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: 204
ISBN: 9781593336288
Pub Date: 16 Dec 2008
Description:
How did the Nabataeans view their world at the time of the Roman annexation in CE 106? If it is possible to detect an altered perception after their monarchy was dissolved at that time, how can we be sure it was authentic and not a veneer, masking the identity of a disaffected people? One approach is to consider religious practice as a diagnostic for identity within Nabataean society.
Religious practice is examined through the ceramic oil lamp, a ubiquitous vessel that can portray socio-political and religious symbolism and cultural hybridization.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 326
ISBN: 9781593334260
Pub Date: 16 Dec 2008
Series: Gorgias Neo-Aramaic Studies
Description:
This study examines the language and translation technique used in a modern “targum” of the Bible. The targum – referred to as “Manuscript Barzani” – is a written preservation of a tradition of Jewish Neo-Aramaic Bible translation, originally transmitted in oral form among the religious leaders of a community in Iraqi Kurdistan. It represents a literary form of the Neo-Aramaic spoken by the Jews of the Rewanduz/Arbel region.
Within their community, the targum was used in the schools to teach the language and text of the Hebrew Bible to the young men.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 253
ISBN: 9781593330842
Pub Date: 16 Dec 2008
Series: Gorgias Ugaritic Studies
Description:
This study focuses on the imagery of meals and feasting in the Baal Myth and Kirta and Aqhat epics. Utilizing contemporary approaches to ritual, these meal events reveal the manner in which ritual behavior described and defined the different social relationships with the Ugaritic pantheon and the interactions between the divine and mortal realms. This study demonstrates the role successful ritual behavior played in the organization and presentation of characters within the narratives, as well as the role of unsuccessful or failed rituals associated with the meal event, which resulted in social chaos and confusion.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 335
ISBN: 9781593338374
Pub Date: 16 Dec 2008
Series: American Journal of Ancient History
Description:
A special book-length publication of T.R.S.
Broughton, Autobiography. Edited by T. Corey Brennan (Rutgers University), with T. Alan Broughton (University of Vermont, emeritus), Ryan F. Fowler, Andrew G. Scott, and Kathleen J. Shea (Rutgers). Edition with introduction, notes, and annotated index of the unpublished autobiography of one of North America's foremost ancient historians, who lived 1900–1993. The volume contains also Broughton's unpublished 1970 lecture "Roman studies in the twentieth century", which masterfully places Lily Ross Taylor’s major works in their intellectual context.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 88
ISBN: 9781593333966
Pub Date: 16 Dec 2008
Description:
In the tradition of older oriental literatures, Arabic literature contains numerous proverbs, moral sayings and worldly-wise dicta, as well as great collections of homiletic and religious sayings. This anthology of Wit and Wisdom is a small drop from a deep ocean – that of the rich aphoristic and proverbial literature of the Arabs. It comprises five hundred items, ranging from the seventh to the twentieth centuries, and is organized under a number of headings which provide a broad classification of the subject matter.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 106
ISBN: 9781593339692
Pub Date: 16 Dec 2008
Description:
Contributions by four of the seven major theoretical innovators in modern psychology, Sigmund Freud, Max Wertheimer, Abraham Maslow, and Noam Chomsky, are explored against the backdrop of their Jewish heritage. The psychological wisdom in Jewish religious practices and culture is highlighted as well, from a psychodynamic perspective.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 307
ISBN: 9781593339883
Pub Date: 10 Dec 2008
Description:
A notable resource for both church historians and linguists, this work of Lagarde contains both Syriac and Greek materials concerning ancient ecclesiastical laws. A number of ancient documents are cited in this unusual collection. Half of this collection is presented in the original Syriac and half in the original Greek.
