Gorgias Press
Founded in 2001 Gorgias Press is an independent academic publisher of books and journals related to history, languages, and religious studies, with specific areas of expertise in the Ancient Near East, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Classics, Early Christianity, Jewish Studies, Linguistics, and Syriac.
Gorgias [GOR-gee-us] Press was originally created by George and Christine Kiraz as a specialty press that could keep up with their research interests. With a background in computational linguistics, George Kiraz envisioned combining cutting-edge technology with humanities research. The new company would be completely online, with no physical storefront, and it would use automation and digital printing technology rather than traditional print runs. With these tools, the press could afford to publish rare and understudied topics that were previously considered unprofitable, and Gorgias soon became known for its pioneering work in language and linguistics, religion, and especially Syriac and Eastern Christianity.
Gorgias’ philosophy of “Publishing for the Sake of Knowledge” rather than profit, attracted a number of new authors, and the press’ areas of interest rapidly began to expand. Today, Gorgias Press publishes 50-60 new titles a year, including monographs, edited volumes, translations, and more, and Gorgias books can be found in academic collections all over the world.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 37
ISBN: 9781607240396
Pub Date: 17 Jul 2009
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
Christianity reached China in its Syriac guise in the seventh century. Christian documents written in Chinese which have come down to us from the period of the Tang Dynasty contain a large number of proper names which are, or appear to be, transcriptions of Syriac names. In this paper, originally published in Malphono w-Rabo d-Malphone: Studies in Honor of Sebastian P.
Brock, the author provides a list of the transcribed proper names with their modern and reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciations, together with the suggestions made by scholars in the past for the original forms of these names.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 32
ISBN: 9781607240358
Pub Date: 17 Jul 2009
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
The epistemology of the mid-fourth-century Christian scholar in Persia, Aphrahat, presumes that the human mind and the task of biblical interpretation are caught up in a dynamic experience of Christian spiritual transformation. In short, for the Persian Sage, good Bible interpretation requires nothing less than the total person—inner and outer, in community and before God. In Aphrahat’s Demonstrations, we encounter a scholar who not only presents this remarkably integrated set of ideals but is also an impressive practitioner of them.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 59
ISBN: 9781607240389
Pub Date: 17 Jul 2009
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
The Christian era in Syriac and Arabic sources does not always correspond with the western calculations. Until quite recently the members of the Syriac churches used the era of the Seleucids (of Alexander the Great; East and West Syrians) as the era of the creation of Adam (Melkites). The use of the Christian era became more common from the 16th century, due to the closer contacts between the Oriental and the Latin churches.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 1162
ISBN: 9781593339067
Pub Date: 16 Jul 2009
Series: Kiraz Historical Dictionaries Archive
Description:
Considered to be the most complete dictionary of Old Armenian (also known as Classical Armenian or Grabar, this historic dictionary is essential to the study of this language. Written by three members of the Mekhitarist Order, this project represents the first major attempt to document Old Armenian in any comprehensive way. This two-volume reference work is presented in the Classical Armenian alphabet with definitions given in Latin.
The language of this dictionary represents the earliest known form of Armenian, making its value for the history of the language evident.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 334
ISBN: 9781593339821
Pub Date: 16 Jul 2009
Series: Publications of the Archdiocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church
Description:
This book covers the history of the Syrian church of India from its founding by the apostle Thomas in 52 A.D., until the first half of the 20th century.
During which, the author explains the various obstacles the Indian Church faced in therms of theology and colonialism. The several delegations of the Apostolic See of Antioch to India from the 17th to the 20th centuries form an indispensable account of the vicissitudes of a struggling native Indian Church trying to preserve its Antiochene identity.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 261
ISBN: 9781593339777
Pub Date: 16 Jul 2009
Series: Gorgias Précis Portfolios
Description:
This volume consists of 14 papers delivered by Assyriologists and biblical specialists at the 2007 Society of Biblical Literature congress in sessions devoted to the scholarly legacy of the late Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Professor of the Hebrew Bible at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 315
ISBN: 9781607244073
Pub Date: 16 Jul 2009
Series: Orientalia Judaica Christiana
Description:
This volume explores the formative theophanic patterns found in pseudepigraphical writings as 2 Enoch, Apocalypse of Abraham, and the Ladder of Jacob where the visual tradition of the divine Form and the aural tradition of the divine Name undergo their creative conflation and thus provide the rich conceptual soil for the subsequent elaborations prominent in later patristic and rabbinic traditions. The visionary and aural traditions found in the Slavonic pseudepigrapha are especially important for understanding the evolution of the theophanic trends inside the eastern Christian environment where these Jewish apocalyptic materials were copied and transmitted by generations of monks.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 262
ISBN: 9781593339593
Pub Date: 13 Jul 2009
Series: Kiraz Historical Grammars Archive
Description:
A rare edition of Lagarde’s Syriac ephemera, this volume is a linguist’s delight. Introduced in Latin and Arabic, the descriptions and annotations to Syriac manuscripts that constitute this book will seldom be found elsewhere. The various Syriac codices included in the collection are presented in Syriac without translation.
