Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal Books

2021 ◽  
pp. 383-402
Author(s):  
Alison G. Salvesen
Keyword(s):  
Early Church ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Fixed Group ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Original Language ◽  
Religious Books ◽  
Lower Status

The terms ‘deuterocanonical’ (a later, Catholic, term) or ‘apocryphal’ (used by early Church writers) are popularly used to refer to religious books from the Judeo-Christian tradition perceived as having a lower status than those books regarded as normative for doctrine. Both ‘deuterocanonical’ and ‘apocryphal’ imply the recognition of a contrasting fixed group of authoritative scriptural works, with which the ‘deuterocanonical’ and ‘apocryphal’ books are associated. This chapter focuses on books transmitted in early Greek Christian pandect Bibles and associated with the LXX corpus, but whose status was debated within Christian circles and largely unrecognized by rabbinic Judaism. It explores the original language, date, Greek text form, and witnesses to those complete books most commonly listed in modern times as deuterocanonical, along with some semi-independent works including the Letter of Jeremiah, the Prayer of Manasseh, and Psalm 151. (The additions to Esther, Daniel, and Jeremiah are covered in Chapters 18, 20, and 22 in this volume, on Jeremiah, Daniel, and the Megillot respectively.)

The History of the Rechabites— an Initial Commentary

1997 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 413-436
Author(s):  
Chris H. Knights
Keyword(s):  
Greek Text ◽  
Original Language ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article is the third in a series of studies on The History of the Rechabites. The first, "The Story of Zosimus or The History of the Rechabites?,"1 established the independent identity of this text within the Christian monastic work, The Story of Zosimus, and was a sort of prolegomena to the study of this text. The second, "Towards a Critical-Introduction to The History of the Rechabites,"2 sought to address the standard introductory issues, such as date, original language, provenance and purpose. The present paper seeks to examine the text verse-by-verse, and to offer a commentary on it. Or, rather, an initial commentary. No commentary of any sort has ever been offered on the Greek text of HistRech before, and it would be foolhardy to claim that any one scholar could perceive all the allusions and meanings in a particular text at a first attempt. This commentary, then, is offered in the same spirit as my two previous studies on HistRech: as a step along the way towards unravelling the meaning of this pseudepigraphon about the Rechabites, not as the last word on the subject.

The Birth of a Successful Prayer Book

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 265-294
Author(s):  
Hiba Abid
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Core ◽  
South And Southeast Asia ◽  
Religious Books ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Manuscript Transmission ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
Central South

Abstract The vast project to reconstruct a history and geography of the spread of the Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt necessarily involves looking into the beginnings of the prayerbook’s manuscript transmission. Composed in Morocco before 869/1465, the prayerbook was already known in the Eastern Maghreb from the mid-11th/17th century. It then reached Turkey and the rest of the Mashriq. After that it found its way to Central, South and Southeast Asia. Returning to the core of the book’s diffusion, this article questions the existence of an autograph copy of Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt. How was the manuscript tradition of one of the most copied religious books in pre-modern times established? This article also poses essential questions about the work of the actors (copyists, illuminators) responsible for the diffusion of the book in its early days.

The Latin Editions of Galen's Opera omnia (1490–1625) and Their Prefaces

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania Fortuna
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Western World ◽  
Literary Production ◽  
Original Language ◽  
Selection For

AbstractBetween 1490 to 1625, twenty-two editions of Galen's opera omnia were published in Latin, while only two in Greek. In the Western world Galen's literary production was mostly known through Latin translations, even in the sixteenth century, when Greek medicine was being rediscovered in its original language. The paper discusses the twenty-two Latin editions of Galen's writings and how they evolved. In these editions the number of works increased, especially from 1490 to 1533, while later, from 1576–1577 to 1586, forged commentaries on Hippocrates were added, when Galenic medicine was declining. Moreover, in 1490 Galen's works were printed in medieval translations from Arabic and Greek, while by 1541–1542 most of them had already received new humanist translations. The humanist translations, which started about 1480, depended on Greek manuscripts until 1525, when the Aldine provided the standard Greek text of Galen. Afterwards, the Greek manuscripts were used to correct the Latin, especially in the editions from 1541–1542 to 1565. Therefore the complete Latin editions included most of the philological work on Galen during the sixteenth century, as well as discussions on the authorship of some works, on the order in which they had to be read or printed, and on their selection for medical education.

