In the Eyes of the Christian Writer al-Hārit ibn Sinān Poetics and Eloquence as a Platform of Inter-Cultural Contacts and Contrasts

Arabica ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Joseph Sadan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Semitic Language ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Christian Writer ◽  
The Middle Ages

AbstractWhile ostensibly aspects of poetics are best discussed within a purely literary perspective, in fact they can hardly be disconnected from their socio-cultural and religious frameworks. Al-Hārit ibn Sinān was a Christian scholar and writer who lived under Muslim rule towards the end of the ninth and apparently also the beginning of the tenth century, precisely at the time when the first fruits of the idea of the Qur‘ān's stylistic inimitability (i’ğāz) began to ripe. Although this concept played a role also in interfaith polemics throughout the Middle Ages, our author shows his temperance and restraint by praising the style of the Bible (he would appear not to have read the books of the Old Testament in the original Hebrew but demonstrated understanding and a feeling for the text through another Semitic language: Syriac), both because as a Christian living under Muslim rule he was loathe to arouse an overt controversy with the society in which he lived, and also because glorifying the style of Holy Scripture, which he had apparently inherited from the Syriac-Byzantine culture, was an important tendency in and of itself in both Jewish and Christian literature (in England, for example, upsurges of this tendency have occurred even in modern times). Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that our author did compare the poetics of four cultures: that of the Hebrews, that of the Greek (or rather Greek-Byzantine, rūm), that of the Syriac elements and that of the Arabs. He even tries to prove, using somewhat specious arguments, that the Hebrew portions of the Bible contain rhymes. His positions thus deserve to be considered retrospectively also in an interfaith and intercultural context.

Biblical Apocrypha

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Murdoch
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Manuscript Tradition ◽  
Noncanonical Texts ◽  
Variable Group ◽  
The Middle Ages

The term “biblical apocrypha” is imprecise. What is not meant is what is commonly known as the Apocrypha, the (variable) group of books placed separately in some post-Reformation Bibles between the two Testaments. Those are works found in the 3rd-century bce Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) but not accepted in the Hebrew canon, which was established later. When Jerome translated the Old Testament into Latin for his Vulgate, he included books (such as Judith), for which he had no Hebrew original, as deuterocanonical, a “second list” of nevertheless biblical books. The word apocrypha (Greek: “hidden things”) can imply simply “noncanonical,” but more specifically the term refers to noncanonical texts involving (or ascribed to) biblical personages, or expanding upon biblical books and events. Alternative terms used include pseudepigrapha (“spuriously attributed writings,” though this too is imprecise), midrash (Hebrew: “story”), generic designations such as apocalypse (many Old and New Testament apocrypha are apocalyptic), or blanket terms such as legend (or legend cycle). Recent studies refer to “the re-written Bible,” the “Bible in progress,” or (in the title of an important Festschrift) “the embroidered Bible.” The word apocryphus in medieval Latin means “uncertain,” “unreliable,” or “anonymous” or “pseudonymous.” Old Testament apocrypha may date from the 2nd century bce to the early Middle Ages, New Testament apocrypha continued to be produced well into the medieval period, and some overlap exists between the two. Some Old Testament apocrypha are extant in Hebrew or Aramaic, but frequently the original is fragmentary or only presumed on philological grounds or external evidence. Surviving versions are often in Greek and were themselves often translated into one or more languages, such as Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, or Latin. The earliest New Testament apocrypha are in Greek or Latin. Relatively recent discoveries have confirmed the antiquity of some, other apocrypha not known in the Middle Ages have been identified, and Christian writers refer to now-lost apocrypha. The manuscript tradition of many Old and New Testament apocrypha, however, is medieval, and, unlike biblical texts, they were not subject to standardization. Many enjoyed wide circulation throughout the Middle Ages and were translated or adapted into vernacular languages. Sometimes the sole known text may be a medieval version in a language such as Slavonic or Irish. The often neglected but continued development of Old and New Testament apocrypha in the Middle Ages is important, as is the knowledge of these texts within different Eastern and Western medieval cultures. It is thus appropriate to consider individual apocryphal works, and then the various cultures in which they are located.

