Texts and transmission

O que podemos saber sobre a tragédia grega? O conhecimento que possuímos ou acredita em tê-lo está em conformidade com a realidade do que era essa forma de teatro em Atenas por volta do século V antes de nossa era? Vamos avançar ainda mais: a ambição de conhecer a verdade, e toda a verdade, de um objeto cultural tão distante de nós, essa ambição é razoável?

The northeastern region of the Iberian Peninsula, which became later medieval Catalonia, and the adjacent French region then called Septimania formed an intermediary zone of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, social, political, and religious transition and brokerage between the Mediterranean and central European worlds, interfacing with the Christian north and Muslim south. Consequently, the double region Septimania/Catalonia is an ideal subject for a comparative view of transformation processes in the Carolingian Empire. My paper analyses how this still-underestimated periphery of the Carolingian Empire transformed into a central region of Latin Christian Europe between the late ninth and the middle of the eleventh century, through exploring its imported and autochthonous manuscript production and its position as a border society. In doing so, I show that the societal and religious circumstances of this intermediary zone favoured the concerted selection, introduction and implementation of the core results of the Carolingian Church reform, as well as its well-balanced adaptation to a post-Roman, post-Visigothic and post-Carolingian society under reconstruction. My reflections allow us to assess the quality of 'Carolingian' culture as an imperial, i.e. overarching, eclectic and flexible concept of amalgamation of cultural and political semantics, from a peripheral rather than central European perspective.

Le projet ERC "Paratexts of the Bible" (Bâle / Munich, 2015-2019) s’interroge sur la réception des Évangiles à travers les âges en recensant et analysant les éléments accompagnant le texte biblique dans un très grand nombre de manuscrits.
Ces différents paratextes portent la marque de traditions patristiques, parmi lesquelles Irénée de Lyon tient une place importante. Traditions souvent remaniées ou contradictoires. L’histoire des certains extraits transmis dans les manuscrits bibliques réserve quelques surprises.

A paraître dans les Actes du colloque international « Autour de la Bibliothèque virtuelle du Mont Saint-Michel. État des recherches sur l'ancienne bibliothèque monastique », dir. Marie Bisson et Stéphane Lecouteux, Avranches - Mont Saint-Michel, 5-7 septembre 2018

Alcuin's carm. 69 has been interpreted in some influential studies of the Codex Amiatinus as describing a pandect written per cola et commata. It  incorporates in its final four lines both the couplet found above the Amiatinus Ezra-portrait and a  line (not a couplet) from the preface to Juvencus's hexameter retelling of the Gospels. The occurrence of the Ezra-couplet underlies the theory that Alcuin had seen either the Codex Amiatinus or one of its sister codices and there obtained the Ezra-couplet.  Amiatinus scholars (though not liturgists) have thus  often assumed that carm. 69 describes a book written per cola et commata. Some editors of carm. 69 have assumed that the final two couplets are a later addition.
      In this study of the relevant lines I show that carm 69 does not describe a book written per cola et commata and further, that that phrase would never have been used to describe a page layout in the eighth century. 
    The Juvencus line can give a clue to the poem's date, substantiating Bonifatius's Fischer's views of a 799-801 date against recent skepticism. Alcuin reworked the line borrowed from Juvencus's praefatio in two letters written on either side of the year 800; in both, his adaptation resembles the relevant lines in carm. 69. The combination of the couplet with the Juvencus borrowing is thematically coherent: both treat, in different ways, the theme of destruction and deliverance from fire. Accordingly, the notion that the Ezra couplet and Juvencus lines were later additions to Alcuin's poem cannot be upheld.
    The transmission of the poem and its form in each witness has not previously been correctly set out. No edition uses all witnesses.
      New information from the Peutinger library catalogue research project allows us to assign the exemplar of the text of carm. 69 as transmitted in  London BL Harley 3685 to Freising; this points to a stronger Bavarian reception than has hitherto been recognized.
    The prevailing  hypothesis about carmen 69 and the Ceolfirth pandects, developed and elaborated by Corsano, Meyvaert, and Chazelle--  that Alcuin derived the Ezra couplet from first-hand acquaintance with either the Codex Amiatinus or one of its sister codices (if they indeed contained material similar to the first quire) must therefore be set aside. While Alcuin could indeed have seen the book, it is far more likely that his acquaintance with the couplet derives from an intermediary such a lost collection of epigrams..

For a PDF of the published article, please send me a message via the Academia.edu message system, or contact me by email

My research aims to stress the existence of a common European legal culture already in the twelfth-century. In this perspective, the origin and the development of the brocards as a literary genre seems particularly significant: a process that seems to begin in an Anglo-Norman legal environment, and especially in the canonical legal experience, and from there it spread quickly across continental Europe.
My main idea is therefore to use the textual sources on the move, their circulation and reception, as a paradigm to inquire the European legal culture in twelfth-century.

