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: Hardback
Pages: 460
ISBN: 9781463241391
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies
Description:
This volume presents and analyzes information on the pre-Islamic and early Islamic historical geography and toponyms of the Beth Qaṭraye region as well as newly discovered vocabulary from a language referred to as Qaṭrāyīth (“in Qatari”) used by its inhabitants.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 736
ISBN: 9781463242138
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Description:
After the success of the Antioch Bible, this publication is a new translation of the Peshitta English New Testament in a single volume. The English translations of the New Testament Syriac Peshitta were carried out by an international team of scholars. The volume is also available in a beautiful gilded leather edition (ISBN 978-1-4632-4217-6).
Format: Hardback
Pages: 736
ISBN: 9781463242176
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Description:
After the success of the Antioch Bible, this publication is a new translation of the Peshitta English New Testament in a single volume. The English translations of the New Testament Syriac Peshitta were carried out by an international team of scholars. The volume is also available in a beautiful gilded leather edition.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781463241957
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Texts and Studies
Description:
This volume brings together contributions by scholars focussing on peritextual elements as found in Middle Eastern manuscripts: dots and various other symbols that mark vowels, intonation, readings aids, and other textual markers; marginal notes and sigla that provide additional explanatory content akin to but substantially different from our modern notes and endnotes; images and illustrations that present additional material not found in the main text. These elements add additional layers to the main body of the text and are crucial for our understanding of the text’s transmission history as well as scribal habits.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 199
ISBN: 9781463242336
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
This is a basic introduction to the various Syriac translations of the Bible and the ways in which they were used in the Syriac tradition. After an initial discussion of the general problems of biblical translation, the different surviving Syriac translations are outlined, as well as biblical manuscripts, lectionaires, printed editions, and translations. A reception history of the Syriac Bible covers the ways in which it has been interpreted, the commentary tradition, its use in preaching, in liturgy, and in spirituality.
An appendix offers some comparative samples (in translation) to illustrate some of the differences between the different Syriac translations.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 266
ISBN: 9781463242534
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Pro Oriente Studies in the Syriac Tradition
Description:
The proceedings of the fourth PRO ORIENTE Colloquium Syriacum, which focussed on a culture of co-existence in pluralistic societies in the Middle East and in India.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 307
ISBN: 9781463239206
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2021
Series: Gorgias Studies in the Ancient Near East
Description:
Culture of Defeat is based on a 2017 conference focusing on the impact on, and responses by, the defeated parties in conflicts in the ancient Near East. Shifting the focus of analysis from the conqueror to the vanquished, the (re-)examination of written sources and the archaeological record sheds new light on the consequences and reactions after often traumatic defeats and allows to gain a more nuanced and complete picture of such events.
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9781463242091
Pub Date: 15 Jan 2021
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9781463244088
Pub Date: 22 Oct 2021
Description:
When, on an autumn Medina night in 61/680, the night that saw al-Ḥusayn killed, Umm Salama was torn from her sleep by an apparition of a long-dead Muḥammad, she slipped effortlessly into a progression of her co-religionists who, irrespective of status, gender or standing with God, were the recipients of dark and arresting visions. At the core of those Delphian dreams, peopled by angels or ğinn or esteemed forbears and textured with Iraqi dust and martyrs' blood, was the Karbalāʾ event. Her dream would be recounted by an array of Muslim scholars, from al-Tirmiḏī, stellar pupil of al-Buḫārī, and Ibn ʿAsākir, untiring chronicler of Syrian history, to bibliophile theologian Ibn Ṭāʾūs and Egyptian polymath al-Suyūṭī.
But this was not Umm Salama’s only otherworldly encounter and she was not the only one to have al-Ḥusayn’s fate disturb her nights. This is their story.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 383
ISBN: 9781463242060
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2020
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
For students of Ge’ez, this book will function as a learning grammar and resource. It will also be of interest to scholars interested in the culture and religion of Ethiopia and Eritrea, non-western Christian intellectual traditions, and the Tawahedo Church.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 174
ISBN: 9781463240523
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2020
Series: Gorgias Studies in the Ancient Near East
Description:
Drawn from Akkadian and Sumerian tablets in the Yale Babylonian Collection, many of them previously unpublished, this collection of readings brings to life the vibrancy of ancient Mesopotamian literature, beyond its better-known myths and epics. The book’s unique thematic structure presents a wide range of timeless subjects, while the individual selections open new perspectives, thanks to their vivid details. The texts include letters, poems, prayers, humorous sketches, dialogues, and proverbs.