PETER LOMBARD, STEPHEN LANGTON, AND THE SCHOOL OF PARIS THE MAKING OF THE TWELFTH-CENTURY SCHOLASTIC BIBLICAL TRADITION

Traditio ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 171-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK J. CLARK
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Logical Theory ◽  
The Bible ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
The Middle Ages

This study documents the discovery of Peter Lombard's long-thought-to-be-lost lectures on the Old Testament, which were hidden in plain view in the Old Testament lectures of Stephen Langton, who lectured on the Lombard's lectures. The presence in the Lombard's lectures on Genesis of the logical theory of supposition, the single greatest advance in logical theory during the High Middle Ages, means that those lectures not only postdate the Sentences but also represent the beginning of a radical advance in speculative theology that would continue to develop through the end of the High Middle Ages. This means in turn that lectures on the Bible from the 1150s to 1200, and in particular those of the School of Paris, headed by Peter Lombard, play a central role in one of the greatest speculative developments — logical, philosophical, and theological — of the Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Staročeské sumáře v biblích 15. století

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kateřina Voleková
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Bible Translations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Holy Writ ◽  
Biblical Translation ◽  
The Middle Ages

Old Czech Summaries in Fifteenth-Century BiblesThis article focuses on some non-biblical texts accompanying Old Czech Bible translations in the Middle Ages. The oldest translation of the entire Bible into Old Czech, which comes from the 1350s, included a particular type of non-biblical texts: prefaces to biblical books. The following Old Czech revisions and new translations of the Bible were provided, to varying degrees, with other textual aids, such as the lists of Mass readings. In this paper, we focus on the so-called capitula, summaries of individual chapters of particular biblical books. In the Middle Ages, the capitula were an aid providing orientation in the text for the study of the Holy Writ in Latin. During the revision of the Czech biblical translation at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, chapter summaries in Latin were also translated. However, they are only preserved in their entirety in one manuscript, the second volume of the Litoměřice-Třeboň Bible. Other Old Czech Bibles included biblical summaries only exceptionally and selectively; the Old Czech chapter summaries survived in nine biblical manuscripts, mainly before individual chapters of selected books of the Old Testament. They were primarily intended to familiarise readers with the content of the text. The biblical summaries deserve a critical edition and further research, especially for their Old Czech vocabulary, reflecting the formation of biblical language and style in the late Middle Ages. Staroczeskie streszczenia w piętnastowiecznych tłumaczeniach BibliiNiniejszy artykuł jest poświęcony tekstom towarzyszącym staroczeskim przekładom Biblii z okresu średniowiecza. Pierwszy staroczeski przekład całej Biblii, pochodzący z lat pięćdziesiątych XIV wieku, zawierał również szczególny rodzaj tekstu: przedmowy do poszczególnych ksiąg. Zarówno jego zmodyfikowane wersje, jak i nowe przekłady, były (w różnym stopniu) zaopatrzone w teksty pomocnicze, na przykład listy czytań mszalnych. Przedstawiona analiza omawia tzw. capitula, czyli streszczenia poszczególnych rozdziałów ksiąg biblijnych. W średniowieczu stanowiły one jedyną w swoim rodzaju pomoc, umożliwiającą orientację w treści łacińskiego tekstu Pisma Świętego. Podczas modyfikacji czeskiego przekładu Biblii na przełomie XIV i XV wieku przetłumaczono również łacińskie streszczenia; zachowały się one w całości tylko w jednym manuskrypcie – drugim tomie Biblii litomierzycko-trzebońskiej. Inne biblie staroczeskie zawierały takie streszczenia tylko w wybranych rozdziałach; zachowały się one w dziewięciu manuskryptach, gdzie w większości przypadków poprzedzają poszczególne rozdziały wybranych ksiąg Starego Testamentu. Ich głównym celem było zapoznanie czytelnika z treścią tekstu biblijnego. Streszczenia, o których mowa, zasługują na krytyczne opracowanie i dalsze badania, zwłaszcza ze względu na staroczeskie słownictwo, odzwierciedlające formowanie się języka i stylu biblijnego w okresie późnego średniowiecza.

“The Truth of Reliable Tradition”: Saadya Gaon, Arabic Rhetoric, and the Challenge to Rhetorical Historiography

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-188
Author(s):  
Brandon Katzir
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Medieval Rhetoric ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Latin Language ◽  
Arabic Rhetoric ◽  
Rhetorical Traditions ◽  
The Middle Ages

This article explores the rhetoric of medieval rabbi and philosopher Saadya Gaon, arguing that Saadya typifies what LuMing Mao calls the “interconnectivity” of rhetorical cultures (Mao 46). Suggesting that Saadya makes use of argumentative techniques from Greek-inspired, rationalist Islamic theologians, I show how his rhetoric challenges dominant works of rhetorical historiography by participating in three interconnected cultures: Greek, Jewish, and Islamic. Taking into account recent scholarship on Jewish rhetoric, I argue that Saadya's amalgamation of Jewish rhetorical genres alongside Greco-Islamic genres demonstrates how Jewish and Islamic rhetoric were closely connected in the Middle Ages. Specifically, the article analyzes the rhetorical significance of Saadya's most famous treatise on Jewish philosophy, The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, which I argue utilizes Greco-Islamic rhetorical strategies in a polemical defense of rabbinical authority. As a tenth-century writer who worked across multiple rhetorical traditions and genres, Saadya challenges the monocultural, Latin-language histories of medieval rhetoric, demonstrating the importance of investigating Arabic-language and Jewish rhetorics of the Middle Ages.