All introductions and notes are written in Latin. Intended for the serious linguist and church historian, this work requires language skills to unravel. As a collection of materials that had been inaccessible up to Lagarde’s time, this volume also serves as a period piece containing a fresh view of writings that helped inform the growth of canon law.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 568
ISBN: 9781593337186
Pub Date: 10 Dec 2008
Description:
Liddon’s lectures on the divinity of Christ stand as one of the hallmarks of nineteenth century English churchmanship. Following the trajectory of the Bible itself, Liddon considers the testimony of the Old and New Testaments, as well as the Ecumenical Councils, in his lectures on the nature of Christ’s divinity.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 498
ISBN: 9781593337230
Pub Date: 10 Dec 2008
Series: Kiraz Historic Travels Archive
Description:
From the eyes of a novelist, Warner illustrates the drama and romance of a voyage through Egypt. Particularly attracted to the Muslim life and practice in Egypt, and the monuments of the ancient empires, Warner takes the reader through the length of the country into Ethiopia and tropical Africa. A travelogue that captures the 19th century fascination with the East, this volume will delight anyone interested in Egypt.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9781593336301
Pub Date: 10 Dec 2008
Series: Kiraz Historic Travels Archive
Description:
The narrative of the Jesuit missions to Akbar, ruler of the Mughal Empire in India, is a noted period piece in travel writing. Although the author never traveled abroad, he compiled a substantial history of Jesuit missionary activity. This book narrates the missions to India in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 182
ISBN: 9781593337414
Pub Date: 20 Nov 2008
Description:
A comparative chronology of the Patriarchs of the Church of the East based on twenty-two sources, five of which are previously unpublished. Benjamin reveals a great number of differences between the sources. Benjamin also highlights inconsistencies, omissions, errors and dates of succession of some patriarchs that appear to have been based on assumption.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 398
ISBN: 9781593339173
Pub Date: 20 Nov 2008
Series: Kiraz Theological Archive
Description:
The work of the remarkable sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, this lectionary of what is now known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic, was re-edited in the light of two manuscripts from the Sinai, which they recovered, and from Paul de Lagarde’s Evangeliarium Hierosolymitanum. An important document for the textual criticism of the New Testament as well as for the early practice of the church, Lewis and Dunlap added to its value by composing this light “critical edition.” Presented in Syriac with English annotations to the Greek text of the Gospels, this useful study will be welcome by New Testament scholars and Syriac scholars alike.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 844
ISBN: 9781593339135
Pub Date: 20 Nov 2008
Series: Kiraz Chronicles Archive
Description:
A representative of the Arabic genre known as “futuh reports,” The Conquest of Syria remains an important historical source although it is now recognized not to be the work of Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Omar Ibn Waqid al-Aslami (called al-Waqidi). This Arabic document, part history, part romantic reconstruction of the past, is one of the main sources narrating the Muslim conquest of Syria. A window into the world of early Muslim self-perception, these documents are a valuable historical source in the sense of being period pieces.
Here the Arabic text is presented along with the partial notes and comments of W. Nassau Lees, a noted writer on Eastern culture.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 193
ISBN: 9781593337223
Pub Date: 20 Nov 2008
Series: Kiraz Theological Archive
Description:
The first English biography of Saint Anselm, an eleventh century doctor of the church, this work has set the standard for works on the saint. Anselm became the Archbishop of Canterbury and led the English Catholic church through difficult political times.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 218
ISBN: 9781593336325
Pub Date: 20 Nov 2008
Description:
Lau’s study focuses on a set of Babylonian temple texts in the library of Columbia University. These tablets are mostly administrative receipts, giving insight into the revenue and offering accounting in the temple. The texts are presented in transcription, English translation, and with line drawings.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 392
ISBN: 9781593336189
Pub Date: 20 Nov 2008
Series: Kiraz Theological Archive
Description:
In this formidable study, Jastrow compares several aspects of the religious life of the Israelites and ancient Babylonias by comparison of their written texts. Among the topics examined are the creation and flood accounts, the concept of the Sabbath, and the ethics of both cultures.