#aramaic poetry

[marlowe1-blog]

The Book of Job chapter 6

Job offers a rebuttal

So Job is not nearly as angry with Eliphaz as I was. I guess Job is too tired to be angry. Instead he disputes the notion that G-d will punish him for what he's saying. He's already destroyed. What is G-d going to do to him? Killing him would be a mercy at this point.

I would be much less poetic to the "happy is the man who God reproves". Certainly I wouldn't be talking about calamity heavier than the sands on the sea and arrows of the Almighty in me.

This might prove more difficult than I thought. There's a LOT of great poetry in this book (even in the not terribly poetic JPS translation). I am reminded of my Theater History class in college where we got to Hamlet and everyone just started talking about how much they loved the poetry. Like every other work we could talk about themes, characters, staging, etc. But Hamlet just hypnotized everyone and the professor noted that almost every class has very little to say about Hamlet when they are first introduced. Which is weird since there is way MORE to say about Hamlet than Oedipus Rex or the Revenger's Tale.

His words go from general to specific. He notes that only the suffering cry out. Then goes back to the "If only God would destroy me" before pointing out that his friends are useless. Worse than useless. Sure first he compares them to melting ice, but then he goes "do you devise words of reproof but count a hopeless man's words as wind? You would even cast lots over an opran, or barter away your friend."

But continually he is going "tell me that I'm wrong"

So this is getting long, but today I was reminded of a particular noxious individual that I considered a friend before Obama won and then still considered a friend until the fact that every time I said hello he just glared at me. I later learned that he told mutual friends about how much he hated me. He was always a creepy dude so I wasn't terribly concerned about him cutting ties with me, but he founded a publishing company and his family still runs it so it's annoying that he publishes some cool Jewish books that I would love to buy if I wasn't giving that mamzer money.

Anyhow on the way home, I looked him up to see what he's been doing. Jumping from job to job. Had a time as a pulpit rabbi (left after a year so probably molesting some congregants) and a lot of articles about how abortion is murder complete with taking that Project Veritas "abortion" video at face value.

I found his LinkedIn account (I swear it only took 10 minutes to look all this stuff up) and saw that he responded to a post about how "Man, that's tough" being a good thing to say to someone being overwhelmed with a bitchy self-aggrandizing post about how he needs PRACTICAL ADVICE when he's feeling overhwhelmed. He even said that he's playing devil's advocate.

So I told him that he sounds like Eliphaz the Temanite (he's a rabbi so he should get the reference) and that I have advice for him, stop being a noxious lying little shit.

I'm not proud of myself for that.

But it's fascinating to see that this guy (who also used to post articles on Facebook about how you should be EMOTIONALLY STRONG) is still about as knowledgeable about human emotions as he was back when he was the glaring asshole of Washington Heights.

Oh shit. It's not even about him. It's about another friend who just sent me an email inviting me to her philosophy group at Columbia. We haven't talked since she went off the deep end stanning for the CCP.

Oh. Damn.

Anyhow. Job is wondering why his friends have nothing to help him beyond reproof and bullshit statements like "happy is the man who God reproves" And as a reader, I'm wondering why these guys are acting that way.

But I miss a friend and because I can't really talk to her and there's really no way I see us ever being friends again, I look up a shitty dude that I never liked that much in the first place.

Can you believe I write term papers for a living? One thing I have over ChatGPT is the fact that I'll never start throwing in these personal asides.

[gennsoup]

So many busy tongues, they are like an ocean washing me this way and that, like a piece of seaweed-- Do your worst!

Trixie Te Arama Menzies, Ocean of tongues

[coloursflyaway]

Good Enough

Pairing: Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland

Rating: T

Word Count: 4.000

Read on AO3

So, Edwin is in love with him.

Edwin loves him, and Charles genuinely never even considered the possibility of this, of them, before.

It might be because, back when he was still alive, his dad would have beaten the notion right out of him, but then again, his dad has been wrong about most things in his life, so fuck him.

So, Edwin is in love with him.

It’s… quite flattering, actually. To think that Edwin, who is beautiful and intelligent and educated, who can recite his favourite Keats poem by heart just as easily as tell you his favourite Mozart aria (it’s Konstanze, dich wiederzusehen from Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Edwin told him that, years ago), who knows spells and can read ancient Aramaic, who is the kindest, most brilliant person Charles has ever known, would love him.

Now, Charles knows that he is easy enough on the eyes, good with words and people, and has one hell of a swing if you give him a cricket bat, but the only reason he knows any Mozart aria is because Edwin showed them to him.

The only reason he knows Keats’ poetry is because Edwin would read them to him on slow, warm summer nights in the early 2000s.

The only reason he is here, is because Edwin let him stay.

So, it’s special, having someone like Edwin love him.

It’s fucking terrifying.

Because Charles is now holding the heart of the person he loves most in the world, and it’s a bigger responsibility than any he has ever taken on before.

He can’t fuck this up.

The thing is that nothing changes between them at all.

Charles isn’t sure if he expected it to, but what he is relatively certain about is that it most likely should. After all, it was an unexpected revelation, probably to both of them, definitely a shift in their relationship.

And yet, when Charles looks at Edwin, who is reading a novel whose name he cannot make out, curled up on the couch they have gotten for Crystal (and sometimes Jenny), he doesn’t feel different at all.

It’s still Edwin, his best mate, the boy that read to him when he was dying so he wouldn’t have to do it alone, who tries to smile whenever Charles shows him a new song he has fallen in love with, and occasionally fails hilariously at, who Charles would protect with his life and his soul and his cricket bat, no matter how high the stakes.

I love you the most, Charles thinks to himself, and smiles, because nothing about that has changed, either.

He has told Edwin that they would have forever to figure out the rest, and it’s the truth, technically speaking.

However, Charles doesn’t, because it’s Edwin and he has given Charles his heart and he doesn’t deserve to wait that long for an answer. It would be cruel in a way Charles cannot comprehend, and if there is anyone who doesn’t deserve more cruelty in their existence, it’s Edwin Payne.

The only problem with that fact is that Charles doesn’t know the answer.

He’s been thinking about it a lot, but the thing is, he’s never been in love before.

So he doesn’t really know what to compare his feelings for Edwin to, because, of course, they are greater than for anyone else, of course, Charles would sacrifice anything and anyone for Edwin, especially himself, of course, making Edwin smile is his favourite part of any day.

Because he loves Edwin, everything about him.

But is he, could he be, in love with Edwin?

Charles doesn’t know, nor does he know how to find out. It’s not like he hasn’t tried, but every novel he has paged through, every silly romcom he has watched, has been talking about butterflies in someone’s stomach, of seeing them in some new, golden light, of hearing violins playing when they speak, and Charles very much doubts that Edwin feels any of those things for him.

Otherwise he wouldn’t raise his eyebrows like that when he thinks Charles is being an insufferable little prick, he wouldn’t roll his eyes and tell him, “I know, Charles, you have told me a thousand times before”, whenever Charles brings up how much he wishes he could still taste things, or groan whenever Charles attempts to convince him to just try and let him put on some eyeliner.

(It’s just that Edwin would look so pretty like that, some kohl to bring out the warmth of his eyes, making them stand out even more than they do anyway.)

So all this talk of violins and sparkles and the need to give someone roses, if Edwin doesn’t feel that when he says he is love with Charles, then it’s pointless to consider, and anyway, those books and films describe people who have just met, not those who have known each other for twice as long as they were alive.

Maybe if he had just met Edwin, he would be hearing violins, Charles definitely thinks it’s possible.

Especially the violins in Konstanze, dich wiederzusehen.

“I just need some time alone”, Crystal says, putting on her jacket, while already opening the door. “And I am aware that that is a novel concept for the two of you, since you are basically attached at the hip, but for me, an alive human being, it’s really important to occasionally have a second of peace between almost dying and whatever we will have going on next.”

She stops to put on her shoes, almost falling over in the process, and Charles and Edwin share a look, a smile, and Charles thinks, I love you the most.

“Don’t follow me”, Crystal tells them, especially Charles, and it’s kind of cute, actually. “I’m going to get the biggest frappuchino Starbucks is legally allowed to serve me and I will not tolerate any ghostly company while doing that.”

Charles holds up his hands, still grinning, indicating his surrender in a battle he wasn’t aware they were fighting, and Crystal gives him a single nod before she walks out.

“So”, Charles starts, and turns around to face Edwin, who is already looking back, “what do we think this frappuchino she was talking about, is?”

Actually, there is one thing that changes between them after all.

It’s subtle, at least at first, but looking back, Charles isn’t quite sure how he managed to miss it for the few weeks that have passed. Maybe it was the shock of almost being forced to move on to the afterlife, the chaos of getting Crystal and Jenny settled in London, the fact that it seems to increase only slowly, incrementally.

Edwin has never been a physically affectionate person, completely contrary to how Charles is.

If it had been up to him alone, he would have hugged Edwin much more often, would have leant against him when they were looking through a book together, would have held hands to keep them from losing each other when things got hectic. But it wasn’t, and that was fine, so it was occasional touches instead, a hand on Edwin’s upper arm, his back, ruffling his perfect hair when he was doing something kind of dumb, kind of cute.

(That one always made him duck his head and smile, glance up at Charles through his lashes and allow a second to pass before he started fixing his hair again.)

Now, however, it’s… it’s not getting better, because there was nothing wrong with it in the first place, Edwin’s aversion to physical affection, but it is changing now.

It’s less that he initiates it, more than he allows it to happen more frequently. Sitting down next to Charles on the sofa instead of taking the armchair, allowing Charles’ hand to linger on his arm for a moment longer than expected, letting their shoulders brush when walking.

He’s not asking to be touched, not really, but something about it still makes Charles irrationally happy as soon as he catches onto it. Because Edwin deserves all the affection the world can offer, and Charles will always be here to give it to him.

So he reaches out in the morning, when the sun has just started to rise, and puts his hand on the curve of Edwin’s shoulder, right where it meets his neck, and points out that the clouds are turning the most beautiful pink. He throws his legs across Edwin’s lap when they settle down on the sofa at night, a book in Edwin’s hands, the tablet Crystal made him buy in Charles’. He pushes his fingers through Edwin’s hair, not to ruffle it, but just to pretend he can feel its softness against his skin.

It makes Edwin duck his head again, give Charles a little smile when looking up, and Charles thinks, I love you the most.

And thinks, I want to love you the most in every way you will have me.

“Jenny, I have a question”, Charles starts as soon as he has phased through the walls of her new butcher shop. It’s to her credit that she hardly reacts; the first time he had done that, she had thrown a meat cleaver right through his head. “What do you know about love?”

Instead of a knife, Jenny just throws him a weary look, an eyebrow elegantly arched. It makes Charles think of being scolded by the headmistress, a sensation that should be much more unpleasant than it is.

“Nothing”, Jenny answers and brings her cleaver down with a dull thud, separating flesh from bone, before looking up at Charles again. “No one ever knows anything about love and if they try to tell you otherwise, they are lying.”

There is a certain sense of finality in her voice and Charles knows he has been dismissed, no detention this time, but don’t dare to push it.

“Great”, he mutters, more to himself than to Jenny, “that doesn’t help me at all.”

“You should look at this, Charles”, Edwin says and turns the book towards him.

It’s late at night, Crystal having long since gone home and they are sat on the sofa, shoulders touching while they do their research. A new case has come up, and Edwin is trying to learn more about ancient Celtic runes, while Charles is pouring over a map of London’s underground; now, he looks up and at the page Edwin is showing him.

“We could add this to your bat”, Edwin explains, “it’s a rune for physical strength. Supposedly, it doubles whatever force you put into a hit.”

“Edwin, mate, are you trying to tell me I need help with hitting people?”

Charles is grinning, obviously teasing, and Edwin just scoffs, rolls his eyes.

And that is what Charles means; this isn’t birdsong and candle light, this is just how they always have been. This is what makes them them, even.

“Charles, do be serious”, Edwin replies, but there is affection in his voice, there is love. “I am perfectly aware that you can hit things very well, but that doesn’t mean that hitting them even better wouldn’t be an advantage.”

“I know. This is brills”, Charles concedes, and on a whim, nothing more than that, presses a quick kiss to Edwin’s cheek.

For a moment, he almost expects Edwin to admonish him, because this isn’t exactly something that they do, but instead he stares at him, before he ducks his head; Charles isn’t sure how he knows this, but if Edwin could, he would be blushing.

And it does something to Charles’ head, the thought that he would be able to make Edwin blush. It makes him stop dead in his tracks, look at Edwin not like he is seeing him for the first time, but like he could be looking at him for the rest of his existence and not get bored of it.

“Do you wanna do the honours of carving it? Since you were the one who found the thing?”, he asks just to say something, aware that his voice sounds slightly off, and thinks, I love you the most. I love you the most. I love you the most.

“Very well done, Charles”, Edwin tells him and clasps a long-fingered hand on Charles’ shoulder, peering down at the leprechaun he knocked out clean with his bat a few seconds before.

The rune really makes it pack a punch.

“I don’t think this will pose any further problems”, Edwin continues even as he crouches down to examine the passed-out form crumpled on the ground. He prods at it gently.

“It fucking better”, Charles replies, resisting the urge to pull Edwin away from the leprechaun, just in case that touching it might have some kind of magical side effect. “And if not, I’ll punch it right back out. I’ve got an Edwin Payne-improved bat after all, it won’t stand a chance.”

Just for good measure, he twirls the bat around once, twice.

This has always been one of his favourite parts of the job, the simple pleasure of knocking someone out before they get the chance to hurt his friends.

Edwin looks up at him from where he is crouching, and Charles grins at him, metaphorical adrenaline running through his non-existent veins still. He would punch out a bear if Edwin asked it of him.

Before he can say anything else, though, Crystal clears her throat from behind him, sounding decidedly less impressed.

“That’s really cool, yeah. New bat, I get it”, she says, walking around Charles so she, too, can see the unconscious leprechaun. “But you do remember that we actually wanted to talk to him, right?”

They get to talk to the leprechaun in the end, who turns out to be about as obnoxious as expected, but does admit to stealing the heirloom they were looking for for his pot of gold.

He even gives it back, but only after Charles has started twirling his bat again.

“And another satisfied customer”, Charles comments as they return to the agency, flinging his backpack into the corner.

“Client, you mean”, Edwin corrects, but still smiles at him, and pats the space next to him as soon as he sits down on the sofa. Charles flings himself down without a second thought, legs landing somewhere across Edwin’s laps, one of his hands settling on Charles’ ankles.

This is new, at least to some extent, and Charles loves it, the feeling of Edwin’s fingers on him. It feels right, somehow.

I just really love you the most, he thinks.

“Yeah, whatever”, he concedes and looks over at Crystal, who is watching them with something in her eyes that Charles cannot quite place. Not bad, per se, just…. Strange. “Doesn’t sound that good though, does it? And anyway, the most important thing is that they’re satisfied, right? Passed on right to the afterlife, no worries keeping them here any longer.”

