Hekhalot literature in translation : major texts of Merkavah mysticism /
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The Hekhalot literature is a motley collection of textually fluid and often textually corrupt documents in Hebrew and Aramaic which deal with mystical themes pertaining especially to God's throne-chariot (the Merkavah). They were composed between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, with roots in earlier traditions and a long and complex subsequent history of transmission. This volume presents English translations of eclectic critical texts, with a full apparatus of variants, of most of the major Hekhalot documents: Hekhalot Rabbati ; Sar Torah ; Hekhalot Zutarti ; Ma'aseh Merkavah ; Merkavah Rabba ; briefer macroforms: The Chapter of R. Nehuniah ben HaQanah , The Great Seal-Fearsome Crown , Sar Panim , The Ascent of Elijah ben Avuyah , and The Youth ; and the Hekhalot fragments from the Cairo Geniza.
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1 online resource (443 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004252165 :
1873-9008 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The craft of a good scribe. History, narrative and meaning in the 'First tale of Setne Khaemwas' /
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In The Craft of a Good Scribe , Steve Vinson offers a comprehensive study of the Demotic Egyptian First Tale of Setne Khaemwas (Third Century BCE), the first to appear since 1900. \'First Setne\' is the most important extant Demotic literary text, and among the most important fictional compositions from any period of ancient Egypt. The tale, which is by turns lurid, tragic and ultimately comic, deals with Setne's theft of a magic book written by the god Thoth himself, and subsequently Setne's punishment through a hallucinatory encounter with the ghostly femme fatale Tabubue. Vinson provides a new textual edition and commentary, and explores the tale's cultural background, its modern reception, and approaches to its interpretation as a work of literature.
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1 online resource (xiv, 356 pages) :
9789004353107 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
New Kingdom ostraca from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridg e
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This book publishes a previously unknown collection of hieratic ostraca from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. The texts include a broad range of genres, including wisdom literature, religious hymns, magical texts, medical recipes, private letters, administrative notes, scribal exercises ( Kemit ), and copies of tomb inscriptions. Each ostracon is presented with photographs, facsimile drawings and hieroglyphic transcriptions, as well as translations and brief philological commentaries. Many of the texts can be linked to the village of Deir el-Medina on internal evidence, and the book offers new data to scholars working with material from this famous site.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004183766 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Humor in early Islam
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Humor in Early Islam , first published in 1956, is a pioneering study by the versatile and prolific scholar Franz Rosenthal (1914-2003), who (having published an article on mediaeval Arabic blurbs), should have written this text himself. It contains an annotated translation of an Arabic text on a figure who became the subject of many jokes and anecdotes, the greedy and obtuse Ashʿab, a singer who lived in the eighth century but whose literary and fictional life long survived him. The translation is preceded by chapters on the textual sources and on the historical and legendary personalities of Ashʿab; the book ends with a short essay on laughter. Whether or not the jokes will make a modern reader laugh, the book is a valuable source for those seriously interested in a religion or a culture that all too often but unjustly is associated, by outsiders, with an aversion to laughter.
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"Translation of texts":p. [36]-131. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004215733 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Persian wisdom in Arabic garb : ʻAlī born ʻUbayda al-Rayḥānī (d. 219/834) and his Jawāhir al-kilam wa-farāʼid al-ḥikam /
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This volume introduces ʿAlī born ʿUbayda al-Rayḥānī (d. 219/834), one of the central figures in the transmission of classical Greek and Persian wisdom into Arabic. It offers an edition, translation, and evaluation of his book Jawāhir al-kilam , one of the oldest collections of proverbial wisdom and moralia in Arabic, as well as other remaining pieces of his works. The first part of the book surveys the content of his more than sixty books and suggests that among his translations from Middle Persian into Arabic were the Sindbād-nāma and Bilawhar wa-Budhāsf . Moreover, he emerges as the author of the famous al-Adab al-ṣaghīr heretofore wrongly attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffa'. The second part contains the Arabic texts and translations as well as a rich documentation of their sources and their further transmission.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, pages [339]-360) and index. :
9789047418757 :
0169-8729 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.