Ed Cook (Ralph the Sacred River) has an excellent, if very technical, post on how to teach Aramaic.
Aramaic
Call for papers: International Organization for Targum Studies
We are only a year away from the triennial IOSOT meeting and its associated meetings which includes the IOTS. The Congress will be held at the University of Helsinki and the associated meetings will overlap a bit more this time which should help to reduce costs, 10 days in Slovenia was great, but tough on the budget.
So with the Congress only a year away it is time to announce the call for papers. It is shaping up to be a very good IOTS meeting with Steven Fraade and Dineke Houtman confirmed for two of our three keynote addresses.
Please forward this call and feel free to this link to the Newsletter for Targumic and Cognate Studies site.
International Organization for Targum Studies
Sixth Meeting
HELSINKI, FINLAND
August 4-6, 2010
CALL FOR PAPERS
The 6th meeting of the IOTS will cover a wide range of topics related to Targum Studies:
Philology;
Typology and Genre;
Translation Strategies and Theory;
Exegesis;
Theology;
Text-criticism and Manuscript Studies;
Relationship to Rabbinic Literature.
We are pleased to announce a call for short papers in any of these categories. Papers should be of twenty-minutes length, allowing ten additional minutes for discussion. The deadline for paper proposals is September 15, 2009, and March 1, 2010 for the submission of written abstracts.
DATE
The sixth meeting of the IOTS will be held from August 4-6, 2010 in conjunction with the XXth Congress of IOSOT, the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, and other specialized congresses (IOQS, IOSCS, IOMS), to be held from 1st to 6th August 2010 in Helnsinki, Finland. All information on these congresses, registration, accommodation, etc. can be found on http://www.helsinki.fi/teol/pro/iosot/abstracts/iosot.htm.
PAPER PROPOSALS
If you are interested in participating and presenting a paper, please send your proposal (title and/or subject of paper) to:
Dr. Willem Smelik,
willem.smelik @ ucl.ac.uk / willem.smelik @ gmail.com
Dept. of Hebrew and Jewish Studies
University College London
Foster Court, Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
Please forward this call for papers to any student or scholar you think may be interested.
The Economist on “The Art Scroll Talmud”
The Economist has a short article on a new edition of the Talmud. I haven’t spent much time with this so I am not sure how it is revolutionizing Talmud study…
For Orthodox Jews, lifelong study of the Talmud is the supreme religious precept. But for many earnest students through the ages, it has been a frustrating grind. Written in Aramaic (often described as the language of Jesus), it does not easily surrender its textual meaning or inner reasoning. In the 11th century, a French rabbi named Shlomo Yitzhaki, often known by the acronym Rashi, wrote a ground-breaking commentary to make the original text more accessible. But even he is often terse and replete with abbreviations and unelaborated allusions, as are the thousands of commentaries and books of scholarly correspondence that accrued over the ages.
Talmud students inevitably wasted time barking up wrong trees or beating paths that had been beaten before. Not any more. The traditional study is radically changing and broadening, thanks to a 20-year-old American-based project nearing completion. “The Art Scroll Talmud” has published all 72 volumes of its English-language Talmud and nearly 60 volumes of a Modern Hebrew version. A French edition is progressing more slowly, and there are plans for a Russian one.
Calling Targum Scholars – Sigla Project
From our beloved IOTS President Willem Smelik:
Dear members of the IOTS and other interested parties,
The IOTS has long discussed the desirability of new editions of (most of) the Targums. A first task, the collection of data on targumic manuscripts, has already started and has come to a promising, even if partial, conclusion at the Theologische Universiteit of Kampen, the Netherlands. Eveline van Staalduine-Sulman came with a proposal for a system of sigla which, if agreed upon and endorsed by the IOTS, could be used in any future studies and editions of the Targums, similar to the sigla nowadays common in the study of the Peshitta. The advantages of a common system are clear to everyone.
At the last meeting of the IOTS it was agreed that we should establish a committee to discuss the format for the sigla of manuscripts, starting with the afore-mentioned proposal. We would therefore like to invite interested scholars to come forward and express any interest that they might have in contributing to this task. The executive body of the IOTS will then discuss the options and decide upon a representative and suitable committee, who will hopefully be able to report their findings at the next meeting of the IOTS in Helsinki 2010.
The contact address is:
Willem Smelik
willem.smelik AT ucl.ac.uk
26 Tenison Road
Cambridge CB1 2DW
UKWith kind regards,
on behalf of the IOTSWillem Smelik
How would you like to date Targum Neofiti?
Maybe just the two of you, a nice dinner, maybe a little candle light…I am afraid I am talking about a different kind of dating.
A friend pointed me to this YouTube video by Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill. (I will give Driscoll credit, I see that his blog has a series on Charles Spurgeon, who I agree was one of the greatest preachers ever to live.) There are lots of things that we may quibble point out are wrong in this video on the Trinity, but shall we just start with the title topic, “Targum Neofiti?”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6mVLmSMRMU
The first is the date. TgNeof is most likely late second century CE not BC(E) as Driscoll states. Furthermore, his entire argument rests on an erroneous translation. He says that TgNeof Gen. 1. reads “In the beginning with the Firstborn God created….” It should be “From the beginning, with wisdom, the Lord created…” The text reads מלקדמין בחכמה ברא {ד}ייי I do not have a critical edition to hand and the text I just copied comes from the Accordance module, but I see no variants noted (other than the dalet in ד}ייי} ).
So the term “with wisdom” seems certain and it is certainly nothing like “firstborn,” .בכורא What Neof is doing is referring to Prov. 3.19 “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens.”
Feel free to offer other comments on the video. For the first time I have actually left comments on a YouTube video because I think this is so egregious. And for those who don’t know me as well and to be open and clear, I do believe in the Trinity, I just abhor bad sermons and errors.