“As if it’s only worries that could keep one here”, Edwin replies, his tone as dry as the desert, but making Charles laugh anyway. “We should be the best example for that.”

“You know what I mean!”, he shoots back, “It isn’t like with us, is it? Don’t think that the client was kept back by meeting the love of their life, were they now?”

It spills from his lips like nothing, without Charles thinking about it for a single second.

He’s still laughing, but Edwin’s fingers have stopped where they were gently stroking across the arch of his foot, and then Charles realises it, and for the first time, hears silence.

For the first time since they got back from Hell, they part when Crystal leaves.

The conversation had been stilted after Charles’...slip up? blunder? confession? and although it had been obvious that all three of them had been trying, it had been impossible to get things back on track.

So, Charles leaves with Crystal, telling Edwin he will walk her home, although that is something he has never done before, and Crystal lets him, although he is fairly certain she wouldn’t under normal circumstances.

She doesn’t need anyone protecting her from the city she grew up in after all.

“How do you know you’re in love with someone?”, Charles asks after they have walked in silence for a few minutes. He can’t think of a way to cushion the question, how to make it less awkward to ask, so he doesn’t bother with it at all.

“This is about Edwin?”, she asks, seemingly to clarify, and Charles nods mutely, not looking up at her. “I’m not sure. Especially not when it comes to the two of you. For Edwin, I could have seen from miles away that he was in love with you, even if he hadn’t reacted like he did when we first met. For you… you love him, anyone with eyes could see that, but if you’re in love with him, I think you have to figure that out yourself.”

“Do you know how it feels, though? Being in love?”, he asks, just in case Crystal can at least tell him that.

“I’m not sure”, she answers after a moment, then links their arms together, pulling Charles closer. “I think that’s different for everyone. But I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out what it feels like to you if you let yourself.”

He walks Crystal home, but when she asks if he wants to stay, Charles just shakes his head.

Edwin is back at the agency, and Charles isn’t sure exactly in which state, what he is thinking, and Charles cannot allow that. At least not for long.

What he does, though, is taking a little detour to the park not too far from their building.

It’s the first time he really pays it any mind, even if it’s most likely not the first time he’s been there, but now, Charles lays down on the grass, looking up at the night sky.

London is too bright for him to see many stars, but there’s a few of them; Edwin would surely be able to point out a constellation or two.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it.

Edwin isn’t here, and yet he is with Charles anyway, always, in every moment of his existence.

Sighing, he scrubs a hand down his face. There’s no way around it, it has to be now, and it has to be the right answer, the one he truly means, because Edwin deserves nothing but that.

No false hope, and no heartbreak that might be taken back along the line.

So, he thinks of Edwin, of his elegant hands and the swagger in his walk when he feels confident, of the colour of his hair and of his eyes, of the curves and slopes and sharp cuts of his face.

He loves that face, has seen it with every possible expression painted across of it, and still loves it.

The stars above are dim and partly hidden behind the clouds, so Charles lets his eyes slip shut, and imagines coming home to the agency and taking Edwin’s hands in his.

They would be just a little smaller than his own, his fingers slender and yet so capable, and if he could still feel, Charles is convinced they would feel cool against his skin.

He imagines pulling Edwin close and holding him like he has always wanted to, burying his face against the side of Edwin’s neck and pretending he can breathe in his scent. Having Edwin sneak his arms around Charles’ waist and cling to the back of his jacket, like he doesn’t want to let go again.

In his imagination, it feels a little like the hug they shared after being granted asylum on Earth, but it would be entirely different, because it wouldn’t be out of relief.

Instead, it would be just them, embracing to feel the other close.

And he thinks of pulling back from the hug, seeing Edwin smile and kissing the curve of his lips, nipping at them until he can make Edwin laugh and teasing his mouth open to lick into it.

It would be like kissing Crystal, kind of, only that-

Only that it wouldn’t be like that at all.

He runs back to the agency, as fast as his spectral feet can carry him.

Edwin is sitting right where he left him, almost like he hadn’t moved an inch since Charles walked out of the door, and he hopes to all deities he can think of that it isn’t so; knows, at the same time, that it is.

“Hi”, Charles greets, because he doesn’t know what else to say, and Edwin nods and gives him a smile, brittle and unsure and hopeful, all at once.

“Hello, Charles. Did Crystal get home safe?”, he asks, and it’s so painfully polite it makes Charles cringe.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure, of course she did”, he responds, trying to figure out how to begin saying what he needs Edwin to know, but Edwin beats him to it.

“Did you mean it?”, Edwin asks, breathes out the question like he still has lungs to do so, and it’s in that moment that Charles is more certain of his answer than anything else he has ever thought, because Edwin sounds small, sounds vulnerable and breakable and yet so fucking hopeful, and Charles wants to pick him up and cradle him against his chest and never let go again.

“Yes”, he says, and it’s sunrise and violins and bouquets of roses all at once, it’s a single word that changes the world around them. “Kind of. Let me explain.”

And Edwin nods, sits back with his hands in his lap and all Charles can think about is that those same hands belong holding a book, resting on the top of Charles’ legs, which should be flung carelessly across Edwin’s lap, just because Charles wants to be near him.

“You’re the love of my life, no matter what”, he starts, crouching down in front of Edwin so he can take his hands; they look so lost. “You have been for decades. I love you the most of anything in the world. I will always love you the most. Every time I look at you, it’s just that on repeat in my head. I love you the most.”

He ducks his head, laughing softly, because it sounds silly now that he says it out-loud, but when he looks back up, there are tears brimming in Edwin’s eyes, making them shine even brighter.

His lips are parted and for just a moment, Charles thinks about kissing them.

“And you know, I still can’t say that I am in love with you back, because you don’t deserve a lie, but what I can say, what I can promise you, is that I could fall in love with you. And that I want to. More than anything.”

A single tear rolls down Edwin’s cheek, glistening in the dim light, and Charles looks at him, and thinks, I do. I am. I love you the most.

“Could that be enough?”, he asks, squeezing Edwin’s hands in his. “At least for the start?”

And Edwin nods so frantically that more tears spill over, wetting his face, and Charles can’t help but laugh; how strange to think that making Edwin cry for once is not his biggest fear, but something that fills his heart with joy to the point of bursting.

“Okay. Brills, that’s-”, he replies, and can’t keep himself from smiling so wide it would hurt if he was still alive. “So, um. Can I kiss you? I really want to kiss you right now.”

Again, Edwin nods, and he is smiling, too, looks so happy that Charles thinks heaven must be overrated, because nothing in the whole of existence could compare to this.

He thinks of the scene he pictured in the park of holding Edwin close and how much in pales in comparison to this, to holding Edwin’s hands and watching him glow with love and hope and warmth.

And leans in to find out if the same is true for kissing him.

(It is.)

[yamayuandadu]

The most important deity you've never heard of: the 3000 years long history of Nanaya

Being a major deity is not necessarily a guarantee of being remembered. Nanaya survived for longer than any other Mesopotamian deity, spread further away from her original home than any of her peers, and even briefly competed with both Buddha and Jesus for relevance. At the same time, even in scholarship she is often treated as unworthy of study. She has no popculture presence save for an atrocious, ill-informed SCP story which can’t get the most basic details right. Her claims to fame include starring in fairly explicit love poetry and appearing where nobody would expect her. Therefore, she is the ideal topic to discuss on this blog. This is actually the longest article I published here, the culmination of over two years of research. By now, the overwhelming majority of Nanaya-related articles on wikipedia are my work, and what you can find under the cut is essentially a synthesis of what I have learned while getting there. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed working on it. Under the cut, you will learn everything there is to know about Nanaya: her origin, character, connections with other Mesopotamian deities, her role in literature, her cult centers… Since her history does not end with cuneiform, naturally the later text corpora - Aramaic, Bactrian, Sogdian and even Chinese - are discussed too. The article concludes with a short explanation why I see the study of Nanaya as crucial.

Dubious origins and scribal wordplays: from na-na to Nanaya Long ago Samuel Noah Kramer said that “history begins in Sumer”. While the core sentiment was not wrong in many regards, in this case it might actually begin in Akkad, specifically in Gasur, close to modern Kirkuk. The oldest possible attestation of Nanaya are personal names from this city with the element na-na, dated roughly to the reign of Naram-Sin of Akkad, so to around 2250 BCE. It’s not marked in the way names of deities in personal names would usually be, but this would not be an isolated case.

The evidence is ultimately mixed. On one hand, reduplicated names like Nana are not unusual in early Akkadian sources, and -ya can plausibly be explained as a hypocoristic suffix. On the other hand, there is not much evidence for Nanaya being worshiped specifically in the far northeast of Mesopotamia in other periods. Yet another issue is that there is seemingly no root nan- in Akkadian, at least in any attested words.

The main competing proposal is that Nanaya originally arose as a hypostasis of Inanna but eventually split off through metaphorical mitosis, like a few other goddesses did, for example Annunitum. This is not entirely implausible either, but ultimately direct evidence is lacking, and when Nanaya pops up for the first time in history she is clearly a distinct goddess.

There are a few other proposals regarding Nanaya’s origin, but they are considerably weaker. Elamite has the promising term nan, “day” or “morning”, but Nanaya is entirely absent from the Old Elamite sources you’d expect to find her in if Mesopotamians imported her from the east. Therefore, very few authors adhere to this view. The hypothesis that she was an Aramaic goddess in origin does not really work chronologically, since Aramaic is not attested in the third millennium BCE at all. The less said about attempts to connect her to anything “Proto-Indo-European”, the better.

Like many other names of deities, Nanaya’s was already a subject of etymological speculation in antiquity. A late annotated version of the Weidner god list, tablet BM 62741, preserves a scribe’s speculative attempt at deriving it from the basic meaning of the sign NA, “to call”, furnished with a feminine suffix, A. Needless to say, like other such examples of scribal speculation, some of which are closer to playful word play than linguistics, it is unlikely to reflect the actual origin of the name.

Early history: Shulgi-simti, Nanaya’s earliest recorded #1 fan

A typical Ur III administrative tablet listing offerings to various deities (wikimedia commons)

The first absolutely certain attestations of Nanaya, now firmly under her full name, have been identified in texts from the famous archive from Puzrish-Dagan, modern Drehem, dated to around 2100 BCE. Much can be written about this site, but here it will suffice to say that it was a center of the royal administration of the Third Dynasty of Ur ("Ur III") responsible for the distribution of sacrificial animals. Nanaya appears there in a rather unique context - she was one of the deities whose cults were patronized by queen Shulgi-simti, one of the wives of Shulgi, the successor of the dynasty’s founder Ur-Namma. We do not know much about Shulgi-simti as a person - she did not write any official inscriptions announcing her preferred foreign policy or letters to relatives or poetry or anything else that typically can be used to gain a glimpse into the personal lives of Mesopotamian royalty. We’re not really sure where she came from, though Eshnunna is often suggested as her hometown. We actually do not even know what her original name was, as it is assumed she only came to be known as Shulgi-simti after becoming a member of the royal family. Tonia Sharlach suggested that the absence of information about her personal life might indicate that she was a commoner, and that her marriage to Shulgi was not politically motivated The one sphere of Shulgi-simti’s life which we are incredibly familiar with are her religious ventures. She evidently had an eye for minor, foreign or otherwise unusual goddesses, such as Belet-Terraban or Nanaya. She apparently ran what Sharlach in her “biography” of her has characterized as a foundation. It was tasked with sponsoring various religious celebrations. Since Shulgi-simti seemingly had no estate to speak of, most of the relevant documents indicate she procured offerings from a variety of unexpected sources, including courtiers and other members of the royal family. The scale of her operations was tiny: while the more official religious organizations dealt with hundreds or thousands of sacrificial animals, up to fifty or even seventy thousand sheep and goats in the case of royal administration, the highest recorded number at her disposal seems to be eight oxen and fifty nine sheep. A further peculiarity of the “foundation” is that apparently there was a huge turnover rate among the officials tasked with maintaining it. It seems nobody really lasted there for much more than four years. There are two possible explanations: either Shulgi-simti was unusually difficult to work with, or the position was not considered particularly prestigious and was, at the absolute best, viewed as a stepping stone. While the Shulgi-simti texts are the earliest evidence for worship of Nanaya in the Ur III court, they are actually not isolated. When all the evidence from the reigns of Shulgi and his successors is summarized, it turns out that she quickly attained a prominent role, as she is among the twelve deities who received the most offerings. However, her worship was seemingly limited to Uruk (in her own sanctuary), Nippur (in the temple of Enlil, Ekur) and Ur. Granted, these were coincidentally three of the most important cities in the entire empire, so that’s a pretty solid early section of a divine resume. She chiefly appears in two types of ceremonies: these tied to the royal court, or these mostly performed by or for women. Notably, a festival involving lamentations (girrānum) was held in her honor in Uruk. To understand Nanaya’s presence in the two aforementioned contexts, and by extension her persistence in Mesopotamian religion in later periods, we need to first look into her character.

The character of Nanaya: eroticism, kingship, and disputed astral ventures

Corona Borealis (wikimedia commons)

Nanaya’s character is reasonably well defined in primary sources, but surprisingly she was almost entirely ignored in scholarship quite recently. The first study of her which holds up to scrutiny is probably Joan Goodnick Westenholz’s article Nanaya, Lady of Mystery from 1997. The core issue is the alleged interchangeability of goddesses. From the early days of Assyriology basically up to the 1980s, Nanaya was held to be basically fully interchangeable with Inanna. This obviously put her in a tough spot. Still, over the course of the past three decades the overwhelming majority of studies came to recognize Nanaya as a distinct goddess worthy of study in her own right. You will still stumble upon the occasional “Nanaya is basically Inanna”, but now this is a minority position. Tragically it’s not extinct yet, most recently I’ve seen it in a monograph published earlier this year. With these methodological and ideological issues out of the way, let’s actually look into Nanaya’s character, as promised by the title of this section. Her original role was that of a goddess of love. It is already attested for her at the dawn of her history, in the Ur III period. Her primary quality was described with a term rendered as ḫili in Sumerian and kuzbu in Akkadian. It can be variously translated as “charm”, “luxuriance”, “voluptuousness”, “sensuality” or “sexual attractiveness”. This characteristic was highlighted by her epithet bēlet kuzbi (“lady of kuzbu”) and by the name of her cella in the Eanna, Eḫilianna. The connection was so strong that this term appears basically in every single royal inscription praising her. She was also called bēlet râmi, “lady of love”. Nanaya’s role as a love goddess is often paired with describing her as a “joyful” or “charming” deity. It needs to be stressed that Nanaya was by no metric the goddess of some abstract, cosmic love or anything like that. Love incantations and prayers related to love are quite common, and give us a solid glimpse into this matter. Nanaya’s range of activity in them is defined pretty directly: she deals with relationships (and by extension also with matters like one-sided crushes or arguments between spouses), romance and with strictly sexual matters. For an example of a hymn highlighting her qualifications when it comes to the last category, see here. The text is explicit, obviously. We can go deeper, though. There is also an incantation whose incipit at first glance leaves little to imagination:

However, the translator, Giole Zisa, notes there is some debate over whether it’s actually about having sex with Nanaya or merely about invoking her (and other deities) while having sex with someone else. A distinct third possibility is that she’s not even properly invoked but that “oh, Nanaya” is simply an exclamation of excitement meant to fit the atmosphere, like a specialized version of the mainstay of modern erotica dialogue, “oh god”.