Each theme is introduced, followed by brief commentaries on the dozen or more illustrative texts. Suggestions for further reading are also provided, as well as a map, chronological outline, and general introduction.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 107
ISBN: 9781463207311
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2020
Description:
George was one of the last scholarly Syrian Orthodox bishops to live in the early Islamic period. His metrical homily, probably composed to be sung during the consecration of the Myron, is presented here with the vocalised Syriac text and English translation on facing pages.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 329
ISBN: 9781463207199
Pub Date: 28 Dec 2020
Description:
This study of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s (d. 631/1233) teachings on creation offers close analysis of all of his extant works of falsafa and kalām. Some of these were not known to previous scholars, yet they bear witness to key facets of the interaction between the historically inimical traditions of Hellenic philosophy and rational theology at this important intellectual moment.
Al-Āmidī is seen to grapple with the encounter of two paradigms for the discussion of creation. On the one hand, Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysical concept of necessity of existence is the basis of his doctrine of the world’s pre-eternal emanation. On the other, for the mutakallimūn, the physical theory of atomism bolsters the view that God created the world from nothing. This study is of interest to scholars of Ibn Sīnā and Ash‘arism alike, as it advances our understanding of the ongoing tradition of rational theology in the Islamic world, long past Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) famous attack on the philosophers.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 335
ISBN: 9781463241070
Pub Date: 28 Dec 2020
Series: Texts and Studies
Description:
This book consists of a series of studies of Codex Zacynthius (Cambridge, University Library MS Add. 10062), the earliest surviving New Testament commentary manuscript in catena format. A research project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council has produced new multispectral images of the palimpsest undertext in order to enable a thorough investigation of the manuscript and the creation of a complete electronic edition.
This volume, co-authored by the members of the project, will provide a full account of the research undertaken by the project. Many advances have resulted from this research, which will be presented here for the first time in print.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 244
ISBN: 9781463240875
Pub Date: 28 Dec 2020
Description:
One of the distinctive characteristics of the writings of Ambrose of Milan is his frequent and lengthy borrowings from the works of Philo of Alexandria. He treated the 1st-century Jewish philosopher as an authoritative predecessor and made use of his works to a far greater extent than any other Church Father did. This study seeks to fill a lacuna in the current scholarship by investigating Ambrose’s use of Philo in his collection of letters, focusing on a set of three letters concerning the topic of the Genesis creation account (Ep.
29, 31, & 34 [PL#43, 44, & 45]). In all three cases, Ambrose fielded questions on the Six Days of Creation (Hexaemeron) by drawing upon Philo’s treatise De opificio mundi. Each of these letters is undeniably Philonic and yet uniquely Ambrosian. This study seeks to clarify why Ambrose found Philo to be particularly valuable in spite of his Jewishness and also to investigate how Ambrose interpreted, adapted, and ultimately re-created his source.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 100
ISBN: 9781463241896
Pub Date: 28 Dec 2020
Description:
Recognized as a saint by both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Christians alike, Jacob of Sarug (d. 521) produced many narrative poems that have rarely been translated into English. Of his reported 760 metrical homilies, only about half survive.
Part of a series of fascicles containing the bilingual Syriac-English editions of Saint Jacob of Sarug’s homilies, this volume contains two of his homilies on Jacob. The Syriac text is fully vocalized, and the translation is annotated with a commentary and biblical references. The volume is one of the fascicles of Gorgias Press’s Complete Homilies of Saint Jacob of Sarug, which, when complete, will contain all of Jacob’s surviving sermons.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 369
ISBN: 9781463207175
Pub Date: 28 Dec 2020
Series: Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies
Description:
This monograph traces how ‘Jewish’ elements were introduced into and disseminated throughout the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church through a series of multi-layered, socio-politico-cultural processes. Drawing on historical and literary evidence, Afework tracks the incorporation of Jewish features into the Ethiopian Orthodox Church from pre-Aksumite Christianity, before the fourth century, through the sixteenth century.