In the twenty-first century, the chance to discover, study and edit a quasi-unknown and disregarded Latin text from the Early Medieval Ages is remarkably rare. The Homiliary of Luculentius offers us this exceptional opportunity. All current indicators favour our hypothesis that this considerable source, known only from selected parts, is a rarity in the proper sense: it appears to be the earliest autochthonous monument of Latin literature of the so-called Spanish March, the north-eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula dominated by the Carolingians and their culture. Our new research project aims at the full edition of this work, the identification of its sources and the religious, social and political contextualisation of the probably monastic author and his network. The exploration of this work will fundamentally change our vision of Carolingian culture in a still-underrated periphery of Charlemagne’s Empire.

This chapter analyzes Nahmanides’s sustained effort to incorporate Kabbalistic teachings into his commentary on the Pentateuch which served to pave the way to the gradual textualisation of Jewish mysticism that previously enjoyed only limited and largely oral transmission. The geographical mobility of individuals and communities within the Mediterranean basin, due to political persecutions and other economic and social factors, promoted the diffusion of Jewish texts, which, starting in the 13th century, began to include Kabbalistic treatises. The emergence of itinerant Kabbalists, like Abraham Abulafia, signalled the deinstitutionalisation of Jewish esotericism, emphasized the individual Jew’s propensity for direct union with God, and refocused Jewish intellectual and theological preoccupation on the spiritual-performative dimensions of the Jewish tradition. Although Kabbalah and philosophy constituted rival analytical systems throughout the Middle Ages, by the dawn of the early modern period, Kabbalistic authors began to draw upon categories, modes of presentation, and a general organisational style borrowed from rationalist philosophy. The integration of a classificatory-schematic organizational style, which was endemic to philosophy, within various schools of Jewish mystical speculation, produced a new genre of Kabbalistic texts — the systematic treatise — aimed to catalogue and arrange Kabbalistic speculation around clearly defined topics. This new literature constituted a milestone in the evolution of Jewish mystical writing and, with the aid of the printing press, reached ever-wider audiences and reading communities in 16th century Europe.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface ........................................................................................................ xi
Daniel Maoz
Introduction ............................................................................................... xv
Harry Fox
Prologue .................................................................................................... lvii
Reb Zalman z”l Hesped When a Man Takes a Vow
Jonathan Chipman
PART I: KABBALISTIC THEORY
Chapter One ................................................................................................. 3
Divine Response to Human Suffering: Kabbalistic Silence as Crux
Interpretum
Daniel Maoz
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 21
With/in Hyphenated Spirituality — Jewish-Sufi Pietist Mysticism
in Reb Zalman
Aubrey L. Glazer
Chapter Three (located in Appendix I) ...................................................... 37
היבטים ספרותיים והיסטוריים בשאלת חיבור הזוהר
Literary and Historical Perspectives on the Problematic Composition
of the Zohar (Hebrew)
Yigal Shalom Nizri
PART II: MODERN AND MEDIEVAL KABBALISTS
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 41
Reviving the Study of the Zohar in First Half of the 20th Century:
A Consideration of Roles of Gershom Scholem, Yudel Rosenberg,
and Yehuda Ashlag
Ira Robinson
viii Table of Contents
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 51
La Kabbale intégrative de Rabbi Abraham Aboulafia: L’être humain
dans sa potentialité messianique
Sarah Licha
Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 69
Transmitting Kabbalah in the Middle Ages: Orality versus Textuality
Andrea Gondos
Chapter Seven ............................................................................................ 99
Meanings of Shekhinah in Tosher Hasidism
Justin Jaron Lewis
PART III: A CABAL OF RESEARCHERS ON JEWISH MYSTICISM
Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 159
Shi’ur Qomah and the Song of Songs
Harry Fox
Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 187
The Heart of Love: Structure and Meaning in the Song of Songs
Tzemah Yoreh
Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 213
Body of Law: Inscribing the Mitzvot on the Body
Aviva Richman
Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 247
Mystics and their Wives: The Democratisation of Jewish Mysticism
in Hebrew Prayers for Women from Pre-Modern Italy
Tirzah Meacham
PART IV: KABBALISTIC THEMES
Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 285
Elijah de Vidas and the Process of the Popularisation of Kabbalah
in the 16th Century
Ira Robinson