While this romantic and sexual aspect of Nanaya’s character is obviously impossible to overlook, this is not all there was to her. She was also associated with kingship, as already documented in the Ur III period. She was invoked during coronations and mourning of deceased kings. In the Old Babylonian period she was linked to investiture by rulers of newly independent Uruk. A topic which has stirred some controversy in scholarship is Nanaya’s supposed astral role. Modern authors who try to present Nanaya as a Venus deity fall back on rather faulty reasoning, namely asserting that if Nanaya was associated with Inanna and Inanna personified Venus, clearly Nanaya did too. Of course, being associated with Inanna does not guarantee the same traits. Shaushka was associated with her so closely her name was written with the logogram representing her counterpart quite often, and lacked astral aspects altogether. No primary sources which discuss Nanaya as a distinct, actively worshiped deity actually link her with Venus. If you stretch it you will find some tidbits like an entry in a dictionary prepared by the 10th century bishop Hasan bar Bahlul, who inexplicably asserted Nanaya was the Arabic name of the planet Venus. As you will see soon, there isn’t even a possibility that this reflected a relic of interpretatio graeca. The early Mandaean sources, many of which were written when at least remnants of ancient Mesopotamian religion were still extant, also do not link Nanaya with Venus. Despite at best ambivalent attitude towards Mesopotamian deities, they show remarkable attention to detail when it comes to listing their cult centers, and on top of that Mesopotamian astronomy had a considerable impact on Mandaeism, so there is no reason not to prioritize them, as far as I am concerned. As far as the ancient Mesopotamian sources themselves go, the only astral object with a direct connection to Nanaya was Corona Borealis (BAL.TÉŠ.A, “Dignity”), as attested in the astronomical compendium MUL.APIN. Note that this is a work which assigns astral counterparts to virtually any deity possible, though, and there is no indication this was a major part of Nanaya’s character. Save for this single instance, she is entirely absent from astronomical texts. A further astral possibility is that Nanaya was associated with the moon. The earliest evidence is highly ambiguous: in the Ur III period festivals held in her honor might have been tied to phases of the moon, while in the Old Babylonian period a sanctuary dedicated to her located in Larsa was known under the ceremonial name Eitida, “house of the month”. A poem in which looking at her is compared to looking at the moon is also known. That’s not all, though. Starting with the Old Babylonian period, she could also be compared with the sun. Possibly such comparisons were meant to present her as an astral deity, without necessarily identifying her with a specific astral body. Michael P. Streck and Nathan Wasserman suggest that it might be optimal to simply refer to her as a “luminous” deity in this context. However, as you will see later it nonetheless does seem she eventually came to be firmly associated both with the sun and the moon. Last but not least, Nanaya occasionally displayed warlike traits. It’s hardly major in her case, and if you tried hard enough you could turn any deity into a war deity depending on your political goals, though. I’d also place the incantation which casts her as one of the deities responsible for keeping the demon Lamashtu at bay here.

Nanaya in art

The oldest known depiction of Nanaya (wikimedia commons)

While Nanaya’s roles are pretty well defined, there surprisingly isn’t much to say about her iconography in Mesopotamian art.The oldest certain surviving depiction of her is rather indistinct: she’s wearing a tall headdress and a flounced robe. It dates to the late Kassite period (so roughly to 1200 BCE), and shows her alongside king Meli-Shipak (or maybe Meli-Shihu, reading remains uncertain) and his daughter Hunnubat-Nanaya. Nanaya is apparently invoked to guarantee that the prebend granted to the princess will be under divine protection. This is not really some unique prerogative of hers, perhaps she was just the most appropriate choice because Hunnubat-Nanaya’s name obviously reflects devotion to her. The relief discussed above is actually the only depiction of Nanaya identified with certainty from before the Hellenistic period, surprisingly. We know that statues representing her existed, and it is hard to imagine that a popular, commonly worshiped deity was not depicted on objects like terracotta decorations and cylinder seals, but even if some of these were discovered, there’s no way to identify them with certainty. This is not unusual though, and ultimately there aren’t many Mesopotamian deities who can be identified in art without any ambiguity. 

Nanaya in literature

As I highlighted in the section dealing with Nanaya’s character, she is reasonably well attested in love poetry. However, this is not the only genre in which she played a role. A true testament to Nanaya’s prominence is a bilingual (Sumero-Akkadian) hymn composed in her honor in the first millennium BCE. It is written in the first person, and presents various other goddesses as her alternate identities. It is hardly unique, and similar compositions dedicated to Ishtar (Inanna), Gula, Ninurta and Marduk are also known. Each strophe describes a different deity and location, but ends with Nanaya reasserting her actual identity with the words “still I am Nanaya”. Among the claimed identities included are both major goddesses in their own right (Inanna plus closely associated Annunitum and Ishara, Gula, Bau, Ninlil), goddesses relevant due to their spousal roles first and foremost (Damkina, Shala, Mammitum etc) and some truly unexpected, picks, the notoriously elusive personified rainbow Manzat being the prime example. Most of them had very little in common with Nanaya, so this might be less an attempt at syncretism, and more an elevation of her position through comparisons to those of other goddesses. An additional possible literary curiosity is a poorly preserved myth which Wilfred G. Lambert referred to as “The murder of Anshar”. He argues that Nanaya is one of the two deities responsible for the eponymous act. I don't quite follow the logic, though: the goddess is actually named Ninamakalamma (“Lady mother of the land”), and her sole connection with Nanaya is that they occur in sequence in the unique god list from Sultantepe. Lambert saw this as a possible indication they are identical. There are no other attestations of this name, but ama kalamma does occur as an epithet of various goddesses, most notably Ninshubur. Given her juxtaposition with Nanaya in the Weidner god list - more on that later - wouldn’t it make more sense to assume it’s her? Due to obscurity of the text as far as I am aware nobody has questioned Lambert’s tentative proposal yet, though.

There isn’t much to say about the plot: Anshar, literally “whole heaven”, the father of Anu, presumably gets overthrown and might be subsequently killed. Something that needs to be stressed here to avoid misinterpretation: primordial deities such as Anshar were borderline irrelevant, and weren't really worshiped. They exist to fade away in myths and to be speculated about in elaborate lexical texts. There was no deposed cult of Anshar. Same goes for all the Tiamats and Enmesharras and so on.

Inanna and beyond: Nanaya and friends in Mesopotamian sources

Inanna on a cylinder seal from the second half of the third millennium BCE (wikimedia commons)

Of course, Nanaya’s single most important connection was that to Inanna, no matter if we are to accept the view that she was effectively a hypostasis gone rogue or not. The relationship between them could be represented in many different ways. Quite commonly she was understood as a courtier or protegee of Inanna. A hymn from the reign of Ishbi-Erra calls her the “ornament of Eanna” (Inanna’s main temple in Uruk) and states she was appointed by Inanna to her position. References to Inanna as Nanaya’s mother are also known, though they are rare, and might be metaphorical. To my best knowledge nothing changed since Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz’s monograph, in which she notes she only found three examples of texts preserving this tradition. I would personally abstain from trying to read too deep into it, given this scarcity. Other traditions regarding Nanaya’s parentage are better attested. In multiple cases, she “borrows” Inanna’s conventional genealogy, and as a result is addressed as a daughter of Sin (Nanna), the moon god. However, she was never addressed as Inanna’s sister: it seems that in cases where Sin and Nanaya are connected, she effectively “usurps” Inanna’s own status as his daughter (and as the sister of Shamash, while at it). Alternatively, she could be viewed as a daughter of Anu. Finally, there is a peculiar tradition which was the default in laments: in this case, Nanaya was described as a daughter of Urash. The name in this context does not refer to the wife of Anu, though. The deity meant is instead a small time farmer god from Dilbat. To my best knowledge no sources place Nanaya in the proximity of other members of Urash’s family, though some do specify she was his firstborn daughter. To my best knowledge Urash had at least two other children, Lagamal (“no mercy”, an underworld deity whose gender is a matter of debate) and Ipte-bitam (“he opened the house”, as you can probably guess a divine doorkeeper). Nanaya’s mother by extension would presumably be Urash’s wife Ninegal, the tutelary goddess of royal palaces. There is actually a ritual text listing these three together. In the Weidner god list Nanaya appears after Ninshubur. Sadly, I found no evidence for a direct association between these two. For what it’s worth, they did share a highly specific role, that of a deity responsible for ordering around lamma. This term referred to a class of minor deities who can be understood as analogous to “guardian angels” in contemporary Christianity, except places and even deities had their own lamma too, not just people. Lamma can also be understood at once as a class of distinct minor deities, as the given name of individual members of it, and as a title of major deities. In an inscription of Gudea the main members of the official pantheon are addressed as “lamma of all nations”, by far one of my favorite collective terms of deities in Mesopotamian literature. A second important aspect of the Weidner god list is placing Nanaya right in front of Bizilla. The two also appear side by side in some offering lists and in the astronomical compendium MUL.APIN, where they are curiously listed as members of the court of Enlil. It seems that like Nanaya, she was a goddess of love, which is presumably reflected by her name. It has been variously translated as “pleasing”, “loving” or as a derivative of the verb “to strip”. An argument can be made that Bizilla was to Nanaya what Nanaya was to Inanna. However, she also had a few roles of her own. Most notably, she was regarded as the sukkal of Ninlil. She may or may not also have had some sort of connection to Nungal, the goddess of prisons, though it remains a matter of debate if it’s really her or yet another, accidentally similarly named, goddess.

An indistinct Hurro-Hittite depiction of Ishara from the Yazilikaya sanctuary (wikimedia commons)

In love incantations, Nanaya belonged to an informal group which also included Inanna, Ishara, Kanisurra and Gazbaba. I do not think Inanna’s presence needs to be explained. Ishara had an independent connection with Inanna and was a multi-purpose deity to put it very lightly; in the realm of love she was particularly strongly connected with weddings and wedding nights. Kanisurra and Gazbaba warrant a bit more discussion, because they are arguably Nanaya’s supporting cast first and foremost. Gazbaba is, at the core, seemingly simply the personification of kuzbu. Her name had pretty inconsistent orthography, and variants such as Kazba or Gazbaya can be found in primary sources too. The last of them pretty clearly reflects an attempt at making her name resemble Nanaya’s. Not much can be said about her individual character beyond the fact she was doubtlessly related to love and/or sex. She is described as the “grinning one” in an incantation which might be a sexual allusion too, seeing as such expressions are a mainstay of Akkadian erotic poetry. Kanisurra would probably win the award for the fakest sounding Mesopotamian goddess, if such a competition existed. Her name most likely originated as a designation of the gate of the underworld, ganzer. Her default epithet was “lady of the witches” (bēlet kaššāpāti). And on top of that, like Nanaya and Gazbaba she was associated with sex. She certainly sounds more like a contemporary edgy oc of the Enoby Dimentia Raven Way variety than a bronze age goddess - and yet, she is completely genuine. It is commonly argued Kanisurra and Gazbaba were regarded as Nanaya’s daughters, but there is actually no direct evidence for this. In the only text where their relation to Nanaya is clearly defined they are described as her hairdressers, rather than children. While in some cases the love goddesses appear in love incantations in company of each other almost as if they were some sort of disastrous polycule, occasionally Nanaya is accompanied in them by an anonymous spouse. Together they occur in parallel with Inanna and Dumuzi and Ishara and Almanu, apparently a (accidental?) deification of a term referring to someone without family obligations. There is only one Old Babylonian source which actually assigns a specific identity to Nanaya’s spouse, a hymn dedicated to king Abi-eshuh of Babylon. An otherwise largely unknown god Muati (I patched up his wiki article just for the sake of this blog post) plays this role here. The text presents a curious case of reversal of gender roles: Muati is asked to intercede with Nanaya on behalf of petitioners. Usually this was the role of the wife - the best known case is Aya, the wife of Shamash, who is implored to do just that by Ninsun in the standard edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It’s also attested for goddesses such as Laz, Shala, Ninegal or Ninmug… and in the case of Inanna, for Ninshubur.

A Neo-Assyrian statue of Nabu on display in the Iraq Museum (wikimedia commons)

Marten Stol seems to treat Muati and Nabu as virtually the same deity, and on this basis states that Nanaya was already associated with the latter in the Old Babylonian period, but this seems to be a minority position. Other authors pretty consistently assume that Muati was a distinct deity at some point “absorbed” by Nabu. The oldest example of pairing Nanaya with Nabu I am aware of is an inscription dated to the reign of Marduk-apla-iddina I, so roughly to the first half of the twelfth century BCE. The rise of this tradition in the first millennium BCE was less theological and more political. With Babylon once again emerging as a preeminent power, local theologies were supposed to be subordinated to the one followed in the dominant city. Which, at the time, was focused on Nabu, Marduk and Zarpanit. Worth noting that Nabu also had a spouse before, Tashmetum (“reconciliation”). In the long run she was more or less ousted by Nanaya from some locations, though she retained popularity in the north, in Assyria. She is not exactly the most thrilling deity to discuss. I will confess I do not find the developments tied to Nanaya and Nabu to be particularly interesting to cover, but in the long run they might have resulted in Nanaya acquiring probably the single most interesting “supporting cast member” she did not share with Inanna, so we’ll come back to this later. Save for Bizilla, Nanaya generally was not provided with “equivalents” in god lists. I am only aware of one exception, and it’s a very recent discovery. Last year the first ever Akkadian-Amorite bilingual lists were published. This is obviously a breakthrough discovery, as before Amorite was largely known just from personal names despite being a vernacular language over much of the region in the bronze age, but only one line is ultimately of note here. In a section of one of the lists dealing with deities, Nanaya’s Amorite counterpart is said to be Pidray. This goddess is otherwise almost exclusively known from Ugarit. This of course fits very well with the new evidence: recent research generally stresses that Ugarit was quintessentially an Amorite city (the ruling house even claimed descent from mythical Ditanu, who is best known from the grandiose fictional genealogies of Shamshi-Adad I and the First Dynasty of Babylon). Sadly, we do not know how the inhabitants of Ugarit viewed Nanaya. A trilingual version of the Weidner list, with the original version furnished with columns listing Ugaritic and Hurrian counterparts of each deity, was in circulation, but the available copies are too heavily damaged to restore it fully. And to make things worse, much of it seems to boil down to scribal wordplay and there is no guarantee all of the correspondences are motivated theologically. For instance, the minor Mesopotamian goddess Imzuanna is presented as the counterpart of Ugaritic weather god Baal because her name contains a sign used as a shortened logographic writing of the latter. An even funnier case is the awkward attempt at making it clear the Ugaritic sun deity Shapash, who was female, is not a lesbian… by making Aya male. Just astonishing, really.

