HJS News
UCL Festival of the Arts May 7-17
Start:
May 7, 2013 1:00:00 PM
End:
May 17, 2013 7:30:00 PM
Location:
various venues, UCL Bloomsbury Campus More...
Europe and the Holocaust - Shifts in Public Debates in Poland, Germany and the UK
The panel investigates shifts in the role of the Holocaust in European
public debates in the recent past. Contrasting developments in Poland,
Germany, and Great Britain, we will identify common threads as well as
differences in perceiving, presenting, memorizing the mass murder of
European Jewries.
More...
Graduate Student Conference: Jewish Spirituality in Eastern Europe
The Yiddish Forverts has recently published a report from the Graduate Student Conference on ‘Jewish Spirituality in Eastern Europe – a Textual Perspective,’ held at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, UCL on 6-7 June, 2012. The article, authored by conference participant Adi Mahalel (Columbia University), is available online on the website of the Forverts: http://yiddish.forward.com/node/4589 More...
New publication: The Russian-Jewish Diaspora and European Culture, 1917-1937
Over a period of three years, the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department at
UCL has been cooperating in a research project devoted to 'Cultural Continuitiy
in the Diaspora: Paris and Berlin in 1917-1937', based at the Department of
European Studies and Modern Languages, University of Bath, and in cooperation
with the Centre for European and International Studies at the University of
Portsmouth. The project had been funded by the Leverhulme Trust Academic
Collaboration-International Network scheme. Among the initiators of the project
had been the late John D. Klier. More...
International Graduate Student Conference 2012
The Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at UCL is pleased to announce plans for an International Graduate Student Conference, devoted to explorations of multiple aspects of Jewish spirituality in Eastern Europe, to be held on 5th and 6th of June 2012 in London. The conference organizers invite graduate students and recent PhD holders to submit their proposals. We welcome presentations addressing any aspect of the religious history and religious culture of Eastern European Jewry, with an emphasis on their textual products. We are particularly interested in proposals which open up new perspectives and pose new questions regarding conceptual frameworks and traditional definitions used to describe Eastern Europe in the field of Jewish Studies. Topics may include:
More...
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HEBR7416 / HEBRG083 An Introduction to Syriac
| Course Code: |
HEBR7416 BA HEBRG083 MA |
| Tutor: | Dr G. Greenberg |
| Mode of Assessment: | Three tests during the course |
| Taught: | In terms 1 and 2 |
| Classes: | Mondays, 1400-1600 in Cruciform B.07 |
The introductory course will include both language and literature.
Language:
A comprehensive introduction to Syriac grammar and syntax will be given, covered by weekly exercises of translation from Syriac into English, and by class discussion of the points raised in these exercises.
Literature:
Extracts from a wide range of texts, both religious and secular, will be read, selected so as to to enable students to appreciate the importance of this literature in a number of different fields, including the development of Eastern Christianity, and the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. The details of the literature covered will depend on the speed with which the class progresses; in other years, we have read material ranging from a pagan inscription to the works of Ephrem, and have included passages from The Book of the Laws of the Countries (from the school of Bar-Daisan), the Demonstrations of Aphrahat, The Chronicle of Edessa, the Humorous Stories collected by Bar-Hebraeus, and passages from the Syriac translation of the Old and New Testaments. Previous knowledge of Semitic languages is not essential, though some familiarity with biblical Hebrew and/or Aramaic is very helpful.
The course amounts to one credit.
Reading list
This is divided into two parts:
- Essential reading: the grammar textbook which we use for class exercises, and the basic Syriac dictionary.
- Background reading: I have listed a wide range of books. I have included some basic grammar books which I do not use as teaching material in class but which some students may wish to use together with the one used in the class exercises.
When students feel that their skills and their general appreciation of the field have developed to a point at which wider reading will bring rewards and are ready to read books of general interest, listed in part 2, I recommend that they discuss their proposed reading with me so that I can help them focus on their individual interests. Students should not attempt to read all works listed.
1. Essential reading:
- J. Payne Smith ed., A Compendious Syriac Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1903, repr. 1990).
- Robinson's Paradigms and Exercises in Syriac Grammar, Oxford University Press, Fifth Edn., revised by J.F. Coakley, 2002.
2. Background reading:
- J. Barr, 'The Typology of Literalism in Ancient Biblical Translations', Mitteilungen des Septuaginta-Unternehmens, XV, 1979, 279-325.
- R. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church (London: SPCK 1985).
- F.C. Burkitt, Early Eastern Christianity (London: John Murray 1904).
- P.B. Dirksen and M.J. Mulder eds. The Peshitta: Its Early Text and History, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute Leiden 4 (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1988).
- H.J.W. Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs at Edessa (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1980).
- Idem, History and Religion in Late Antique Syria (Variorum Collected Studies Series 1994).
- G. Greenberg, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Jeremiah, Monographs of the Peshitta Institute Leiden 13 (Leiden: E.J. Brill 2002).
- G. Greenberg and Donald M. Walter, The Syriac Peshitta Bible with English Translation, Isaiah, eds. George A. Kiraz and A. Juckel, Gorgias Press, 2012.
- J.F. Healey, Leshono Suryoyo, First Studies in Syriac, Gorgias Handbooks Vol. 2, Gorgias Press 2005.
- J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak (eds), The Jews among Pagans and Christians (London and New York: Routledge 1992).
- P.S.F. van Keulen and W.Th. van Peursen (eds), Corpus Linguistics and Textual History, Studia Semitica Neerlandica, Vol. 48, Van Gorcum, 2006.
- M.J. Mulder ed., Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1988).
- T. Muraoka, Classical Syriac for Hebraists (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz 1987).
- Idem, Classical Syriac: A Basic Grammar (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz 1997).
- R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom, (Cambridge 1975) revised edition T & T Clark International, 2004.
- J. Neusner, Aphrahat and Judaism. The Christian-Jewish argument in fourth-century Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1971).
- T. Nöldeke, Kurzgefasste Syrische Grammatik (Leipzig: T.O. Weigel 1880).
- The Peshitta: Its Use in Literature and Liturgy, ed. Bas ter Haar Romeny, Brill 2007J.
- B. Segal, The Diacritical Point and the Accents in Syriac (London, New York, Toronto: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press 1953).
- Idem, Edessa "The Blessed City" (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1970).
- E. Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press; Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum 1992).
- D. Walter, Studies in the Peshitta of Kings, The Transmission and Revision of the Text, Relations with other Texts, and Translation Features, Texts and Studies Third Series, Vol.7, Gorgias Press, 2008.
- M.P. Weitzman, The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999).
- M. Zammit, 'Enbe men Karmo Suryoyo, A Syriac Chrestomathy’, Gorgias Handbooks Vol. 6, Gorgias Press 2006.
