Takamitsu Muraoka Livres

"Classical Syriac for Hebraists is intended for people who already have a basic knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and want to study Syriac, an important ancient Semitic language, a dialect of Aramaic ... The chrestomathy presents a selection of eleven documents including not only passages of the Bible, but also biblical commentaries and theological discussions, humorous fables, and a grammatical treatise, all original Syriac compositions. The texts are fully or partly vocalised, provided with grammatical annotations with constant cross referencing to the appropriate sections of the grammar. A glossary to facilitate studying of these texts is appended"--Back cover.

The accelerated publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls makes it essential for scholars working with these texts to have reliable and up-to-date information over the nature of Qumran Hebrew and Aramaic. This volume presents results of current investigations in this field presented at a third, four-day symposium on the Hebrew of the Scrolls and Ben Sira held in October 1999 at the Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva with as many as 27 papers presented, some of which deal with questions of general and fundamental importance such as the nature of Qumran Hebrew, the linguistic symbiosis in Qumran, the position of Qumran Hebrew in the history of Hebrew, the future directions of philological and linguistic investigation of Qumran Hebrew and the Scrolls. Participants, many of whom are reputed specialists in the field, came from not only Israel, but also the U.S.A., U.K., Sweden, the Netherlands, and France.

This is the first up-to-date, and complete grammar of Egyptian Aramaic as presented in texts of Egyptian provenance dating from the middle of the first millennium B.C.E. and as edited by B. Porten and A. Yardeni in their "Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt" (Jerusalem, 1986-). The grammar covers not only the phonology and morphology, but contains a substantial section on morphosyntax and syntax. It is a descriptive grammar enriched with the expert knowledge and familiarity of one of the co-authors with the contents and background of the texts in question. It is meant to replace P. Leander's "Laut- und Formenlehre des Agyptisch-Aramaischen" (1928), but also supplements it substantially, because it had no syntax. Due to the utmost importance and interest of these ancient texts, this grammar is a vade mecum for every Aramaist, Semitist and Historian in the field.

The book features a specific format designed for optimal scanning, measuring 5.5 x 8.5 inches, with a centered layout for a 6 x 9 inch size. This attention to detail suggests a focus on accessibility and ease of reading, making it suitable for various uses. The design choices indicate a thoughtful approach to presentation, enhancing the reader's experience.

Reflections from a Japanese Christian scholar illuminate the complex historical relationship between Japan and its Asian neighbors during the era of Imperialism and the Pacific War. The author shares insights gained from his annual teaching ministry in Asia, addressing theological motivations and historical perspectives. An appendix discusses the 2015 bilateral agreement between South Korea and Japan regarding "comfort women," highlighting the importance of Japan's acknowledgment of its wartime past, a matter that deeply affected the author during his visits and interactions with survivors.

Following a successful symposium held in Leiden in 1995 a second international gathering took place, also in Leiden, two years later. The volume contains revised papers covering a wide range of linguistic and textual subjects and presented by scholars from eight countries: Austria (Reiterer), Denmark (Ehrensvard), France (Joosten), Israel (Fassberg, Hurvitz, Kister, Qimron), Netherlands (Baasten, Beentjes, Muraoka, van Peursen, van Uchelen, Wesselius), Spain (Perez Fernandez), UK (Aitken, Elwolde), USA (M. Smith). A subject index and an index locorum are included.

This is an introductory grammar of Egyptian Aramaic, a form of Aramaic which occurs in documents originating in Egypt, mostly in Elephantine where there was a Jewish community during the Persian period. They date from the end of the 7th to the third century BCE. Most of the documents are either administrative or legal in nature, but also include some literary pieces such as Proverbs of Ahiqar, private, familial letters, and documents of religious significance. Basic knowledge of Biblical Hebrew is assumed, but not that of any other Aramaic idiom, though Egyptian Aramaic is very closely related to Biblical Aramaic. In the grammar part of the book, the morphosyntax and syntax occupy nearly half of its pages. In addition, there is an anthology of sixteen, quite extensively annotated texts, followed by a glossary covering all the texts included in the anthology and various indices. A useful instrument for students of Aramaic in general, Biblical Aramaic in particular. Throughout the grammar, constant comparison is made with Biblical Aramaic.

In December 1995 an international symposium was held in Leiden, concerning the subject of the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the book of Ben Sira. The papers, presented at this symposium, are collected in this volume. The papers deal with various aspects of grammar, syntax, and lexicon of Hebrew texts of the Judean Desert. They include the first publications of a Nahal Hever text, and the important apocryphal book of Ben Sira.

Classical Syriac is the language of the Syriac speaking churches and was used over a wide area of the Middle East so that a large amount of documents have come down to us. This grammar, designed to replace Brockelmann’s “Syrische Grammatik”, consists of a descriptive, namely not historical or comparative, grammar of the language with a fairly extensive morphosyntax and syntax, some practical language exercises with key, verb paradigms, a subject index, a bibliography of 25 pages on Syriac studies, an anthology of extensively annotated texts representing various genres of the Syriac literature from various periods in the three Syriac scripts, an accompanying glossary and a list of proper nouns occurring in the anthology. Although the grammar is intended primarily for beginning students of Syriac, it also contains (especially in the morphosyntax and syntax section) results of the author’s independent research. In this second edition, obvious errors in the first edition have been corrected, the bibliography has been expanded by six pages, and the presentation has been improved upon.

The amount of scientific publications written in unvocalized Modern Hebrew increases with every passing year. No serious student of Hebrew, Semitics, Biblical Studies and Judaism can ignore them. This chrestomathy seeks to assist students with basic knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and its vocabulary to read such publications. A brief introduction highlights principal differences between the structure of Biblical Hebrew and that of Modern written, scientific Hebrew. The following anthology consists of short unadapted, original texts extracted from scientific journals, monographs, encyclopaedia articles and the like. The texts are divided into four groups: those dealing with Hebrew and Semitic linguistics, Biblical studies, Palestinian archaeology, and Judaism. Each group is a self-contained unit, so that students can begin with any of the four. The first text of each group is fully vocalized with a literal English translation on the facing page. The amount of vocalization gradually decreases. Each text is provided with copious linguistic notes. A bilingual glossary completes the work.