The worship of Nanaya

A speculative reconstruction of Ur III Uruk with the Eanna temple visible in the center (Artefacts — Scientific Illustration & Archaeological Reconstruction; reproduced here for educational purposes only, as permitted)

Rather fittingly, as a deity associated with Inanna, Nanaya was worshiped chiefly in Uruk. She is also reasonably well attested in the inscriptions of the short-lived local dynasty which regained independence near the end of the period of domination of Larsa over Lower Mesopotamia. A priest named after her, a certain Iddin-Nanaya, for a time served as the administrator of her temple, the Enmeurur, “house which gathers all the me,” me being a difficult to translate term, something like “divine powers”. The acquisition of new me is a common topic in Mesopotamian literature, and in compositions focused on Inanna in particular, so it should not be surprising to anyone that her peculiar double seemingly had similar interests. In addition to Uruk, as well as Nippur and Ur, after the Ur III period Nanaya spread to multiple other cities, including Isin, Mari, Babylon and Kish. However, she is probably by far the best attested in Larsa, where she rose to the rank of one of the main deities, next to Utu, Inanna, Ishkur and Nergal. She had her own temple, the Eshahulla, “house of a happy heart”. In local tradition Inanna got to keep her role as an “universal” major goddess and her military prerogatives, but Nanaya overtook the role of a goddess of love almost fully. Inanna’s astral aspect was also locally downplayed, since Venus was instead represented in the local pantheon by closely associated, but firmly distinct, Ninsianna. This deity warrants some more discussion in the future just due to having a solid claim to being one of the first genderfluid literary figures in history, but due to space constraints this cannot be covered in detail here. A later inscription from the same city differentiates between Nanaya and Inanna by giving them different epithets: Nanaya is the “queen of Uruk and Eanna” (effectively usurping Nanaya’s role) while Inanna is the “queen of Nippur” (that’s actually a well documented hypostasis of her, not to be confused with the unrelated “lady of Nippur”). Uruk was temporarily abandoned in the late Old Babylonian period, but that did not end Nanaya’s career. Like Inanna, she came to be temporarily relocated to Kish. It has been suggested that a reference to her residence in “Kiššina” in a Hurro-Hittite literary text, the Tale of Appu, reflects her temporary stay there. The next centuries of Nanaya are difficult to reconstruct due to scarce evidence, but it is clear she continued to be worshiped in Uruk. By the Neo-Babylonian period she was recognized as a member of an informal pentad of the main deities of the city, next to Inanna, Urkayitu, Usur-amassu and Beltu-sa-Resh. Two of them warrant no further discussion: Urkayitu was most likely a personification of the city, and Beltu-sa-Resh despite her position is still a mystery to researchers. Usur-amassu, on the contrary, is herself a fascinating topic. First attestations of this deity, who was seemingly associated with law and justice (a pretty standard concern), come back to the Old Babylonian period. At this point, Usur-amassu was clearly male, which is reflected by the name. He appears in the god list An = Anum as a son of the weather deity couple par excellence, Adad (Ishkur) and Shala. However, by the early first millennium BCE Usur-amassu instead came to be regarded as female - without losing the connection to her parents. She did however gain a connection to Inanna, Nanaya and Kanisurra, which she lacked earlier. How come remains unknown. Most curiously her name was not modified to reflect her new gender, though she could be provided with a determinative indicating it. This recalls the case of Lagamal in the kingdom of Mari some 800 years earlier.

The end of the beginning: Nanaya under Achaemenids and Seleucids

Trilingual (Persian, Elamite and Akkadian) inscription of the first Achamenid ruler of Mesopotamia, Cyrus (wikimedia commons)

After the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire Mesopotamia ended up under Achaemenid control, which in turn was replaced by the Seleucids. Nanaya flourished through both of these periods. In particular, she attained considerable popularity among Arameans. While they almost definitely first encountered her in Uruk, she quickly came to be venerated by them in many distant locations, like Palmyra, Hatra and Dura Europos in Syria. She even appears in a single Achaemenid Aramaic papyrus discovered in Elephantine in Egypt. It indicates that she was worshiped there by a community which originated in Rash, an area east to the Tigris. As a curiosity it’s worth mentioning the same source is one of the only attestations of Pidray from outside Ugarit. I do not think this has anything to do with the recently discovered connection between her and Nanaya… but you may never know. Under the Seleucids, Nanaya went through a particularly puzzling process of partial syncretism. Through interpretatio graeca she was identified with… Artemis. How did this work? The key to understanding this is the fact Seleucids actually had a somewhat limited interest in local deities. All that was necessary was to find relatively major members of the local pantheon who could roughly correspond to the tutelary deities of their dynasty: Zeus, Apollo and Artemis. Zeus found an obvious counterpart in Marduk (even though Marduk was hardly a weather god). Since Nabu was Marduk’s son, he got to be Apollo. And since Nanaya was the most major goddess connected to Nabu, she got to be Artemis. It really doesn’t go deeper than that. For what it’s worth, despite the clear difference in character this newfound association did impact Nanaya in at least one way: she started to be depicted with attributes borrowed from Artemis, namely a bow and a crescent. Or perhaps these attributes were already associated with her, but came to the forefront because of the new role. The Artemis-like image of Nanaya as an archer is attested on coins, especially in Susa, yet another city where she attained considerable popularity.

Leaving Mesopotamia: Nanaya and the death of cuneiform

A Parthian statue of Nanaya with a crescent diadem (Louvre; reproduced here for educational purposes only. Identification follows Andrea Sinclair's proposal)

The Seleucid dynasty was eventually replaced by the Parthians. This period is often considered a symbolic end of ancient Mesopotamian religion in the strict sense. Traditional religious institutions were already slowly collapsing in Achaemenid and Seleucid times as the new dynasties had limited interest in royal patronage. Additionally, cuneiform fell out of use, and by the end of the first half of the first millennium CE the art of reading and writing it was entirely lost. This process did not happen equally quickly everywhere, obviously, and some deities fared better than others in the transitional period before the rise of Christianity and Islam as the dominant religions across the region. Nanaya was definitely one of them, at least for a time. In Parthian art Nanaya might have developed a distinct iconography: it has been argued she was portrayed as a nude figure wearing only some jewelry (including what appears to be a navel piercing and a diadem with a crescent. The best known example is probably this standing figure, one of my all time favorite works of Mesopotamian art:

Parthian Nanaya (wikimedia commons; identification courtesy of the Louvre website and J. G. Westenholz)

For years Wikipedia had this statue mislabeled as “Astarte” which makes little sense considering it comes from a necropolis near Babylon. There was also a viral horny tweet which labeled it as “Asherah” a few months ago (I won’t link it but I will point out in addition to getting the name wrong op also severely underestimated the size). This is obviously even worse nonsense both on spatial and temporal grounds. Even if the biblical Asherah was ever an actual deity like Ugaritic Athirat and Mesopotamian Ashratum, it is highly dubious she would still be worshiped by the time this statue was made. It’s not even certain she ever was a deity, though. Cognate of a theonym is not automatically a theonym itself, and the Ugaritic texts and the Bible, even if they share some topoi, are separated by centuries and a considerable distance. This is not an Asherah post though, so if this is a topic which interests you I recommend downloading Steve A. Wiggins’ excellent monograph A Reassessment of Asherah: With Further Considerations of the Goddess.

The last evidence for the worship of Nanaya in Mesopotamia is a Mandaean spell from Nippur, dated to the fifth or sixth century CE. However, at this point Nanaya must have been a very faint memory around these parts, since the figure designated by this name is evidently male in this formula. That was not the end of her career, though. The system of beliefs she originated and thrived in was on its way out, but there were new frontiers to explore. A small disgression is in order here: be INCREDIBLY wary of claims about the survival of Mesopotamian tradition in Mesopotamia itself past the early middle ages. Most if not all of these come from the writing of Simo Parpola, who is a 19th century style hyperdiffusionist driven by personal religious beliefs based on gnostic christianity, which he believes was based on Neo-Assyrian state religion, which he misinterprets as monotheism, or rather proto-christianity specifically (I wish I was making this up). I personally do not think a person like that should be tolerated in serious academia, but for some incomprehensible reason that isn’t the case. 

New frontiers: Nanaya in Bactria

The key to Nanaya’s extraordinarily long survival wasn’t the dedication to her in Mesopotamia, surprisingly. It was instead her introduction to Bactria, a historical area in Central Asia roughly corresponding to parts of modern Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The early history of this area is still poorly known, though it is known that it was one of the “cradles of civilization” not unlike Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley or Mesoamerica. The so-called “Oxus civilization” or “Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex” flourished around 2500-1950 BCE (so roughly contemporarily with the Akkadian and Ur III empires in Mesopotamia). It left behind no written records, but their art and architecture are highly distinctive and reflect great social complexity. I sadly can’t spent much time discussing them here though, as they are completely irrelevant to the history of Nanaya (there is a theory that she was already introduced to the east when BMAC was extant but it is incredibly implausible), so I will limit myself to showing you my favorite related work of art, the “Bactrian princess”:

Photo courtesy of Louvre Abu Dhabi, reproduced here for educational purposes only.

By late antiquity, which is the period we are concerned with here, BMAC was long gone, and most of the inhabitants of Bactria spoke Bactrian, an extinct Iranian language. How exactly they were related to their BMAC forerunners is uncertain. Their religious beliefs can be compared to Zoroastrianism, or rather with its less formalized forerunners followed by most speakers of Iranian languages before the rise of Zoroaster. However, there were many local peculiarities. For example, the main deity was the personified river Oxus, not Ahura Mazda. Whether this was a relic of BMAC religion is impossible to tell.We do not know exactly when the eastward transfer of Nanaya to Bactria happened. The first clear evidence for her presence in central Asia comes from the late first century BCE, from the coins of local rulers, Sapadbizes and Agesiles. It is possible that her depictions on coinage of Mesopotamian and Persian rulers facilitated her spread. Of course, it’s also important to remember that the Aramaic script and language spread far to the east in the Achaemenid period already, and that many of the now extinct Central Asian scripts were derived from it (Bactrian was written with the Greek script, though). Doubtlessly many now lost Aramaic texts were transferred to the east. There’s an emerging view that for unclear reasons, under the Achaemenids Mesopotamian culture as a whole had unparalleled impact on Bactria. The key piece of evidence are Bactrian temples, which often resemble Mesopotamian ones. Therefore, perhaps we should be wondering not why Nanaya spread from Mesopotamia to Central Asia, but rather why there were no other deities who did, for the most part. That is sadly a question I cannot answer. Something about Nanaya simply made her uniquely appealing to many groups at once. While much about the early history of Nanaya in Central Asia is a mystery, it is evident that with time she ceased to be viewed as a foreign deity. For the inhabitants of Bactria she wasn’t any less “authentically Iranian” than the personified Oxus or their versions of the conventional yazatas like Sraosha. Frequently arguments are made that Nanaya’s widespread adoption and popularity could only be the result of identification between her and another deity.Anahita in particular is commonly held to be a candidate. However, as stressed by recent studies there’s actually no evidence for this. What is true is that Anahita is notably missing from the eastern Iranian sources, despite being prominent in the west from the reign of the Achaemenid emperor Artaxerxes II onward. However, it is clear that not all yazatas were equally popular in each area - pantheons will inevitably be localized in each culture. Furthermore, Anahita’s character has very little in common with Nanaya save for gender. Whether we are discussing her early not quite Zoroastrian form the Achaemenid public was familiar with or the contemporary yazata still relevant in modern Zoroastrianism, the connection to water is the most important feature of her. Nanaya didn’t have such a role in any culture. Recently some authors suggested a much more obvious explanation for Anahita’s absence from the eastern Iranian pantheon(s). As I said, eastern Iranian communities venerated the river Oxus as a deity (or as a yazata, if you will). He was the water god par excellence, and in Bactria also the king of the gods. It is therefore quite possible that Anahita, despite royal backing from the west, simply couldn’t compete with him. Their roles overlapped more than the roles of Anahita and Nanaya. I am repeating myself but the notion of interchangeability of goddesses really needs to be distrusted almost automatically, no matter how entrenched it wouldn’t be. While we’re at it, the notion of alleged interchangeability between Anahita and Ishtar is also highly dubious, but that’s a topic for another time.

Nana (Nanaya) on a coin of Kanishka (wikimedia commons)

Nanaya experienced a period of almost unparalleled prosperity with the rise of the Kushan dynasty in Bactria. The Kushans were one of the groups which following Chinese sources are referred to as Yuezhi. They probably did not speak any Iranian language originally, and their origin is a matter of debate. However, they came to rule over a kingdom which consisted largely of areas inhabited by speakers of various Iranian languages, chiefly Bactrian. Their pantheon, documented in royal inscriptions and on coinage, was an eerie combination of mainstays of Iranian beliefs like Sraosha and Mithra and some unique figures, like Oesho, who was seemingly the reflection of Hindu Shiva. Obviously, Nanaya was there too, typically under the shortened name Nana. The most famous Kushan ruler, emperor Kanishka, in his inscription from Rabatak states that kingship was bestowed upon him by “Nana and all the gods”. However, we do not know if the rank assigned to her indicates she was the head of the dynastic pantheon, the local pantheon in the surrounding area, or if she was just the favorite deity of Kanishka. Same goes for the rank of numerous other deities mentioned in the rest of the inscription. Her apparent popularity during Kanishka’s reign and beyond indicates her role should not be downplayed, though. The coins of Kanishka and other Bactrian art indicate that a new image of Nanaya developed in Central Asia. The Artemis-like portrayals typical for Hellenistic times continue to appear, but she also started to be depicted on the back of a lion. There is only one possible example of such an image from the west, a fragmentary relief from Susa, and it’s roughly contemporary with the depictions from Bactria. While it is not impossible Nanaya originally adopted the lion association from one of her Mesopotamian peers, it is not certain how exactly this specific type of depictions originally developed, and there is a case to be made that it owed more to the Hellenistic diffusion of iconography of deities such as Cybele and Dionysus, who were often depicted riding on the back of large felines. The lunar symbols are well attested in the Kushan art of Nanaya too. Most commonly, she’s depicted wearing a diadem with a crescent. However, in a single case the symbol is placed behind her back. This is an iconographic type which was mostly associated with Selene at first, but in the east it was adopted for Mah, the Iranian personification of the moon. I’d hazard a guess that’s where Nanaya borrowed it from - more on that later. The worship of Nanaya survived the fall of the Kushan dynasty, and might have continued in Bactria as late as in the eighth century. However, the evidence is relatively scarce, especially compared with yet another area where she was introduced in the meanwhile.

