Excellent summary Professor. Very thought provoking. When you are looking for some summer reading which has nothing to do with your 'day job' ask that student who is working on the Samaritan thesis you mentioned to pass on to you Book Four of the Mimar Marqe (the words of Marqe). It is a systematic exposition of Deuteronomy chapter 32 in what is clearly Pauline terms (I am not the first to recognize this). Again I am not asking you to attempt to incorporate this into your current work. This is vacation reading. But it is interesting to speculate on the strange remnant of Pauline-sounding teaching involving the role of a hypostasis called 'the glory' which perfects humanity many only 'good' in the beginning by God. The fact that the writer is named Mark with absolutely no historical information about when or what age he wrote only adds to the mystery.
Dear Stephan, thanks for this tip - I have just checked out the British Library, but was only able to order John MacDonalds book on the Samaritan Chronicle, but not the Treatise of Mark - could you please post here the bibliographical details of the book, most appreciated. I will also post a section of the book which deals with Samaritanism - and, you will not be surprised, I will come to talk about 'the glory' yours Markus
Here is the link for John MacDonald's translation which is notoriously imperfect (MacDonald couldn't translate Samaritan Aramaic - strange qualifications given that the book was originally written in this language):
Nevertheless I've been told by my friend Ruaridh Boid formerly of Monash University that it gives a good rough idea of what is said. The authoritative translation is by Ben-Hayyim in Hebrew:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1454878
Nevertheless if you run into a section you find interesting my friend Boid will likely make sure of the exact wording.
A number of people have noted that there really exists an affinity between Marqe's writings and the portrait of the early heretics which emerges from the Patristic writers (Simon Magus especially). But Book Four is Pauline in my opinion.
The Mimar Marqe is really one of those books that should be properly translated into English. MacDonald's student Alexander Broadie wrote a book identifying it as a Samaritan Philosophy roughly equivalent to the writings of Philo. Yet there is no biographical information about who Marqe was or when he wrote. I personally favor the earliest dating possible (late first century/early second century).
Karveit's recent book on the origins of the Samaritans is exceptional too:
Will the book be released in July or September? You say July in the video but Ashgate's website says September. So I'm wondering if the publication date got pushed forward and they didn't update the website.
Dear Beowulf2k8, thanks for the question - the publisher works on a cautious time-scale, but we have already finished the editing, so, it looks as if we will see the release of the book at the latest in July/August. But what is a month or two after so many years of research and writing ... I don't mind, if it is September.
Excellent summary Professor. Very thought provoking. When you are looking for some summer reading which has nothing to do with your 'day job' ask that student who is working on the Samaritan thesis you mentioned to pass on to you Book Four of the Mimar Marqe (the words of Marqe). It is a systematic exposition of Deuteronomy chapter 32 in what is clearly Pauline terms (I am not the first to recognize this). Again I am not asking you to attempt to incorporate this into your current work. This is vacation reading. But it is interesting to speculate on the strange remnant of Pauline-sounding teaching involving the role of a hypostasis called 'the glory' which perfects humanity many only 'good' in the beginning by God. The fact that the writer is named Mark with absolutely no historical information about when or what age he wrote only adds to the mystery.
ReplyDeleteDear Stephan, thanks for this tip - I have just checked out the British Library, but was only able to order John MacDonalds book on the Samaritan Chronicle, but not the Treatise of Mark - could you please post here the bibliographical details of the book, most appreciated. I will also post a section of the book which deals with Samaritanism - and, you will not be surprised, I will come to talk about 'the glory'
ReplyDeleteyours Markus
Here is the link for John MacDonald's translation which is notoriously imperfect (MacDonald couldn't translate Samaritan Aramaic - strange qualifications given that the book was originally written in this language):
ReplyDeletehttp://ebook30.com/history/history/134251/memar-marqah-the-teaching-of-marqah-bzaw.html
Nevertheless I've been told by my friend Ruaridh Boid formerly of Monash University that it gives a good rough idea of what is said. The authoritative translation is by Ben-Hayyim in Hebrew:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1454878
Nevertheless if you run into a section you find interesting my friend Boid will likely make sure of the exact wording.
A number of people have noted that there really exists an affinity between Marqe's writings and the portrait of the early heretics which emerges from the Patristic writers (Simon Magus especially). But Book Four is Pauline in my opinion.
The Mimar Marqe is really one of those books that should be properly translated into English. MacDonald's student Alexander Broadie wrote a book identifying it as a Samaritan Philosophy roughly equivalent to the writings of Philo. Yet there is no biographical information about who Marqe was or when he wrote. I personally favor the earliest dating possible (late first century/early second century).
Karveit's recent book on the origins of the Samaritans is exceptional too:
http://books.google.com/books?id=lZSl64Or5UMC&pg=PA239&dq=garizin&hl=en&ei=pIHPTZerBYq0sAPVmNCxCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=garizin&f=false
Will the book be released in July or September? You say July in the video but Ashgate's website says September. So I'm wondering if the publication date got pushed forward and they didn't update the website.
ReplyDeleteDear Beowulf2k8,
ReplyDeletethanks for the question - the publisher works on a cautious time-scale, but we have already finished the editing, so, it looks as if we will see the release of the book at the latest in July/August. But what is a month or two after so many years of research and writing ... I don't mind, if it is September.