ISLAMIC COINS FROM EASTERN GIZA (EGYPT)

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-62
Author(s):  
E. Yu. Goncharov ◽  
◽  
S. E. Malykh ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Ancient Rock ◽  
Oriental Studies ◽  
The Middle Ages

The article focuses on the attribution of one gold and two copper coins discovered by the Russian Archaeological Mission of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS in the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Giza. Coins come from mixed fillings of the burial shafts of the Ancient Egyptian rock-cut tombs of the second half of the 3rd millennium B.C. According to the archaeological context, the coins belong to the stages of the destruction of ancient burials that took place during the Middle Ages and Modern times. One of the coins is a Mamluk fals dating back to the first half of the 14th century A.D., the other two belong to the 1830s — the Ottoman period in Egypt, and are attributed as gold a buchuk hayriye and its copper imitation. Coins are rare for the ancient necropolis and are mainly limited to specimens of the 19th–20th centuries. In general, taking into account the numerous finds of other objects — fragments of ceramic, porcelain and glass utensils, metal ware, glass and copper decorations, we can talk about the dynamic nature of human activity in the ancient Egyptian cemetery in the 2nd millennium A.D. Egyptians and European travelers used the ancient rock-cut tombs as permanent habitats or temporary sites, leaving material traces of their stay.

The Horn of the Unicorn

Antiquity ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 27 (105) ◽  
pp. 15-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Humphrey Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Middle Ages

Though everyone now agrees that the unicorn never existed, this unanimity is quite recent. All through the 19th century there were periodic reports of its presence in darkest Africa or on the Asiatic steppes, and hopes that it would turn out to be a reality died hard. But if there never was such a creature why did the men of the Middle Ages believe in it so firmly and depict it so often? As Christians it was incumbent on them to do so, for it was mentioned in the Old Testament and, therefore, must be real. Its presence there was due to the authors of the Septuagint, the Hellenised Jews who, at Alexandria, in the centuries between the city's foundation and the Christian era, translated their sacred books from Hebrew into Greek and on seven occasions used the word μονόκερως (Greek for unicorn).

Vir Dei: secular sanctity in the early tenth century

1972 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Derek Baker
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Social Organisation ◽  
Life Crisis ◽  
Literary Convention ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Middle Ages

As recent anniversary studies have emphasised, the vir Dei, the man of God, has been a christian type since the time of St Antony, and whatever pre-christian elements were embodied in the Athanasian picture the Vita Antonii possessed a christian coherence and completeness which made of it the proto-type for a whole range of literature in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. In hagiography the Antonine sequence of early life, crisis and conversion, probation and temptation, privation and renunciation, miraculous power, knowledge and authority, is, in its essentials, repeated ad nauseam. Martin, Guthlac, Odo, Dunstan, Bernard are all, whatever their individual differences, forced into the same procrustean biographical mould: each is clearly qualified, and named, as vir Dei, and each exemplifies the same - and at times the pre-eminent – christian vocation. Yet if the insight provided by such literature into the mind of medieval man is instructive about his society and social organisation, and illuminating about his ideal aspirations, the literary convention itself is always limiting, and frequently misleading. As Professor Momigliano has said, ‘biography was never quite a part of historiography’, and one might add that hagiography is not quite biography.

Protestant Rivalry — Metaphysics and Rhetoric in Germany c. 1590–1620

1990 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristian Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
The Middle Ages

One of the most remarkable changes to take place at German Protestant universities during the last decade of the sixteenth century and the first twenty years of the seventeenth century was the return of metaphysics after more than halfa century of absence. University metaphysics has acquired a reputation for sterile aridity which was strengthened rather than diminished by its survival in early modern times, when such disciplines are supposed deservedly to have vanished with the end of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, this survival has attracted some attention this century. For a long urne it was assumed that German Protestants needed a metaphysical defence against the intellectual vigour of the Jesuits. Lewalter has shown, however, that this was not the case.

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