Nanaya in Sogdia: new home and new friends

A Sogdian depiction of Nanaya from Bunjikat (wikimedia commons)

Presumably from Bactria, Nanaya was eventually introduced to Sogdia, its northern neighbor. I think it’s safe to say this area effectively became her new home for the rest of her history. Like Bactrians, the Sogdians also spoke an eastern Iranian language, Sogdian. It has a direct modern descendant, Yaghnobi, spoken by a small minority in Tajikistan. The religions Sogdians adhered to is often described as a form of Zoroastrianism, especially in older sources, but it would appear that Ahura Mazda was not exactly the most popular deity. Their pantheon was seemingly actually headed by Nanaya. Or, at the very least, the version of it typical for Samarkand and Panijkant, since there’s a solid case to be made for local variety in the individual city-states which made up Sogdia. It seems that much like Mesopotamians and Greeks centuries before them, Sogdians associated specific deities with specific cities, and not every settlement necessarily venerated each deity equally (or at all). Nanaya's remarkable popularity is reflected by the fact the name Nanaivandak, "servant of Nanaya", is one of the most common Sogdian names in general. It is agreed that among the Sogdians Panjikant was regarded as Nanaya’s cult center. She was referred to as “lady” of this city. At one point, her temple located there was responsible for minting the local currency. By the eighth century, coins minted there were adorned with dedications to her - something unparalleled in Sogdian culture, as the rest of coinage was firmly secular. This might have been an attempt at reasserting Sogdian religious identity in the wake of the arrival of Islam in Central Asia. Sogdians adopted the Kushan iconography of Nanaya, though only the lion-mounted version. The connection between her and this animal was incredibly strong in Sogdian art, with no other deity being portrayed on a similar mount. There were also innovations - Nanaya came to be frequently portrayed with four arms. This reflects the spread of Buddhism through central Asia, which brought new artistic conventions from India. While the crescent symbol can still be found on her headwear, she was also portrayed holding representations of the moon and the sun in two of her hands. Sometimes the solar disc and lunar orb are decorated with faces, which has been argued to be evidence that Nanaya effectively took over the domains of Mah and Mithra, who would be the expected divine identities of these two astral bodies. She might have been understood as controlling the passage of night and day. It has also been pointed out that this new iconographic type is the natural end point of the evolution of her astral role. Curiously, while no such a function is attested for Nanaya in Bactria, in Sogdia she could be sometimes regarded as a warlike deity. This is presumably reflected in a painting showing her and an unidentified charioteer fighting demons.

The "Sogdian Deities" painting from Dunhuang, a possible depiction of Nanaya and her presumed spouse Tish (wikimedia commons)

Probably the most fascinating development regarding Nanaya in Sogdia was the development of an apparent connection between her and Tish. This deity was the Sogdian counterpart of one of the best known Zoroastrian yazatas, Tishtrya, the personification of Sirius. As described in the Tištar Yašt, the latter is a rainmaking figure and a warlike protector who keeps various nefarious forces, such as Apaosha, Duzyariya and the malign “worm stars” (comets), at bay. Presumably his Sogdian counterpart had a similar role. While this is not absolutely certain, it is generally agreed that Nanaya and Tish were regarded as a couple in central Asia (there’s a minority position she was instead linked with Oesho, though). Most likely the fact that in Achaemenid Persia Tishtrya was linked with Nabu (and by extension with scribal arts) has something to do with this. There is a twist to this, though. While both Nabu and the Avestan Tishtrya are consistently male, in Bactria and Sogdia the corresponding deity’s gender actually shows a degree of ambiguity. On a unique coin of Kanishka, Tish is already portrayed as a feminine figure distinctly similar to Greek Artemis - an iconographic type which normally would be recycled for Nanaya. There’s also a possibility that a feminine, or at least crossdressing, version of Tish is portrayed alongside Nanaya on a painting from Dunhuang conventionally referred to as “Sogdian Daēnās” or “Sogdian Deities”, but this remains uncertain. If this identification is correct, it indicates outright interchange of attributes between them and Nanaya was possible.

The final frontier: Nanaya and the Sogdian diaspora in China Sogdians also brought Nanaya with them to China, where many of them settled in the Six Dynasties and Tang periods. An obviously Sinicized version of her, accompanied by two attendants of unknown identity, is portrayed on a Sogdian funerary couch presently displayed in the Miho Museum.

Nanaya (top) on a relief from the Miho funerary couch (Miho Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

For the most part the evidence is limited to theophoric names, though. Due to unfamiliarity with Sogdian religious traditions and phonetic differences between the languages there was no consistent Chinese transcription of Nanaya’s name. I have no clue if Chinese contemporaries of the Sogdians were always aware of these elements in personal names referred to a deity. There is a fringe theory that Nanaya was referred to as Nantaihou (那那女主, “queen Nana”) in Chinese. However, the evidence is apparently not compelling, and as I understand the theory depends in no small part on the assertion that a hitherto unattested alternate reading of one of the signs was in use on the western frontiers of China in the early first millennium CE. The alleged Nantaihou is therefore most likely a misreading of a reference to a deceased unnamed empress dowager venerated through conventional ancestor worship, as opposed to Nanaya. Among members of the Sogdian diaspora, in terms of popularity Nanaya was going head to head with Jesus and Buddha. The presence of the latter two reflected the adoption of, respectively, Manichaeism and Buddhism. Manicheans seemingly were not fond of Nanaya, though, and fragments of a polemic against her cult have been identified. It seems ceremonies focused on lamentations were the main issue for the Manichaeans. Sadly there doesn’t seem to be any worthwhile study of possible Mesopotamian influence on that - the only one I found is old and confuses Nanaya with Inanna. We do not have much of an idea how Buddhists viewed Nanaya, though it is worth noting a number of other Sogdian deities were incorporated into the local form of Mahayana (unexpectedly, one of them was Zurvan). It has also been argued that a Buddhist figure, Vreshman (Vaisravana) was incorporated into Nanaya’s entourage. Nanaya might additionally be depicted in a painting showing Buddha’s triumph over Mara from Dunhuang. Presumably her inclusion would reflect the well attested motif of local deities converting to Buddhism. It was a part of the Buddhist repertoire from the early days of this religion and can be found in virtually every area where this religion ever spread. Nanaya is once again in elevated company here, since other figures near her have been tentatively interpreted as Shiva, Vishnu, Kartikeya and… Zoroaster.

Buddha conquering Mara (maravijaya) on a painting from Dunhuang (wikimedia commons)

zoom in on a possible depiction of Nanaya next to a demon suspiciously similar to Tove Jansson’s Fillyjonk

To my best knowledge, the last absolutely certain attestation of Nanaya as an actively worshiped deity also comes from the western frontier of China. A painting from Dandan Oilik belonging to the artistic tradition of the kingdom of Khotan shows three deities from the Sogdian pantheon: the enigmatic Āδβāγ (“highest god”; interpreted as either Indra, Ahura Mazda or a combination of them both) on the left, Weshparkar (a later version of Kushan Oesho) on the right and Nanaya in the center. It dates to the ninth or tenth century.

Nanaya (center) on the Dandan Oilik painting (wikimedia commons)

We will probably never know what Nanaya’s last days were like, though it is hard to imagine she retained much relevance with the gradual disappearance of Sogdian culture both in Sogdia and in China in the wake of, respectively, the rise of Islam in Central Asia and the An Lushan rebellion respectively. Her history ultimately most likely ended with a whimper rather than a bang. Conclusions and reflections Obviously, not everything about Nanaya could be covered in this article - there is enough material to warrant not one, but two wiki articles (and I don't even think they are extensive enough yet). I hope I did nonetheless manage to convey what matters: she was the single most enduring Mesopotamian deity who continued to be actually worshiped. She somehow outlived Enlil, Marduk, Nergal and even Inanna, and spread further than any of them ever did. It does not seem like her persistence was caused by some uniquely transcendent quality, and more to a mix of factors we will never really fully understand and pure luck. She is a far cry from the imaginary everlasting universal goddesses such longevity was attributed to by many highly questionable authors in the past, from Frazer to Gimbutas. Quite the opposite, once you look into the texts focused on her she comes across as sort of pathetic. After all, most of them are effectively ancient purple prose. And yet, this is precisely why I think Nanaya matters. To see how an author approaches her is basically a litmus test of trustworthiness - I wish I was kidding but this “Nanaya method” works every time. To even be able to study her history, let alone understand it properly, one has to cast away most of the dreadful trends which often hindered scholarship of ancient deities, and goddesses in particular, in the past. The interchangeability of goddesses; the Victorian mores and resulting notion that eroticism must be tied to fertility; the weird paradigms about languages neatly corresponding to religions; and many others. And if nothing else, this warrants keeping the memory of her 3000 years long history alive through scholarship (and, perhaps, some media appearances). Bibliography

Julia M. Asher-Greve & Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources (2013)

Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period (2003)

idem, Nabû and Apollo: The Two Faces of Seleucid Religious Policy in: Orient und Okzident in Hellenistischer Zeit (2014)

Matteo Compareti, Nana and Tish in Sogdiana (2017)

idem, The So-Called "Pelliot Chinois 4518.24". Illustrated Document from Dunhuang and Sino-Sogdian Iconographical Contacts (2021)

Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz, Mesopotamian Goddess Nanāja (2008)

Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: an Anthology of Akkadian Literature (2005)

Andrew R. George & Manfred Krebernik, Two Remarkable Vocabularies: Amorite-Akkadian Bilinguals! (2022)

Valerie Hansen, Kageyama Etsuko & Yutaka Yoshida, The Impact of the Silk Road Trade on a Local Community: The Turfan Oasis, 500-800 in: Les sogdiens en Chine (2005)

Wilfred G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (2013)

Enrico Marcato, An Aramaic Incantation Bowl and the Fall of Hatra (2020)

Christa Müller-Kessler & Karlheinz Kessler, Spätbabylonische Gottheiten in spätantiken mandäischen Texten (1999)

Lilla Russel-Smith, Uygur Patronage in Dunhuang. Regional Art Centres on the Northern Silk Road in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (2005)

idem, The 'Sogdian Deities' Twenty Years on: A Reconsideration of a Small Painting from Dunhuang in: Buddhism in Central Asia II. Practices and Rituals, Visual and Material Transfer (2022)

Tonia M. Sharlach, An Ox of One's Own. Royal Wives and Religion at the Court of the Third Dynasty of Ur (2017)

Michael Shenkar, Intangible Spirits and Graven Images: The Iconography of Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World (2014)

idem, The Religion and the Pantheon of the Sogdians (5th-8th Centuries CE) in Light of their Sociopolitical Structures (2017)

idem, The So-Called "Fravašis" and the "Heaven and Hell" Paintings, and the Cult of Nana in Panjikent (2022)

Marten Stol, Nanaja in: Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 9 (1998)

Michael P. Streck & Nathan Wasserman, More Light on Nanāya (2013)

Aaron Tugendhaft, Gods on Clay: Ancient Near Eastern Scholarly Practices and the History of Religions in: Canonical Texts and Scholarly Practices. A Global Comparative Approach (2016)

Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Nanaya, Lady of Mystery in: Sumerian Gods and Their Representations (1997)

idem, Trading the Symbols of the Goddess Nanaya in: Religions and Trade. Religious Formation, Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West (2014)

Xinjiang Rong, The Colophon of the Manuscript of the Golden Light Sutra Excavated in Turfan and the Transmission of Zoroastrianism to Gaochang in: The Silk Road and Cultural Exchanges between East and West (2022)

Gioele Zisa, The Loss of Male Sexual Desire in Ancient Mesopotamia. ›Nīš Libbi‹ Therapies (2021)

[cassandraclare]

Happy Hanukkah! I hope you’re well.

Vaguely related question I guess. The parallels between the Jewish and Ashkari people were one of the things I loved most about this book. It’s not often you see a Jewish-coded character in a fantasy book - let alone as a hero. I saw in the acknowledgements you had a lovely Hebrew consultant - what were the challenges of creating a whole language? (Plus Sarthian and all the others??)

Hello! Yes, we don't see Jewish or Jewish-coded characters much (though more now than when I was growing up, and I felt very shut out of fantasy and fantastical worlds as it all seemed to contain a definite, sometimes unconscious, Christian bent). And often when we do see them, they're some variety of evildoer or hook-nosed goblin type.

I very much wanted to dig into my own cultural and religious background to furnish the mythology that underpins the Ashkar and their magic. Gematria (gematry in the book) is a Kabbalistic tool that can be used in the creation of the kind of amulet that Kel wears. Jewish readers will recognize mentions of specific names (Judah Makabi) bits of Hebrew (Shomrim, Sanhedrin) among other words and names extrapolated from Hebrew and Jewish history.

Ashkar is not Hebrew though. It is a "real" imaginary language in the sense that it was constructed to have a working system of verbs and nouns and conjugations and so forth. I didn't create it myself, because I am not Tolkien, who was a philologist first — a professor of languages and how they work. I worked with a conlanger, Matthew AbdulHaqq Niemi, who had a background in Biblical Hebrew, modern Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic. We traded ideas back and forth, and he created a glossary and even written poetry in Ashkar. He and the other conlangers I worked with are thanked in the back of the book.

Matthew's translation of El Nora Alila into Ashkar:

Afaryaš vēmū, Afaryaš hazānū, Oqošakedsā-mav dayn fī tsīa,

God of awe, God of might, Grant us pardon in this hour,

Dalī kol Tasī-qēōt oslōg dayn lešex tsīa,

As Thy gates are closed this night.

[tanadrin]

Shoemaker on literacy, memory, oral tradition, and the Quran:

Studies of literacy in pre-Islamic Arabia have been severely overlooked in recent Quran scholarship; in fact, literacy in the 7th century Hijaz was "almost completely unknown" and "writing was hardly practiced at all in the time of Muhammad." "[T]here seems to be a widespread agreement among experts on the early history of the Arabic language 'that, before and immediately after the rise of Islam, Arab culture was in all important respects fundamentally oral.'" Ancient graffiti in the region seems to have been a bit like early runic writing in Scandinavia--not central to the culture, mostly decorative and incidental, and certainly not used for long, important texts. "There is, in effect, a lot of 'Kilroy was here' scattered across the Arabian desert." Indeed, most of these graffiti are personal names or private in nature--we're not talking monumental inscriptions here, we're talking bored herders scratching stuff onto rocks to pass the time.

Southern Arabia and the larger oases to the north had more in the way of literate elites (and thus things like monumental inscriptions), but these places were far from the central inland Hijaz. If someone in this region did want to become literate, they would probably have learned to read and write in Greek or Aramaic, which were useful and important linguae francae.