THE SCENT OF A MARTYR

Numen ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Evans
Keyword(s):  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Inherent Value ◽  
The World ◽  
Funerary Rites ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractScent has long been associated with the world of the gods. Many of the Greek gods were noted not only for having a powerful smell themselves but also for having sensitive noses and taking great joy in the smell of an altar well-stocked by a faithful follower. The Christian tradition is full of stories of martyrs and subsequently saints who had the aroma of sanctity about them. These stories became part of a larger olfactory understanding of the relationship between humans and the divine. Islam also has significant stories of fragrant martyrs set within a tradition which has an appreciation for scent and its ability to communicate the closeness of purity and Paradise. The aroma of sanctity is often described as an incomparably beautiful perfume, but sometimes the description is more specific: florals such as roses, lilies and violets; spices, including cinnamon, cloves, ginger and myrrh; and food such as apples and bread. Tales describing the aroma of sanctity exist from ancient to modern times and are often explained as deriving from the use of incense and perfumes in funerary rites. This explanation however, does not capture the strength of the symbol and its inherent value of joy in overcoming death and sharing in divine immortality. This study considers how scent acts as a form of communication in martyrologies and conforms with their role to spread the message of the value of the faith, overcoming the barriers of illiteracy, different languages and the passage of time.

Septuagintas betydning som en hellenistisk udgave af Det Gamle Testamente

2011 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-231
Author(s):  
Mogens Müller
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Text ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Greek Version ◽  
History Of ◽  
Old Greek ◽  
The Church

The understanding of the role of the old Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, has undergone great changes in the last decennia. From looking upon the Hebrew text as the original and the Greek text as only a translation, it has now been common to view the Greek version as a chapter in a reception history of biblical traditions. By being used by New Testament authors and in the Early Church the Septuagint gained canonical status – alongside the Hebrew Bible. Thus the Old Testament of the Church in reality consists of both versions. The article argues for this also pointing to some of the theological consequences of viewing the connection between the two parts of the Christian Bible from the perspective of reception history.

scholarly journals The Polarity of the Gospels in the Exegesis of Origen

1952 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-224
Author(s):  
Samuel Laeuchli
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Complete Understanding ◽  
Original Language ◽  
Strange Phenomenon ◽  
Church Historians

In spite of all the hermeneutic research, the allegorizing of the Alexandrians, and above all the exegetical work of Origen, remains a strange phenomenon of the early church. Historians have often smiled indulgently, if they have not scoffed, at those childhood steps of biblical interpretation within ancient Christian theology, from Thomasius more than a century ago up to our present. The possibility of a complete understanding is hindered by the lack of many of Origen's texts in the original language. Many of his commentaries are lost. And yet there are certain indications from which we can learn that Origen did have his sound reasons for his exegetical undertaking. For this, one has to examine the tenth chapter of his Commentary on John.

The ‘Ceremonial Law’

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-63
Author(s):  
Gavin D'Costa
Keyword(s):  
Early Church ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Invincible Ignorance ◽  
Council Of Florence

Chapter 2 faces the challenge that previous Catholic teachings have implied that Jewish rituals are both dead and deadening. Through a close examination of the Council of Florence and other magisterial teachings, it is established that the conditions under which dead and deadening operated do not actually relate to contemporary Rabbinic Judaism as understood in Catholic teaching. If invincible ignorance of the truth of Christ is presupposed, then Jewish practices can be understood very positively. It is also established that earlier teachings did positively view the practice of Jewish rituals in the early Church and by Jesus and the apostles. This is significant for the concluding chapter.

Unity and Diversity in the Church of the Fourth Century

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Andrew Louth
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Look Back ◽  
The Church

To look back to the early Church as a theologian and historian, and ask questions about her unity, is to enter on a long tradition, which goes back at least to the Reformation, if not to the Great Schism of 1054 itself. Once the Church had split, the various separated Christians looked back to justify their position in that tragedy. They scoured the early sources for evidence for and against episcopacy, papacy, authority confided to tradition or to Scripture alone: they questioned the form in which these early sources have come down to us - the sixteenth century saw reserves of scholarly genius poured into the problem, for instance, of the genuineness of the Ignatian correspondence, and what fired all that, apart from scholarly curiosity, was the burning question of the authenticity of episcopal authority on which Ignatius speaks so decisively. Out of that the critical discipline of patristics emerged. It was, in fact, rather later that the fourth century became the focus of the debate about the unity, authority, and identity of the Church - Newman obviously springs to mind and his Arians of the Fourth Century (London, 1833) and his Essay on the Development of Doctrine (London, 1845). Later on, the fourth century attracted the attention of scholars such as Professor H. M. Gwatkin and his Studies in Arianism (Cambridge, 1882), and Professor S. L. Greenslade and his Schism in the Early Church (London, 1953), and in quite modern times Arianism, in particular, has remained a mirror in which scholars have seen reflected the problems of the modern Church (a good example is the third part of Rowan Williams’s Arius: Heresy and Tradition [London, 1987], though there are plenty of others). Continental scholars such as Adolf von Harnack also studied the past, informed by theological perspectives derived from the present; in a different and striking way Erik Peterson turned to the fourth century to find the roots of an ideology of unity that was fuelling the murderous policies of Nazism. In all these cases the fourth century seemed to be a test case ‒ for questions of modern ecclesiology: Rome defended by development in the case of Newman, the justification for the ecumenical movement in the case of Greenslade.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document