relationship just exists, and that the land is like the Book and contains a timeless quality. Eothen requires us to question this supposition. Alexander Kinglake describes a Palestine which is largely a wilderness on the verge of being defined by the political and religious forces of the west. He offers us a glimpse into the past of a society as it begins to engage with the West.

Bioarchaeology of the Near East (Volume 1, 2007) includes contributions by Theya Molleson, Douglas H. Ubelaker, and Joseph L. Rife, as well as short fieldwork reprots.

Bioarchaeology of the Near East (Volume 2, 2008) includes contributions by Nathan K. Harper, Sherry C. Fox, Mateusz Baca, and Martyna Molak, as well as short fieldwork reprots.

This volume examines the perception of music’s past, in all its historical, geographical and cultural breadth. The wide-ranging collection of papers address the interpretation of past music cultures from the earliest records of antiquity until the present.

The volume deals with the liturgical dimension of mystical, ascetical, and hymnographic texts and traditions within the Christian environment. Special attention is paid to liturgical texts of the Coptic and the Byzantine rite, especially in its Slavonic and Georgian versions. The volume also explores the Jewish background of some Christian liturgical settings and the afterlife of the Jewish priestly and liturgical traditions in the Christian milieu. The collection includes the critical edition of the early Slavonic version of the liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts accompanied by the historical study of this service.

Paul Vetter presents here a critical edition of the Armenian version of the Acts of Peter and Paul along with a Greek translation. Vetter’s introduction to the text includes a discussion of the complex transmission history evident in the manuscripts.

The Life of Abercius, which received much attention after the archaeological discovery of the “inscription of Abercius,” previously existed in two recensions. Élie Batareikh found a manuscript containing a third recension and publishes here the Greek text of that recension.

Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions has one of the most complex transmission histories of any text from the Christian Orient. Anton Baumstark describes various sources for parallel texts in order to explicate its translation history in the Oriental languages.

Paul Vetter presents the Armenian text, along with a Greek translation, of the “Gnostic Martyrdom of Peter” from the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles. The article also includes an appendix in which Vetter describes the manuscripts used in the collation.

Oskar Braun provides a brief introduction to the life and career of Patriarch Timothy I, including a list of his writings with special attention to his letters and the Syriac text and German translation for five of Timothy’s letters.

Early Christian artistic renderings of the traditio legis, exhibit a variety of commonalities and differences. Anton Baumstark compares various versions of the scene and finds evidence of both a Western and an Eastern version represented in multiple sources.

Anton Baumstark presents the complete Greek text of the Liturgy of Saint Gregory the Great. The liturgy was highly influential in the Latin tradition, but as evidenced by the early translation, it also had limited circulation in the Greek tradition.

Franz Cöln presents here the Arabic text of an anonymous writing defending the beliefs of the Jacobite Church against the beliefs of other traditions. The text includes a critical apparatus and is accompanied by a German translation.

Joseph Berenbach presents here the Arabic text and German translation of an important anti-heretical work by the Melkite Christian author Paul er-Rahib. Berenbach describes the manuscripts used in the critical text and introduces the character of Paul.

In this study, H. G. Kleyn deals with the life and works of Jacob Baradaeus and the role he played in the “monophysite” church to the time of his death in 578, including a thorough outline of Jacob’s writings.

Emil Goeller introduces and provides the text of a unique resource for the ecclesiastical history of the “Nestorian” church. The text, presented in Syriac with a Latin translation, is a compilation of historical sources focused on the story of Nestorius.

The Nomocanons of the Eastern Orthodox traditions are valuable historical sources for the church traditions they represent. Franz Cöln presents here the collated text of a Nomocanon attributed to Miha’il of Malig and preserved in Garshuni and Arabic manuscripts.