As in very early Christianity, writing occupied a controversial position vis a vis orality--oral tradition was primary for the production and transmission of culturally important things like religious texts, poetry, literary prose, genealogy, and history. The shift to a literate culture came only with the expansion of Muhammad's polity into a wealthy, multicultural empire rather than a tribal state. Indeed, much of the early Caliphate's administration used Greek and other languages--Arabic entered administration only slowly, since a lot of early bureaucrats were drawn from the Roman and Sasanian bureaucracy.

And like early Christianity, another reason not to feel any urgency to write down Muhammad's teachings was that early Muslims expected the end of the world to come very soon, maybe initially even before Muhammad's own death.

The dialect of the Quran is distinctive and unusual; it is very difficult to locate where this dialect might have originated. Ahmad Al-Jallad tentatively identifies an Old Hijazi dialect, but the evidence for this dialect (besides the Quran itself) is limited and mostly much more recent, and he assumes the Quran was produced in the Hijaz.

The Arabic of the Quran can probably be identified with the prestige dialect of Levantine Arabic in the Ummayad period, but the origin of that dialect, and what Arabic dialects were brought together there in that time, is hard to ascertain with certainty.

Shoemaker thinks the Quran started as short collections drawn from individual memories following the conquest and encounters with widespread literacy; these collections would have been considered open, and subject to influence from oral tradition. They were combined into increasingly larger collections, with additional traditions and revisions, emergin as something like divergent versions of the Quran (though still not fully static and closed). Finally, the traditions of these regional versions, with other written and oral traditions, were fashioned into their canonical form under Abd al-Malik, and this version was progressively enforced across the empire.

Shoemaker brings in memory science and the anthropology of oral cultures: memory is highly frangible and fallible. Even though it functions well for day to day tasks, it's important not to overlook how common misremembering and re-remembering alters information in both personal and collective memory when talking about a text that even Islamic tradition agrees was not written down within Muhammad's lifetime.

Most forgetting occurs shortly after an event in question; a small core of memories we develop about an event will persist for a significant time after. These findings have been corroborated both in the lab and in the circumstances of everyday life.

Memory is not primarily reproductive; literal recall is, in evolutionary terms, pretty unimportant, and brains omit needless detail. Remembering thus involves a lot of reconstruction more than it does reproduction; memories are storied piecewise in different parts of the brain, and are assembled on recall, with the gaps being filled in using similar memory fragments drawn from comparable experiences.

Note Bartlett's experiments using a short Native American folktale; when asked to recall this story, even after only fifteen minutes participants introduced major and minor changes. Subsequent recall didn't improve accuracy, though the basic structure of the memory developed pretty quickly in each individual. But this structure was not especially accurate, and significant details vanished or were replaced with new information. Most often this information was drawn from the subject's culture (in this case, Edwardian England), forming a memory that made more sense to them and had more relevance in their context. The overall style was quickly lost, and replaced by new formations, and there was a persistent tendency to abbreviate. After a few months, narrative recall consisted mostly of false memory reports, a finding verified by subsequent replications of his experiments.

Experiential and textual memory in particular degrades very rapidly; this degredation is much faster when information is transmitted from one person to another. Epithets change into their opposites, incidents and events are transposed, names and numbers rarely survive intact more than a few reproductions, opinions and conclusions are reversed, etc. Figures like Jesus or Muhammad will hardly be remembered accurately even by people who knew them.

The style of the Quran (e.g., prose, and often terse, elliptic, and occasionally downright nonsensical prose at that) does not lend itself to memorization; Shoemaker argues it is only possible for people to memorize the Quran now because it has become a written document they can consult in the process.

Eyewitness testimony is of course also notoriously unreliable, despite what apologists (in particular Christian apologists) have argued. Cf. Franz von Liszt's experiment in 1902, where a staged argument in a lecture escalates to one student pulling a gun on another--after revealing this event was scripted and staged, and asking different students to recall the details of the event at different intervals afterward, literally none of them got it right--the best reports, taken immediately, got things about one quarter correct. Even repeatedly imagining a scenario vividly enough can eventually lead to a false memory of it occurring (a phenomenon which may explain some alien abduction reports). People mistake post-even hearsay or visualization for firsthand knowledge, especially in the case of dramatic events.

What memory excels at is remembering broad strokes--we are adapted to retain the information which is most likely to be needed, i.e., the gist (or, more likely, the broad themes) of events and information, and not its exact form.

There's a long digression here about John Dean's testimony on the Watergate conspiracy--this may be the first book in early Islamic studies to have Richard Nixon in the index.

Even competitive memory champions train for short-term recall of large amounts of information; they, and other people with preternaturally good memories, are of course exceedingly rare. It's very unlikely that someone could remember, several decades after the fact, precisely (or even mostly) what was told to them by their friend whose brother's wife's cousin was really there. So even within the traditional account of the Quran's composition, it makes no sense to claim it is in fact the verbatim word of Muhammad.

As in the case of Solomon Shereshevski, when you do have preternaturally good recall even for (say) lists of nonsense syllables, the result is actually kind of debilitating--you have so many useless details to sort through, it makes it quite hard to function at an abstract level. And hyperthymesiacs, though they exhibit a high level of recall about their past, still often remember things incorrectly, at about the same rate as people with normal memories--they are no less susceptible to false or distorted memories.

Nevertheless most modern scholars treat the Quran as a verbatim transcript of Muhammad's words. This is exceedingly unlikely! Especially given that "group" or "collaborative" memory--memories as reconstructed by individuals working together--appears to be even less accurate than individual memory. You get better results having people try to recall events by themselves.

Since during the age of conquests the majority of converts were not closely preoccurpied with the interpretation of the Quran, it would have had to have been rediscovered and hermeneutically reinvented later; the memory of Muhammad's words were being shaped by the nature of the community he founded, as its members collective and individual needs continued to evolve along with the context of transmission.

Many people, both scholars and the general public, seem to believe that people in oral cultures have remarkable capacities for memory not possessed by those of written cultures. Study of oral cultures has shown this is demonstrably false; literacy in fact strengthens verbal and visual memory, while illiteracy impairs these abilities. People in literate cultures have better memories!

Oral transmission is not rote replication; it is a process of recomposition as the tradition is recreated very time it is transmitted. Oral cultures can effectively preserve the gist of events over time, but each time the details are reconstituted, and the tradition can radically diverge from its first repetition, with the stories of the past being reshaped to make them relevant to the present and present concerns.

The collective memory of Muhammad and the origins of Islam as preserved in the Sunni tradition would have forgotten many details as a matter of course, many others because they were no longer relevant to the later Sunni community, and they would have been reshaped in ways that made them particularly suited to the life and community of their contemporary circumstances, exemplifying and validating their religious beliefs--ones very different from those of Muhammad's earliest followers.

The early Muslim conquests put a comparatively small number of soldiers, scattered across a huge territory, in a wildly different cultural and social context, especially in close contact with different Christian and Jewish communities, esp. in the Levant, which rapidly became the cultural center of the new empire. Jews and Christians may have joined the new religious community in large numbers in this time also; their faith and identity would have continued to evolve in this period, as we would expect from comparative episodes in the history of other religions. By the time that Muhammad's teachings were formally inscribed, the memories of his few hundred initial companions would have been transmitted and dispersed to a large number of people in a totally different set of circumstances, with consequences for how those memories exactly were recalled.

Jack Goody, researcher on oral traditions: "It is rather in literate societies that verbatim memory flourishes. Partly because the existence of a fixed original makes it much easier; partly because of the elaboration of spatially oriented memory techniques; partly because of the school situation which has to encourage "decontextualized" memory tasks since it has removed learning from doing and has redefined the corpus of knowledge. Verbatim memorizing is the equivalent of exact copying, which is intrinsic to the transmission of scribal culture, indeed manuscript cultures generally."

Techniques like the ars memoriae belong to literate cultures and were invented by literate people; they are unknown in oral cultures. Oral and literate cultures in fact have a radically different idea of what it means for a text to be "the same"--in the former, word-for-word reproduction is not necessary. A poem can be "the same poem" even if every time it is performed it is largely unique.

Case of the Bagre, the sacred text of the LoDagaa people of Ghana, an extended religious poem used in a liturgical context. Variations in its recitation aren't just variations in wording; changes in recitation can be radical, and the last version is always the starting point. Nevertheless (as in other oral cultures) it is considered "the same," functionally identical with each recitation. These differences appeared even among different performances by the same reciter, or multiple times in the same ceremony. Even the most formulaic parts have great variability. Similar variability in oral texts in other oral cultures has been documented by other anthropologists, including for historical events.

Shoemaker notes that the tradition that the Vedas were transmitted without variation from the time of their composition remains an article of faith in some quarters of South Asian studies; this flies in the face of all available evidence. In fact we have no idea what the state of the Vedic texts was prior to the earliest manuscripts; they may have been written all along.

Collective memory is shaped by contemporary cultural imperatives--examples of Abe Lincoln, a white supremacist considered nothing special by his peers; Christopher Columbus, once revered; the last stand at Masada, considered a minor event of little importance to broader Jewish history until the founding of Israel.

There doesn't have to be any conspiracy or coordinated effort for false narratives about the past to take root.

The hard horizon of communicative memory is around eighty years; so historical consciousness basically only has two modes: the mythic past of collective memory, and the recent past less than eighty or so years ago.

Lack of a clear "generic" monotheism in the Hijaz around the time of Muhammad's birth means the expectations and memory of Muhammad would have been profoundly shaped by Christian and Jewish beliefs.

Early Islam, like early Christianity, wasn't old enough to have a clear distinction between historical/origins memory and recent/communicative memory.

"For most of the seventh century, then, Muhammad’s followers had a memory that was still immersed in the social and cultural milieux of the late ancient Near East, from which they had yet to clearly differentiate themselves. They eventually would do this in large part by developing a distinctive collective memory for their group, different from those inherited from Judaism and Christianity, a process that was no doubt delayed by their fervent belief that the world would soon come to an end, making such an endeavor rather pointless for a time. Only as the end continued to remain in abeyance, and the community’s living memory grew ever distant from the time of origins did they develop a collective memory of their own. Yet, as Islamic collective memory began to evolve, one imagines that it initially took different shapes within the various pockets of Believers that were scattered across their empire. The basic elements of this nascent collective memory were, as Halbwachs says of the early Christians, “still dispersed among a multitude of spatially separated small communities. These communities were neither astonished, anxious, nor scandalized that the beliefs of one community differed from those of another and that the community of today was not exactly the same as that of yesterday.” Thus, we should expect to find a significant degree of diversity in religious faith and memory among the different early communities of the Believers, scattered and outnumbered as they were among the Jews and Christians of their burgeoning empire. Only with ʿAbd al-Malik’s program of Arabization and Islamicization was a new, distinctively Islamic collective memory and identity concretized and established for this new religious community. It was a collective identity that was formed from the top down and imposed, at the expense of any other alternative collective memories, with the full power and backing of the imperial state."

The limits of oral tradition apply even more strongly to the hadith and biographies.

[kiragecko]

Hey, guys! Want to vote on the best 6th-10th Century script (writing system) that I, Gecko, personally like?

Of course you do! Writing systems are SO COOL!

And here's a bit about each of the contenders:

Arabic (Naskh Script)

Derived from the Aramaic Script, which grew out of Phoenician, Arabic has a variety of forms. The Naskh script is the one I find the most beautiful, with it's extreme variation on character length and height. I also love the use of multiples colours for Ḥarakāt (vowel marks and other diacritics). Add in the elegant curves and solid lines, and Naskh Script becomes one of the most stylish scripts around.

Latin (Insular Script)

Derived from Greek, the Latin alphabet is usually a competent and pleasant mix of lines and curves, uprights and descenders. Insular script plays with these qualities, and the result is electric! many of the uprights (t, d, f) are gone. New descenders are added (r, s, f). Horizontal lines take a new prominence. Line weight is increased, and the curves become more angular. Something old to us becomes new again.

Chinese (Semi-Cursive Script)

There are many ways to write Hanzi (Chinese characters), and Semi-Cursive Script manages to combine the best qualities of most of them! The expressive curves and flow of a cursive script. The solid shapes and readability of Regular Script. One of the joys of Hanzi is the visual interest of so many unique characters; which share components, but use them differently. Semi-Cursive keeps much of that interest, while also providing a dynamic energy and movement.

Sogdian (Cursive Script)

Derived from the Syriac script, which grew out of the Aramaic Script, the Sogdian Alphabet was developed by traders who met most of the major cultures of the Old World, and let all of those cultures affect their language and writing. Sogdian can be written write to left, like most Aramaic scripts, but also top to bottom, like the Chinese Scripts of their main trade partner. Curvy cursive lines, and characters of wildly varying length, give this script a interesting sense of flow.

Hebrew (Ktav Ashuri Script with Palestinian Vocalization)

Another offshoot of the (Imperial) Aramaic Script, the Hebrew Alphabet has a really interesting, heavy, square, solid feel. In contrast, Palestinian Voicing (an extinct form of writing vowels where all of them were above the consonants) is really light, stacked on top their vowels in little floaty towers. It's a cool combination!

Maya (Classical Maya Script)

The most famous script of the Americas, Maya has one of the most unique reading orders of any script. Characters are written in blocks, which are then read in a zigzag (right, and then down-left) pattern. Full of heads (both animal and human), torches, seeds, and other half-identifiable shapes, Maya texts are works of art, and the more you study them, the more beautiful they become.

Nubian (Old Nubian Script)

Derived from Greek with additional letters from Coptic (Egyptian) and Meroitic (a previous Nubian culture). Lines above letters are used to skip parts of words deemed unnecessary. The mixture of rectangles and triangles, heavy and light line weights - it reminds me of telegrams, or early typewriter text. I love it!

Khmer (Angkorian Khmer Script)

Derived from the Pallava Script, which derived from the Brahmi Script, Khmer is probably my favourite script to write. The curves feel so good! The spirals so pleasing! You write consonant clusters by writing little letters below the main one! A joy to create, and a joy to look at.

Japanese (Cursive Script)

See these wiggles? They're Chinese characters. Elegant, looking like poetry no matter what they're saying, Cursive Japanese is art. It's also ridiculous. 3 different characters, each with multiple strokes, indicated by wiggling the brush as you draw a line! Most cursive scripts are like this, but the contrast between the square solidness of Regular Script and the flow of Cursive is one of the more extreme. What a delight!

Sanskrit (Siddham Script)

I had SO MANY options for Sanskrit (Brahmi) Scripts, you guys. SO MANY! But in north-west India, during the period I study, this version of Siddham is the prettiest. Look at the curves! Those aren't just decorative, each curvy line that goes above or below the text is a vowel. Consonant clusters are shown by combining the characters together in one spot. The lines at the top haven't yet started connecting, like they do in modern Devanagari, but there's already a sense of it's existence. Such a cool script!

