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.
“Who Knows What We’d Make of It, If We Ever Got Our Hands on It?” Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 437
ISBN: 9781463241353
Pub Date: 25 Apr 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
In the nightstands of hotel rooms, kept under lock and key, in the poetry of a pre-apocalyptic environmental cult, and quoted by children, atheists, and murderers alike - the Bible is omnipresent in the work of Margaret Atwood. The Bible is found not only in her novels but also in her poetry, short stories, and non-fiction work. “Who Knows What We’d Make of It, If We Ever Got Our Hands on It?
On This Day (June) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 252
ISBN: 9781463241377
Pub Date: 24 Apr 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: The Armenian Church Synaxarion
Description:
The Armenian Church Synaxarion is a collection of saints’ lives according to the day of the year on which each saint is celebrated. Part of the great and varied Armenian liturgical tradition from the turn of the first millennium, the first Armenian Church Synaxarion represented the logical culmination of a long and steady development of what is today called the cult of the saints. This volume, the first Armenian-English edition, is the sixth of a twelve-volume series - one for each month of the year - and is ideal for personal devotional use or as a valuable resource for anyone interested in saints.
Towns and water supply in post-Roman Spain (AD 400-1000) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 300
ISBN: 9781463239152
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
Our current knowledge of Roman aqueducts across the Empire is patchy and uneven. Even if the development of “aqueduct studies” (where engineering, archaeology, architecture, hydraulics, and other disciplines converge) in recent years has improved this situation, one of the aspects which has been generally left aside is the chronology of their late antique phases and of their abandonment. In the Iberian peninsula, there is to date, no general overview of the Roman aqueducts, and all the available information is distributed across various publications, which as expected, hardly mention the late phases.
The Last Empire of Iran Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 404
ISBN: 9781463206161
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
As part of the Gorgias Handbook Series, this book provides a political and military history of the Sasanian Empire in Late Antiquity (220s to 651 CE). The book takes the form of a narrative, which situates Sasanian Iran as a continental power between Rome and the world of the steppe nomad.
Syntactic Studies in Targum Aramaic Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 300
ISBN: 9781463239107
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
How can one distinguish between narrative, which records a sequence of events, and a narrator’s comment on these events, in the form of notes, clarifications, and retellings? Syntax of Targumic Aramaic: A Text-Linguistic Reading of 1 Samuel applies the insights of Functional Sentence Perspective and Text Linguistics to Targum 1 Samuel. Through this analysis, Condrea answers key questions about Aramaic syntax and recovers the voice and contributions of the text’s narrator.
On this Day (May) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 250
ISBN: 9781463240646
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The Armenian Church Synaxarion is a collection of saints’ lives according to the day of the year on which each saint is celebrated. Part of the great and varied Armenian liturgical tradition from the turn of the first millennium, the first Armenian Church Synaxarion represented the logical culmination of a long and steady development of what is today called the cult of the saints. This volume, the first Armenian-English edition, is the fifth of a twelve-volume series - one for each month of the year - and is ideal for personal devotional use or as a valuable resource for anyone interested in saints.
Jehoiachin and his Oracle Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 250
ISBN: 9781463240431
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures and its Contexts
Description:
King Jehoiachin, the last Judahite king exiled to Babylon, became the focus of conflicting hopes and fears about a revived Davidic kingship after the exile. As Sensenig demonstrates, this conflict stemmed from a drastic oracle from Jeremiah that seemed to categorically reject Jehoiachin, while the canon records that he not only survived but thrived in exile.
From Caucasian Albania to Arran (300 BC – AD 1300) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 400
ISBN: 9781463239886
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The first ever study in English dedicated to Albania in Late Antiquity to the Medieval period.
Ambrose of Milan's On the Holy Spirit Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 500
ISBN: 9781463240745
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
Despite being the first extended defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit written in Latin and influencing the Trinitarian theology of Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose of Milan’s On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto) has received little scholarly attention. This book seeks to change this perspective by claiming that Ambrose defines the Holy Spirit in a way consistent with pro-Nicene theology using classical Ciceronian rhetoric to interpret Scripture in a quasi-judicial situation.
The Quran: Word List (Volume 1) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 360
ISBN: 9781463241735
Pub Date: 12 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The aim with the present series, The Quran: Word List, is to present every word form in the Quran as raw data with as little interpretation as possible. The digital text used for this purpose is the Uthmani text of the Tanzil Quran Text. In volumes one and two each attested word form in the Quran is listed alphabetically with no parsing and no alteration.
The Quran: Word List (Volume 2) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 362
ISBN: 9781463241759
Pub Date: 12 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The aim with the present series, The Quran: Word List, is to present every word form in the Quran as raw data with as little interpretation as possible. The digital text used for this purpose is the Uthmani text of the Tanzil Quran Text. In volumes one and two each attested word form in the Quran is listed alphabetically with no parsing and no alteration.
The Quran: Word List (Volume 3) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 220
ISBN: 9781463241773
Pub Date: 12 Mar 2020
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
The aim with the present series, The Quran: Word List, is to present every word form in the Quran as raw data with as little interpretation as possible. The digital text used for this purpose is the Uthmani text of the Tanzil Quran Text. In volumes one and two each attested word form in the Quran is listed alphabetically with no parsing and no alteration.
Genesis According to the Syriac Peshitta Version with English Translation Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 360
ISBN: 9781463207410
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Surath Kthob
Description:
This volume is part of a series of English translations of the Syriac Peshitta along with the Syriac text carried out by an international team of scholars. Craig E. Morrison has translated the text with the assistance of Claudio Balzaretti and Mirko Pozzobon, while Kiraz has prepared the Syriac text in the west Syriac script, fully vocalized and pointed.
Linguistic Coherence in Biblical Hebrew Texts Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781463239381
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
This monograph explores the distinct ways in which four discourse devices participate in establishing coherence in Biblical Hebrew texts. Bringing together linguistics, literary analysis, pragmatics, and translation methodology, de Regt demonstrates how a thorough understanding of the functions of devices of linguistic coherence beyond the sentence level should be integrated into biblical translation methodology and Biblical Hebrew pedagogy.
She Opens Her Hand to the Poor Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 250
ISBN: 9781463240455
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Description:
While scholarship on nonverbal communication in the Hebrew Bible has traditionally focused on ritual dress, postures of worship, and related topics, there exist a number of non-ritual gestures in the text for which we have little understanding, such as occur in the book of Proverbs. As the premier source for moral pedagogy in the Hebrew Bible, Proverbs contains a number of gestures that, when properly interpreted, enhance an understanding of social values in ancient Israel. To aid in the process of decoding these literary features, Jones examines Ugaritic, Akkadian, Egyptian, and Sumerian texts, identifying similar gestures and anatomical idioms and how they are variously interpreted in their respective contexts.
Death and Afterlife in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 221
ISBN: 9781463239190
Pub Date: 17 Dec 2019
Imprint: Gorgias Press
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
This handbook explores beliefs of ancient Jews and Christians surrounding death and the afterlife through the lens of texts ranging from the Old Testament and New Testament, to Second Temple period and rabbinic literature, to early Christian writings. Figueras further brings together eschatological texts from Iran, Egypt, Greece, and Rome as comparanda, and provides context and bibliography to guide readers in their study of ancient Jewish and Christian views of death and the afterlife.