From Something to Nothing ix
Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 301
Can Halakhic Texts Talk Magic?
Simcha Fishbane
Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 349
A “Mind-Blowing” Project: Zoharic Aramaic for Beginners
Judy Barrett and Justin Jaron Lewis
Chapter Fifteen (located in Appendix I) .................................................. 375
מאי נפקא מינה להיסטוריה: הידרשותו של יעקב כ"ץ למקורות הלכתיים במחקר ההיסטורי
What Difference Does It Make for History? Jacob Katz’s Move to Include
Legal Sources in Historical Research (Hebrew)
Yigal Shalom Nizri
Epilogue ................................................................................................... 377
Reb Zalman z”l Hespedim
Shalom Schachter
Matya Schachter
Aubrey L. Glazer
Herb Basser (Justin Jaron Lewis)
Harry Fox
Contributing Editors ................................................................................ 403
Contributors ............................................................................................. 405
APPENDICES: HEBREW CHAPTERS
Part I Kabbalistic Theory: Chapter Three ................................................ 411
היבטים ספרותיים והיסטוריים בשאלת חיבור הזוהר
Literary and Historical Perspectives on the Problematic Composition
of the Zohar
Yigal Shalom Nizri
Chapter Fifteen (located in Appendix I) .................................................. 435
מאי נפקא מינה להיסטוריה: הידרשותו של יעקב כ"ץ למקורות הלכתיים במחקר ההיסטורי
What Difference Does It Make for History? Jacob Katz’s Move
to Include Legal Sources in Historical Research
Yigal Shalom Nizri
Index ........................................................................................................ 463

Drawing on interviews with Hecklevision programmers and the founder of software company MuVChat, this article outlines three related 'live commenting' phenomena that cross diverse cultural contexts: Hecklevision in the US; 'barrage cinema' in China and online video 'bullet screens' (danmu/danmaku) in China and Japan. By comparing and contrasting these text-on-screen modalities of engagement, I draw attention to underlying connections around 'bad' behaviour and digital disruption while also noting some of the cultural specificities and discursive frameworks at play. This intercultural analysis aims to uncover what is at stake in technology-led, interactive screen experiences when audiences take centre stage via written rather than spoken interjection. Such 'live commenting' points to the 'textual intensity' of the digital era and the culturally distinct yet interrelated ways in which diverse audiences respond.

In recent times, studies on the medieval Bible tend to reconsider older qualifications of non-biblical ('non-canonical', 'apocryphal') texts in Bible manuscripts, because they are disregarded, but excellent indicators of local chronological, historiographical and eschatological thinking, on the one hand, and of regional availabilities and interests of rare text material in the very moment of production, on the other hand. A closer look to the rich Iberian biblical legacy has already shown that many Bibles offer interesting specimina of a chronological and historical reorientation that also seeks to integrate new sibylline, apocalyptic and eschatological texts in order to adapt the biblical canon to the specific socio-political setting of a society of permanent encounter and conflict with religious alterity. The article will give an overview of these textual phenomena especially in Iberian Bibles of the Early and High Middle Ages and contextualize them in their local, regional and supra-regional circumstances of production and perception. In so doing, the article hopes to sensitize the readers to the medieval perception and use of the Bible as a transcultural library of global history and regional and even local histories.

The history of the transmission of texts is one of the most interesting and novel aspects of current Iiterary criticism. Rather than follow traditional ideas on the author and the Iiterary text, in this paper I would therefore Iike to trace the history of the transmission of a medieval Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic work on ethical motifs, from the time of its composition until the present day. The paper considers different contexts of transmission in different periods and places, and the importance of the two languages in which the work is written. I also analyze the group of works that accompany the main work in the codices and pose some extratextual questions with the aim of enriching our general knowledge of medieval works.

Please find attached the final programme for 4 sessions on the “Materiality of Manuscripts.” All four sessions will take place on 3 July, Wednesday in stage@leeds, Stage 1.
My intervention will be the second intervention in the fourth session (Transmission and Dissemination), on the subject: Text and Manuscript: The Transmission of Sībawayhi's Kitāb.

In traditional Africa, the way of holding a conversation about God was determined by the sacral words of wise ancestors. The aim of this article is to relate the sound transmission of Christian revelation to African men and women rooted in their ways of receiving the authoritative words of their beloved ancestors. The Christian revelation seen as the eternal and living Word who became flesh is a new way of knowing the mystery behind the goodness of life experienced by African wise ancestors who were constantly searching for the meaning of life-forces in nature. By exploring the mystery of God from Christian revelation perspective, African Christian theology goes beyond African wisdom literature by drawing African Christians to the fascinating and delightful mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God in human history. Jesus, the eternal and living Word of God who became flesh as a human person embodies the nearest to God and God himself who can reveal the mystery of the wonderful Father who loves human beings in Jesus and through the Spirit by extending the family life of the three divine persons to all who experience an encounter with the Son sent to promote in the Spirit the abiding presence of the Holy Trinity in creation and in human lives. "The Sound Transmission of Christian Revelation in African Context" is an African Christian theology of interpretation of Revelation and Scripture for mature believers in Sub-Saharan Africa reclaiming the communal as the basic dimension of human life. ♦Jean-Marie Hyacinthe Quenum is the former Academic Dean of Hekima College, the Jesuit School of Theology of The Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi (Kenya). He is currently the Novice Master of the Jesuit province of West Africa, in Bafoussam (Cameroon).