[deathlessathanasia]

"Zeus himself, the central character in Hesiod’s Theogony, bears some of the most easily recognizable Northwest Semitic features, in addition to those of the Indo-European Sky God inherited by the Greeks. It is not necessary, therefore, to discuss them at length. It suffices to recall that the Canaanite Storm God Baal and the homologous Greek god share a similar position in the succession of kings in Heaven, as well as the position of the youngest son. They both reign from a palace on a northern mountain (Olympos, Zapanu/Zaphon), and they wield thunder as their distinctive weapon. As with his Near Eastern counterparts, thunder, lightning, and the thunderbolt were the “missiles/shafts of great Zeus.” The position of his sister and principal consort Hera is like that of Anat, Baal’s sister and partner (though not consort). For some, this coupling “violates the incest taboo” in Greek myth but allows Hera to remain an “equal” partner according to her right of birth, as the daughter of Kronos. In Il. 4.59 she is the oldest daughter, in Il. 16.432,18.352 she is called “sister and wife” and in Hesiod Th. 454 she is the youngest daughter of Kronos, exactly as Zeus is the last son.

The list of similarities between Zeus and the different manifestations of the Canaanite god (either Baal or El or Yahweh in the later Hebrew theology) is long and has been the subject of much discussion by classicists, Semitists, and biblical scholars. Perhaps most interesting are the parallels noticeable at the level of their epithets, such as Zeus the “cloud-gatherer” (nephelegereta)or “lightener” (asteropetes), and the frequent characterization of Baal in Ugaritic poetry as the “cloud-rider” (rkb ʿrpt). Other epithets of the Northwest Semitic Storm God Adad (Haddad) are preserved in Akkadian hymns, such as “lord of lightning” or “establisher of clouds.” …

Zeus’ “high-in-the-Sky” position and Sky-nature are reflected in other epithets such as hypatos and hypsistos. At the same time, similar divine epithets meaning “the high one” (eli, elyon, and ram) are very common in Northwest Semitic religious texts, accompanying several principal divinities. For instance, this epithet is used in the Ugaritic epic for Baal, and different forms of the adjective are attested in Aramaic, as well as in the Hebrew Bible accompanying El, Yahweh, and Elohim. … The association of the Storm God in Syro-Palestine with the bull as a symbol of fertility is also present in the various mythological narratives involving Zeus, most clearly in the famous motif of Zeus’ kidnapping the Phoenician princess Europa and carrying her on his back after taking the shape of a bull.

The final fight of Zeus with Typhon (Th. 820-880) has also been compared to the fight between Baal and Yam (the Sea) in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle and to that between Demarous and Pontos (the Sea) in Philon’s Phoenician History (P.E. 1.10.28). As mentioned earlier, the Storm God’s struggle with a monster also (albeit more distantly) resembles the clash between the Hurrian Weather God Teshub and the monsters Ullikummi, Illuyanka, and Hedammu. The figure of Typhon in Hesiod can in fact be seen as a Greek version of a “cosmic rebel” repeatedly reimagined with different characteristics in the specific versions, who endangers the Weather God’s power and generally has both marine and chthonic features. The Levantine and Greek adversaries probably have more than a merely thematic resonance, as the very name of Typhon might have a Semitic origin. It has hypothetically but quite convincingly been associated with the Semitic name Zaphon. Mount Zaphon (Ugaritic Zapunu or Zapanu) is a central point of reference in the geography and the religion of Ugarit. Known by Greeks and Romans as Kasion oros/ mons Casius (today Jebel al-Aqra), this peak on the north coast of Syria (south of the Orontes River) was also mentioned in Hurrian-Hittite myths. The mountain occupies a central spot in both the fight between Ullikummi and Teshub (as Mount Hazzi) and in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle. In the Ugaritic epic, the fight against Yam (the Sea) is not described as taking place on the mountain, but the celebration of Baal’s victory is, as it is the god’s abode overlooking the Mediterranean: “With sweet voice the hero sings / over Baalu on the summit / of Sapan (= Zaphon).” Much later, Apollodoros locates the cosmic fight with Typhon on Mons Casius precisely, which indicates that the link between Typhon and Zaphon had persisted, even though the name known to Hellenistic authors was the Greek, not the Semitic one."

- When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East by Carolina López-Ruiz

[amplifyme]

In a rare fit of self-promotion, I'm going to post a few passages from a Beauty and the Beast 4th Season novel I wrote back in 2012. No apologies here. I think it's one of the best things I've ever written and it makes me sad that more people haven't read it. I guess that's the risk you take when you write fanfic for a very small subset of a now very small fandom. I won't give away any plot details because none are really necessary to read this. It's simply one of my favorite passages. But if you're at all intrigued...

@randomfoggytiger you're not allowed to read the entire novel - if you choose to - until you've made it through S3. No cheating!

The Possibility of Being - Book 5: Never Diminish

Vincent was at the table in Father's study, a book held open in his right hand. He was looking down at the words, but they might as well have been written in Aramaic, for all the sense he could make of them just now.

He'd come here with the unquestioned need to be in his father's presence. Not to talk, as he’d summarily explained upon arriving and had then apologized for, but simply because. Father had listened with attentive concern and then waved away his appeal for forgiveness, taking him at his word and resuming whatever chore the pile of papers on his desk required of him.

It was the quietest part of the afternoon and Vincent had taken the opportunity to reacquaint himself with the study in all its complexities and treasures; its odds and ends and how, by tenuous threads, he was connected to every one of them. He was certain he'd opened every book there at least once; had blown or brushed off dust from and examined every knick-knack, statue, tapestry, candelabra, instrument, picture, toy and tool there. And it had taken him the better part of his life to do it.

He found an odd reassurance in the thought. And poking around the chamber helped keep at bay his increasing awareness of a pull; a calling that urged him to a place he didn't want to go. That was half the time. The other half he found himself more than willing - simply wanting to be done with it. But not yet: he wasn't quite ready.

Cognizant of Father's occasional assessing glances as he'd moved about the chamber, Vincent sensed in him a patient waiting, and as such felt no urgent need to speak thoughts he couldn't yet form into words. If the words needed to be spoken, they'd come in their own time. Father had always allowed him sufficient room and time to think over matters weighing on his mind. It was a gift, one borne of unconditional acceptance and love. A vast and expansive thing, yet close enough to be felt as comforting, protective arms.

He'd wandered up to the balcony and poked through the dusty and precariously stacked piles of books there, pausing as his hand passed over and then grasped the book of poetry he now held. This is the one, he'd told himself, without checking the spine to be certain, and had carried it back down the spiral staircase and to the table, where he'd settled in and begun thumbing through the pages, looking for a section of a particular poem. Having found and read it twice, he'd drifted from the clarity of the written words to indistinct thoughts.

Apparently having decided enough time had passed without conversation, Father casually mentioned, "I took a small group of youngsters to the Mirror Pool last night. We had our first lesson in astronomy. The sky was particularly clear; there seemed to be no end to the number of stars to be seen. Remarkable, really. Did you happen to notice, Vincent?"

"No, Father," he admitted quietly. "I'm afraid I didn't."

"Well, there'll be other nights and other stars to gaze upon. Ursula asked me to elaborate on the meaning of infinity, of a universe that goes on forever. It seems she, and most of the children in fact, had difficulty grasping the concept. I'm afraid I didn't do a very good job of it: they seemed more confused than ever when I'd finished. How would you go about explaining it to children that age?"

Father was wearing his teacher's face, as if this were a quiz. Vincent found himself ill-prepared. Nevertheless, he closed the book over a thumb to mark his place and tried to give the question his full attention.

"I'm not certain I can conceive of it myself, let alone explain it to anyone else. It's easier to imagine, I think, of all things having an ending. That, at least, one can envision. Everyone has experienced endings… and beginnings, as well. But forever… endless…? That is something we must take on faith… and not always," he sighed, "as easily."

He raised his head to find Father's placid eyes on him, his chin cupped in a gloved hand.

"And where do you suppose that faith comes from, Vincent, hmm?"

"I'm not sure," he conceded. "I don't think I'm the best person to be asking – not now anyway."

Father thought that over for a minute and then tipped his head at the book. "What've you there?"

"Something that came to mind last evening," he answered, closing his eyes briefly to recapture the memory of waking already joined with Diana, and of the lines that'd served as his thoughts until he'd stopped thinking and had only felt. "I needed… to see the words."

"Will you share them with me?" Father inquired lightly, feigning idle curiosity that was anything but.

Vincent's initial thought was to decline. It felt like an invasion of the privacy he and Diana deserved, this request to know what he'd been thinking as they'd made love. But that was silly. Father couldn't know under what circumstances the lines had been recalled. He opened the book, found his place, and began to recite softly.

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you. Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you. And without feet I can make my way to you, without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you with my heart as with a hand. Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat. And if you consume my brain with fire,

I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.

"Ah, Love Poems to God," Father said after a medium silence, one just long enough to allow the words their full impact. "Well, there you have it, then: your answer."

He glanced over, puzzled, and found a contented smile on Father's face. Vincent's brow furrowed as he looked him a question.

"There is your forever, your endless," Father explained, again nodding at the book. "Do you feel those words, Vincent? Do they… resonate?"

"Very much so," he admitted.

"Then love is the infinity of which you claim you cannot conceive. And the very same which allows one the faith to believe in it. So, is it true… or don't you believe in love as something infinite?"

"Of course I do. It's what you've taught me from as far back as I can remember. And what I've learned through experience myself, over and again. 'My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite,'" he finished, quoting Shakespeare - a favorite of theirs and a touchstone.

"Just so," Father heartily agreed, "but I also think the line that directly precedes those should be included, as well: 'And yet I wish but for the thing I have.' Ah, yes, and isn't that what we do, Vincent, as the flawed human beings we are? We always wish for more, not stopping to realize what we have may already be everything. As if the eternal things can measured, like so much flour in one of William's bowls."

Vincent found himself remembering saying something similar to Stosh when they'd met in Diana's loft several weeks past. And he wondered now at how easily the words had left his mouth, without the least thought of whether he truly believed them or not. Had such things become rote, especially since Catherine's death; a declaration simply mimicked instead of being certain knowledge?

But, no, that wasn't so. He knew it to be true. And yet something about the thought nudged him at an angle he hadn't expected and gave rise to other less contemplated and incomplete notions. Finding them vaguely unsettling, he put the book aside and caught Father's eye.

"May I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"If given the chance… if you could have Margaret back, would you? If it meant giving up everything else: your life as it is now?"

Father sat back and cast an appraising, angled look his way. His cheeks puffed out and he expelled a breath through pursed lips.

"I dare not even hazard a guess at why you'd ask such a thing, Vincent." That came with an eyebrow lifted in invitation to relieve him of the task of having to speculate – which they both knew he would most certainly dare to do, despite his words to the contrary.

He hadn't told Father that he'd be returning to the prison he'd left only days ago. He'd told him very little and meant to keep it that way. Though he found the silence hard, he knew it was for the best.

Judging by how difficult Diana had found his predicament to comprehend, he feared Father's incredulity would be twice that. Vincent was also aware Diana would tell Father - if and when it became necessary, if he himself wasn't able to, for whatever reason. He readily admitted the evasion was cowardly and the height of selfishness, but he was in no state to do anything about it.

Eventually deciding he'd get no response to his invitation, Father began thinking about the question, his eyes focused upward as though his thoughts were balloons drifting about the ceiling of the chamber, and he need only pluck the right string to bring down the answer. Vincent sat patiently as he could considering that, within, he felt as though he were spinning like the animated Tasmanian Devil he and Jacob had watched on Diana's television early one Saturday morning.

"It's a difficult question," Father ultimately decided. "I loved Margaret dearly, you know that. We had such little time together, she and I; and what I grieve most I think, as I look back on my life. But had things not happened as they did," he said, his eyes sweeping the room, "just look at all I would never have had. My home… my community. My family. And you," he said, his eyes lighting on Vincent and holding there, "you, most of all.

"Would I have Margaret back at the cost of the life I've built here? No, I honestly don't think I would. Because you see, Vincent, the love we felt for each other, Margaret and I, is a part of me and always shall be. I need only close my eyes and think of her, and she is here with me. So in essence I never lost her and can lay claim to the best of both worlds. One needn't make a choice where there is none to be made."

"But what if…" Vincent paused, finding it difficult to ask what he wanted without further muddying the waters of the conversation and piquing Father's curiosity exponentially. "What if you could no longer feel the presence of her love? What then?"

"Then I should think I'm not looking in the right place or hard enough." He crooked an eyebrow, vaguely amused. "Or perhaps, conversely, looking too hard."

"What do you mean?"

Father’s features shifted to a familiar, professorial look.

"Vincent, it is only when we try to grasp and hold the larger mysteries of life that we lose our ability to comprehend them: love; compassion; hope; death. One cannot hold in a fist that which requires freedom in order to be understood. Some things do not call for our examination but only… only our faith."

"That's an odd thing for a man of science to say," he remarked. Meanwhile, he was recalling Narcissa's words to him the day before: Do you truly believe such a boundless thing can be grasped within a fist?

Father shrugged, his arms lifting high. "'I am large, I contain multitudes.'"

"You and Mr. Whitman."

"All of us, Vincent," Father rejoined warmly. "All of us."

[shoggothkisses]

there's a lot going on with the moon, how does it tie in with music?

HOKAY so for context: I wrote this big honkin' response to an anon who wanted only a breakdown of lore on the Moons in Genshin. In that post, I briefly discussed the names of the three Moon Sisters - Aria, Sonnet, and Canon - but didn't go into detail about what the Sisters actually have to do with music.

So let's do that now!

We've had lots of evidence so far to demonstrate that music has a real, tangible effect on Teyvat. More specifically, singing and music are very closely related to Dendro:

Singing to Glaze Lilies in Liyue causes them to bloom

Chanted prayers (and prayers are related to music, as I'll address shortly) play a major role in the cleansing of the Sacred Sakura in Inazuma

Singing the "Great Songs" of Khvarena is believed to stop the Withering

The korybantes / kory drums awaken Rashnu the Pari from her slumber

The Aranara songs on the Vintage Lyre (which is specifically from Mondstadt, or so says the description) allow you to communicate, bring things to life and even transcend realms

The first Aranara was created after Rukkhadevata sang to the ley lines, causing the Ashvatta Tree to grow and produce the Aranara as fruit.

Ley lines follow the path of Irminsul's growth through Teyvat - and it makes sense that Irminsul would be associated with music, since it's also associated with myths and fairy tales. We learned in Inversion of Genesis that historical fact can be protected from deletion from Irminsul if it's couched in allegory (that is to say, it uses symbolic stand-ins to carry its hidden core message). I bring this up only because music and its creation is associated with the divine in many major world mythologies:

The lyre (in Greek mythology) was invented by Hermes the day he was born, and was at different points given to Apollo (as an apology for stealing his cattle) and to Amphion (his...lover? stepbrother? unclear...to help him build Thebes. Like, the music of his lyre could move stone.)