For the student of Syriac who is seeking the authentic experience of reading Syriac materials, this study will be a treasury of material. Over the decades, Legarde’s works have become increasingly difficult to locate, and Gorgias Press is pleased to be able to offer this collectable again.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 458
ISBN: 9781593338350
Pub Date: 13 Jul 2009
Series: Kiraz Historical Grammars Archive
Description:
This work of Theodor Nöldeke is an extremely rare find. Its scarcity should not be taken as a reflection on its authority or usefulness, however. In this original 1868 edition, Nöldeke lays out the basics of Neo-Syrian as it was used in Kurdistan and the area of Uremia.
This valuable study, essentially unique to this day in its coverage of underrepresented language studies, provides a substantial, German introduction to the dialects described, followed by a thorough study of the languages themselves, also in German.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 248
ISBN: 9781593338282
Pub Date: 02 Jul 2009
Description:
The Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Nicene Creed is an important document of an instrumental age in the development of Christianity. Theodore (c. 350-428) was clearly the most important biblical scholar of his age.
While his theology eventually led to his loss of favor among some branches of the church, Theodore was at least partially responsible for three church councils held to deal with his ideas, including those of Ephesus and Chalcedon. Mingana has published here, as Woodbrooke Studies 5, for the first time a document that had previously been lost and which contains Theodore’s observations on the outcome of the Council of Nicaea, the Nicene Creed.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 135
ISBN: 9781593336271
Pub Date: 02 Jul 2009
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
Suggesting that the Semitic root may be, at least subconsciously, biliteral, Hurwitz launches into a study of this phenomenon. Discussing linguistic phenomena such as pluriliteral forms, root-differentiation, and folk-etymologies, this little study covers significant ground for understanding the underlying structure of biblical Hebrew.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 106
ISBN: 9781593335793
Pub Date: 02 Jul 2009
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
Now a fixture in Sumerian studies, Nesbit’s initial publication of thirty tablets from Drehem is deceptively pedestrian at first glance. As the author demonstrates, a close look at these texts reveals invaluable information on the religious and social life of everyday Sumerians.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 340
ISBN: 9781593338275
Pub Date: 02 Jul 2009
Description:
Part of Alphonse Mingana’s “Woodbrooke Studies” (of which the present book is volume 2), The Apology of Timothy the Patriarch before the Caliph Mahdi is accompanied in this volume by The Lament of the Virgin and The Martyrdom of Pilate. The namesake of the volume, Timothy’s apology for Christianity, is an eighth-century manuscript and one of the earliest documents concerning Christianity’s relationship with Islam. The Lament of the Virgin is Mary’s sadness at the empty tomb; in this piece she is conflated with Mary Magdalene.
The Martyrdom of Pilate presents Pontius Pilate as a saint and lays out his spiritual accomplishments that are crowned by his martyrdom.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 81
ISBN: 9781593336295
Pub Date: 02 Jul 2009
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
Exploring the important but complex historical period following the rule of Cleisthenes in Athens, Bates provides a handy reference for the tribes that emerged from this early experiment in democracy. The tribes of Antigonis, Demetrias, Ptolemais, Attalis, and Hadrianis are all considered, along with the families (demes) that made up each tribe.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 119
ISBN: 9781593338299
Pub Date: 02 Jul 2009
Description:
The Work of Dionysius Barsalībi Against the Armenians represents the nature of some disputes in the Christianity of the Middle Ages. Dionysius Barsalībi (d. 1171) in a very rare manuscript, begins by giving a brief sketch of the political and religious history of the Armenians.
Dionysius argues that Christ’s body was corruptible up until the time of his death, and only after that did it become incorruptible. This underscores the fact that Christ had a true human body and that he digested food just like other people. The implications for this interpretation in connection with the Eucharist are obviously essential aspects to be resolved in this controversy.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 60
ISBN: 9781607243342
Pub Date: 18 Jun 2009
Series: Abrohom Nuro Library
Description:
This is a rare edition of Barhebraeus’ poem “On Divine Wisdom” by Ioannes Notayn Darauni (Yūḥannā Nuṭayn al-Dar‘ūnī) was first published in 1880. The Syriac text of the poem is accompanied by detailed footnotes giving Arabic glosses for the difficult words.