The identification, collation and contextualization of nine widely unknown or disregarded Iberian copies of the so-called Tiburtine Sibyl from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries allows for closing a significant gap in the still vexing early history of this famous sibylline text. The study of the text versions of these neglected early testimonies from medieval Catalonia and Northern Spain gets rid of the speculations of previous historical, religious and theological research and provides for the first time a solid basis built on codicological, palaeographical and philological observations and arguments.

The areas often described as the Carolingian peripheries, whether the term is interpreted politically or culturally, are vitally important to understanding how post-Carolingian centres of power changed and transformed in the later ninth and tenth centuries. The three papers here all consider the transmission of culture and memory through varied methodologies and perspectives, but are unified by their focus on the porous boundaries of knowledge, culture and identity that define this period.

Dieser Aufsatz präsentiert einen ersten Ertrag der nach der Veröffentlichung meiner Studien zur Entstehung, Überlieferung und Rezeption von Einharts 'Vita Karoli' erfolgten Lektüre von älteren und neueren Studien auf dem Weg zur kritischen Ausgabe des Textes. Zunächst werden fünf neue Textzeugen beschrieben und in das bekannte Handschriftenstemma eingeordnet, deren Identifizierung sich der weltweit fortschreitenden Katalogisierung und Erschließung von mittelalterlichen Handschriften verdankt. In einem zweiten Kapitel werden neue Spuren der mittelalterlichen Rezeption des Karlslebens vorgestellt und in das weite Panorama der Wirkungsgeschichte des Textes eingearbeitet. Schließlich wird in einem dritten Abschnitt ein kritischer Überblick über die von Einhart tatsächlich gelesenen und verwerteten Quellen geliefert, der mit dem heute bekannten Überlieferungsprofil antiker und frühmittelalterlicher Handschriften kontrastiert wird. Auf diese Weise werden die materiellen und intellektuellen Voraussetzungen sowie die produktive und rezeptive Wirkungsgeschichte dieser einzigartigen karolingischen Herrscherbiographie des frühen 9. Jahrhunderts weiter erhellt und ein neuer Baustein zu ihrer kritischen Ausgabe gelegt.

The north-eastern region of the Iberian Peninsula, which became later medieval Catalonia, offers best conditions for a comparative grasp on transformation processes in the Carolingian Empire because it was always a intermediary region of ethnic, cultural and linguistic, social and political, and religious transition and brokerage between the Mediterranean and central European worlds with parallel contacts to the Christian north and the Muslim south. My paper intends to analyse the transformation of this still underrated periphery of the Carolingian Empire between the late ninth and the middle of the eleventh century into a central region of Latin Christian Europe from the viewpoint of its imported and autochthonous manuscript production and its specific profile of a border society. In doing so, I try to show that the societal and religious circumstances of this middle ground favoured the concerted selection, introduction and implementation of the core results of the Carolingian Church reform, but also its well-balanced adaption to a post-Roman, post-Visigothic and post-Carolingian society under reconstruction. My reflections provide the possibility to assess the quality of ‘Carolingian’ culture as an imperial, i.e. overarching, eclectic and flexible concept of amalgamation of cultural and political semantics, not from a central, but a peripheral European perspective.

La Biblia, de las tradiciones judía y cristiana, así como el Corán, son los primeros libros que se suelen identificar para referirse a los textos sagrados. Naturalmente, partiendo de esta perspectiva, estos textos adquieren una condición especial en las manifestaciones culturales de gran parte del mundo. Son palabras que nos acompañan en la experiencia humana convirtiéndola en el principal tema de interpretación y referencia para cualquier aficionado a la civilización e historia. De tal forma, quedan incluso despejados de su significado teológico para dar cabida a los textos que han servido como inspiración a tantas referencias literarias. Los trabajos recogidos en esta publicación coinciden con el auge que hay en los últimos años a discurrir obras fundamentales y escritores, estudiando la creación artística y didáctica de mayor profundidad. Así son las intervenciones presentadas en este libro, labor de una colección de jóvenes investigadores en su gran mayoría de la Universidad de Granada. Entre estos jóvenes científicos de las Letras, se encuentran algunos interpretadores y otros exégetas de textos sagrados de sorprendente variedad de tradiciones, religiones y culturas.