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: 160
ISBN: 9781611439694
Pub Date: 24 May 2013
Series: Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies
Description:
Kassia the Nun offers a unique glimpse into ninth-century Byzantium in the only woman whose works were included in the corpus of liturgical hymns. This volume explores Kassia’s thought on Christology, on gender, and on monasticism itself. It provides readers with an opportunity to know this woman of remarkable intellect, wit, and piety by drawing primarily on her own words.
Kassia’s is one of the only female voices from ninth-century Byzantium and this volume accordingly examines her reflections on gender in the context of her society and concludes that she represents a perspective that might be described as feminist.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 580
ISBN: 9781607249986
Pub Date: 24 May 2013
Description:
The Yezidis are a Kurdish-speaking religious minority who practice a highly syncretistic religion based exclusively on oral tradition. Their myths and motifs, besides showing the influence of both Sufism and a pre-Zoroastrian Western Iranian mythology, are related to the religious movements of Late Antiquity, and reveal the vestiges of a common cultural substratum once shared by the people of the region.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 382
ISBN: 9781593338206
Pub Date: 24 May 2013
Series: Gorgias Ugaritic Studies
Description:
A comparative work on the nature and various roles of the lesser deities, the so-called angels, in the Ugaritic texts and the Hebrew Bible. Sang Youl Cho insists on the necessity for a comparative study between the two religious literatures from Ugarit and ancient Israel. The present study is interested in their membership in the heavenly council, their kinship among the deities, and their roles such as messengers, warriors, mediators, or servants, which have numerous similarities in the Ugaritic texts and the Old Testament.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781593339753
Pub Date: 24 May 2013
Series: Gorgias Ugaritic Studies
Description:
An examination of the ethics of violence in the Ugaritic story of Aqhat using the conventions of characterization and the conflicting points of view. The points of view of the divine characters El, Baal, Anat, Yatpan, are contrasted with the points of view of the human characters, Aqhat, Dan'il and Pughat, in order to bring out the multi-dimensional aspect of Anat's violence.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9781593338442
Pub Date: 24 May 2013
Series: Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies
Description:
A sensitive and evocative treatment of the role of the Holy Spirit in worship. With a keen awareness of the tradition of Syrian Christianity, Brock begins his exploration with the role of the Holy Spirit in the Syriac Bible. A striking aspect of this tradition is the imagery used for the Spirit, including: compassionate mother, fire, olive oil, as well as the more common image of dove.
Brock also summarizes commentaries and other literature on the baptismal rite, touching on Syriac literature and works translated from the Greek.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 330
ISBN: 9781611438697
Pub Date: 23 May 2013
Description:
A selection of essays on magic and divination in relation to the biblical world, including Mesopotamian demonology, Akkadian literary influences, exorcism, healing, calendars, astrology, bibliomancy, dreams, ritual magic, priestly divination, prophecy, magic in the Christian Apocrypha and the New Testament, magic in rabbinic literature, and Jewish Aramaic magic bowls.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 120
ISBN: 9781611432497
Pub Date: 21 May 2013
Series: Kiraz Classic Archaeological Reprints
Description:
This pamphlet contains 206 Syriac inscriptions, sorted by date, attesting to the Nestorian presence in Central Asia
Format: Paperback
Pages: 64
ISBN: 9781611439229
Pub Date: 21 May 2013
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
This work contains a full description of the Nestorian Stone in English.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 19
ISBN: 9781611435924
Pub Date: 21 May 2013
Series: Syriac Studies Library
Description:
William Wright presents here the Syriac text and English translation of extracts from a manuscript containing a previously unknown recension of the text “Secular Laws of the Emperors Constantine, Theodosius, and Leo.”
Format: Paperback
Pages: 25
ISBN: 9781463201241
Pub Date: 21 May 2013
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
Athas challenges the past assumptions by Book of Daniel scholars, especially with regard to the symbolism in Chapter 9. This exegesis provides a theory for chronological interpretation that includes dates for calculating the seventy weeks mentioned in Daniel's vision.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781463202231
Pub Date: 14 May 2013
Series: Journal of Language Relationship
Description:
The Journal of Language Relationship is an international periodical publication devoted to the issues of comparative linguistics and the history of the human language. The Journal contains articles written in English and Russian, as well as scientific reviews, discussions and reports from international linguistic conferences and seminars.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 57
ISBN: 9781607240860
Pub Date: 10 May 2013
Description:
This edition of Mar Jacob of Sarug's (d. 521) homily on Partaking in the Holy Mysteries is one of Jacob’s memre on the sacraments. In this homily, Jacob is shocked that some of his congregants are leaving the service early, before the eucharist has been celebrated.
He emphasizes the importance of the liturgical celebrations for a Christian life in a message still applicable today. The volume constitutes a fascicle of The Metrical Homilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug, which, when complete, will contain the original Syriac text of Jacob's surviving sermons, fully vocalized, alongside an annotated English translation.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 218
ISBN: 9781611438956
Pub Date: 09 May 2013
Description:
As virtually all Christian Palestinian Aramaic texts consist of translations, one cannot adequately discuss its verbal system without taking into account translation technique. The present study consists of a study of the translation of Greek Indicative verbs in the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Gospels and its implications for the understanding of the Christian Palestinian Aramaic verbal system.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781607240693
Pub Date: 06 May 2013
Series: Munaqashat: Gorgias Studies in the Modern Middle East
Description:
This work explores the misconceptions about the Ottoman Süryânî community of the pre-World War I era, using a critique of the present day historiography as the context for the discussion. The works of three early twentieth century journalists, provide the material for the study. The author contends that this group cannot be considered as Assyrian nationalists, the traditional argument, that they saw the future of the Süryânî people as best secured by the continuation of the Ottoman Empire, in which they sought a greater presence for their community.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 376
ISBN: 9781611438642
Pub Date: 27 Apr 2013
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
Too many incoming students are fluent in English but unable to discuss the language grammatically. Introductory language courses and textbooks often assume a proficiency and familiarity with grammatical terms that is not possessed by the students. This guide delivers an understanding of English grammar starting from simple concepts and presupposing no background or vocabulary.
This book is designed as a textbook and a reference for students beginning a New Testament Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic or Latin course.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 25
ISBN: 9781463201173
Pub Date: 22 Apr 2013
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Description:
This paper examines the “muscular Christianity” phenomenon in Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ and Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 short play, “Today is Friday.”