In Chinese mythology, Fuxi (the half-dragon demigod who also was thought to have molded the first human beings out of clay) invented the yaoqin (now the guqin) after hearing the sound of phoenix song, and bestowed his gift to humanity so they could use it during celebrations.

While not responsible for creating the actual instruments, Odin is believed to have taught humanity how to create music and poetry by introducing them to mead in a less-than-tasty way.

In Aztec lore, the wind god Quetzalcoatl kidnaps musicians from the court of the Sun and brings them to the world of humans so that it may also be full of music. There are also multiple gods who govern the realm of music (Huehuecoyotl, Xōchipilli).

In Vedic (and later Buddhist) mythology, the goddess Sarasvati was the embodiment of music (as well as rivers, knowledge, and "all things that flow.")

The last two points here are especially important, as in them, music is directly tied to flowers (Xōchipilli is the Lord of Flowers; Sarasvati is often depicted upon a white lotus), water (Sarasvati is the anthropomorphization of a river with the same name; Xōchipilli wears a mother-of-pearl talisman shaped like a water droplet), and the moon (pearls are associated with the moon; Sarasvati is often said to "shine like the moon" or "wear the moon in her hair").

There are two figures in Genshin so far that have a close relation to these symbols: Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, and Nabu Malikata (the Goddess of Flowers). As far as the latter is concerned, there's very little we definitely know about her and more that can be implied from information elsewhere.

During the Aranara questline, we learned from Arama that Nabu Malikata is a Seelie who managed to retain her physical form after the calamity that tore the Moon Sisters apart (see moon lore post). While we're still not 100% on the relationship between Seelie and the Moons, we know that the Sisters oversaw a union between a Seelie and an Outlander - so, at the very least, the Seelie defer to the Moons for some manner of guidance or counsel.

We also know that, while Nabu has retained her body, she still seems to be missing...something. This description from Dirge of Bilqis feels very...husk-y.

We know thanks to the Vourokasha's Glow set that the Khvarena (the Seelie-looking energy orbs that respond to the Great Songs and at various points in their lives are the Simurgh, the Pari, and water of the Amrita Pool) originate from Nabu.

Also, in A Drunkard's Tale, Vol. 3, we meet a "pale young maiden" who speaks an unknown language and plays a lute for the Seelie, possibly while sitting by the side of King Deshret's sarcophagus.

(I believed this figure to be Rukkhadevata on first read, but since the maiden refers to the Seelie as "we," it can be better assumed that this is Nabu Malikata playing the lute for her siblings.

If this is true, and it really is Nabu, then it implies that she and Rukkhadevata look alike? Which makes things between the two of them even messier, lore-wise. But that's for another post...hopefully.)

Let's circle back to the Greeks for a second.

The philosophies of Aristotle and Plato (two of the hard hitters when it comes to Genshin inspirations) are based on the theory of animism. The tl;dr of animism is that all living things (and depending on who you ask, non-living things) have a soul, and this soul can be acted upon separately from the physical form. So - that bush? It's got a soul. Water? Soul. Humans? Souls. Umbrellas? Maybe in a hundred years or so.

Since music was given to humanity by the gods, the act of a human creating music was considered a form of divine intervention - or possession.

A third Greek philosopher, who doesn't feature as prominently in Genshin but serves a huge purpose here, is Pythagoras. Much like other Greeks, he believed that music was divine in origin, and that it could be used to soothe or agitate the soul, depending on the tonal harmonies being played. However, Pythagoras took it an extra step by blowing the theory up to cosmic proportions.

Basically, Pythagoras (and his followers) observed that certain objects - like the strings on a lute - moved when they produced sound, and that the size and speed at which those objects moved affected the sounds that were made. Bigger things moved slower, and made lower pitched sounds; smaller, faster-moving objects made higher-pitched sounds. And so Pythagoras extrapolated: the planets and stars in space are very, very big. And they move very, very fast. So they must produce a sound. And this sound is SO loud and has been around for SO long that people were incapable of hearing it. The theory was later picked up and expounded upon by Johannes Kepler, who postulated that the harmonies between planets couldn't be heard, but could be felt within the human soul.

This concept is now known as musica universalis, or music of the spheres.

-

OKAY that's a lot of information! So let's break down how it all fits together.

We have three Moons, named after types (or parts) of music.

The Moons are divine in nature, and so is music - suggesting that they're the reason why humans on Teyvat have music at all.

The Moons are related to the Seelie (and the Goddess of Flowers), who for one reason or another are cursed to have their souls split from their bodies.

In Teyvat, music affects the movement and growth of elemental energy - Irminsul, Aranara, Sacred Sakura, other plants, etc.

Music, mythologically, also has an impact on the soul - hence why Seelie and parts of other beings' souls (Khvarena, the Pari) respond to it.

-

I don't really know how to end this post so let's wrap it up with some miscellaneous notes and baseless speculation:

Is all elemental energy soul-based? Because it's sure starting to feel that way. (There's definitely going to be a follow-up post about emotions and music. Just wait.)

How close are Rukkhadevata and Nabu Malikata?? Are they two of the three Moon Sisters? Are they parts of the same god?? Will we ever find out for sure??? And when am I going to stop mixing them up when doing my research!?!

In my OG Moon post I mentioned how the Sisters are said to control heroes' fates (see Xiphos' Moonlight lore). If the Moons are related to music, and Irminsul responds to song, this may mean (literally or figuratively) that the feeding of music through Irminsul can affect (or alter) how those heroes are remembered.

Venti knows all songs of past and future. And every day that comment becomes more and more sus.

Anyway thanks for coming along on this journey, hope it wasn't too hard to follow, and feel free to send more asks if you want a clarification or a new post on something!

[santmat]

Being Consistent on the Spiritual Path Listening to Satsang and Meditating Every Day

"When we do the practices enjoined by the Master and experience the Lord within, then our condition undergoes a radical change -- the love within us no longer clings to this outer world, and we are drawn, as if by a magnet, towards the Beloved within." (from a satsang discourse of Baba Somanath, and this podcast is indeed a home for the satsangs of Baba Somanath)

"You have to make it a practice to listen to Satsang every day -- even if you have to listen for only half an hour. And the other thing is to do your Bhajan Simran and Dhyan every day... We have to consistently listen to Satsang every day and consistently do our meditation every day." (Baba Ram Singh)

"When we're involved with outer activities we are working for others. When we meditate we're working for ourselves. We have to work for our soul relentlessly and consistently every day." (from the satsang discourses of Baba Ram Singh)

Today's Sant Mat Satsang Podcast edition of Spiritual Awakening Radio includes readings from the mystic poetry of Kabir, Rumi, John of Dalyatha, The Gnostic Gospel of Judas, an Aramaic-Syriac prayer of John of Apamea, along with satsang discourses of Baba Somanath and Sant Ram Singh.

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In Divine Love, Light and Sound, Peace Be To You,

James Bean

Sant Mat Satsang Podcasts

Spiritual Awakening Radio

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#Sant_Mat #Santmat #SuratShabdYoga #Meditation #Spirituality #SpiritualPodcasts #Satsang #SantMatSatsangPodcasts #SpiritualAwakeningRadio #Radhaswami #Radha_Soami #Radhasoami #Radhasoamiji #Kabir #Rumi #SyriacMystics #BabaRamSingh #BabaSomanath #GospelofJudas #Gnostic #Gnosticism #Mystics #Mysticism #JohnofApamea #JohnofDalyatha #SpiritualPractices #Bhakti #Consistently #SpiritualPath #EveryDaySpirituality #DailyMeditation #Satsangs #Consistency

[batstabb]

The Bible (from Koine Greek τὰ βιβλία, tà biblía, 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthology – a compilation of texts of a variety of forms – originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text can vary.

The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible. It is called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning five books) in Greek; the second oldest part was a collection of narrative histories and prophecies (the Nevi'im); the third collection (the Ketuvim) contains psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories. "Tanakh" is an alternate term for the Hebrew Bible composed of the first letters of those three parts of the Hebrew scriptures: the Torah ("Teaching"), the Nevi'im ("Prophets"), and the Ketuvim ("Writings"). The Masoretic Text is the medieval version of the Tanakh, in Hebrew and Aramaic, that is considered the authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible by modern Rabbinic Judaism. The Septuagint is a Koine Greek translation of the Tanakh from the third and second centuries BCE (Before Common Era); it largely overlaps with the Hebrew Bible.

Christianity began as an outgrowth of Judaism, using the Septuagint as the basis of the Old Testament. The early Church continued the Jewish tradition of writing and incorporating what it saw as inspired, authoritative religious books. The gospels, Pauline epistles and other texts quickly coalesced into the New Testament.

With estimated total sales of over five billion copies, the Bible is the best-selling publication of all time. It has had a profound influence both on Western culture and history and on cultures around the globe. The study of it through biblical criticism has indirectly impacted culture and history as well. The Bible is currently translated or being translated into about half of the world's languages.

Etymology

The term "Bible" can refer to the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible, which contains both the Old and New Testaments.[1]

The English word Bible is derived from Koinē Greek: τὰ βιβλία, romanized: ta biblia, meaning "the books" (singular βιβλίον, biblion).[2] The word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of "scroll" and came to be used as the ordinary word for "book".[3] It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, "Egyptian papyrus", possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos (also known as Gebal) from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.[4]

The Greek ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books".[5] The biblical scholar F. F. Bruce notes that John Chrysostom appears to be the first writer (in his Homilies on Matthew, delivered between 386 and 388) to use the Greek phrase ta biblia ("the books") to describe both the Old and New Testaments together.[6]

Latin biblia sacra "holy books" translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια (tà biblía tà hágia, "the holy books").[7] Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra "holy book". It gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae) in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe.[8]

Development and history

See also: Biblical manuscript, Textual criticism, and Samaritan Pentateuch

Hebrew Bible from 1300. Genesis.

The Bible is not a single book; it is a collection of books whose complex development is not completely understood. The oldest books began as songs and stories orally transmitted from generation to generation. Scholars are just beginning to explore "the interface between writing, performance, memorization, and the aural dimension" of the texts. Current indications are that the ancient writing–reading process was supplemented by memorization and oral performance in community.[9] The Bible was written and compiled by many people, most of whom are unknown, from a variety of disparate cultures.[10]

British biblical scholar John K. Riches wrote:[11]

The books of the Bible were initially written and copied by hand on papyrus scrolls.[12] No originals survive. The age of the original composition of the texts is therefore difficult to determine and heavily debated. Using a combined linguistic and historiographical approach, Hendel and Joosten date the oldest parts of the Hebrew Bible (the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 and the Samson story of Judges 16 and 1 Samuel) to having been composed in the premonarchial early Iron Age (c. 1200 BCE).[13] The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1947, are copies that can be dated to between 250 BCE and 100 CE. They are the oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any length that are not fragments.[14]

The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa), one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is the oldest complete copy of the Book of Isaiah.

The earliest manuscripts were probably written in paleo-Hebrew, a kind of cuneiform pictograph similar to other pictographs of the same period.[15] The exile to Babylon most likely prompted the shift to square script (Aramaic) in the fifth to third centuries BCE.[16] From the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Hebrew Bible was written with spaces between words to aid in reading.[17] By the eighth century CE, the Masoretes added vowel signs.[18] Levites or scribes maintained the texts, and some texts were always treated as more authoritative than others.[19] Scribes preserved and changed the texts by changing the script and updating archaic forms while also making corrections. These Hebrew texts were copied with great care.[20]

Considered to be scriptures (sacred, authoritative religious texts), the books were compiled by different religious communities into various biblical canons (official collections of scriptures).[21] The earliest compilation, containing the first five books of the Bible and called the Torah (meaning "law", "instruction", or "teaching") or Pentateuch ("five books"), was accepted as Jewish canon by the fifth century BCE. A second collection of narrative histories and prophesies, called the Nevi'im ("prophets"), was canonized in the third century BCE. A third collection called the Ketuvim ("writings"), containing psalms, proverbs, and narrative histories, was canonized sometime between the second century BCE and the second century CE.[22] These three collections were written mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with some parts in Aramaic, which together form the Hebrew Bible or "TaNaKh" (an abbreviation of "Torah", "Nevi'im", and "Ketuvim").[23]

Hebrew Bible

There are three major historical versions of the Hebrew Bible: the Septuagint, the Masoretic Text, and the Samaritan Pentateuch (which contains only the first five books). They are related but do not share the same paths of development. The Septuagint, or the LXX, is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures, and some related texts, into Koine Greek, begun in Alexandria in the late third century BCE and completed by 132 BCE.[24][25][a] Probably commissioned by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, King of Egypt, it addressed the need of the primarily Greek-speaking Jews of the Graeco-Roman diaspora.[24][26] Existing complete copies of the Septuagint date from the third to the fifth centuries CE, with fragments dating back to the second century BCE. [27] Revision of its text began as far back as the first century BCE.[28] Fragments of the Septuagint were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; portions of its text are also found on existing papyrus from Egypt dating to the second and first centuries BCE and to the first century CE.[28]: 5 

The Masoretes began developing what would become the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism near the end of the Talmudic period (c. 300–c. 500 CE), but the actual date is difficult to determine.[29][30][31] In the sixth and seventh centuries, three Jewish communities contributed systems for writing the precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora (from which we derive the term "masoretic").[29] These early Masoretic scholars were based primarily in the Galilean cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, and in Babylonia (modern Iraq). Those living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee (c. 750–950), made scribal copies of the Hebrew Bible texts without a standard text, such as the Babylonian tradition had, to work from. The canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (called Tiberian Hebrew) that they developed, and many of the notes they made, therefore differed from the Babylonian.[32] These differences were resolved into a standard text called the Masoretic text in the ninth century.[33] The oldest complete copy still in existence is the Leningrad Codex dating to c. 1000 CE.[34]

The Samaritan Pentateuch is a version of the Torah maintained by the Samaritan community since antiquity, which was rediscovered by European scholars in the 17th century; its oldest existing copies date to c. 1100 CE.[35] Samaritans include only the Pentateuch (Torah) in their biblical canon.[36] They do not recognize divine authorship or inspiration in any other book in the Jewish Tanakh.[b] A Samaritan Book of Joshua partly based upon the Tanakh's Book of Joshua exists, but Samaritans regard it as a non-canonical secular historical chronicle.[37]

In the seventh century, the first codex form of the Hebrew Bible was produced. The codex is the forerunner of the modern book. Popularized by early Christians, it was made by folding a single sheet of papyrus in half, forming "pages". Assembling multiples of these folded pages together created a "book" that was more easily accessible and more portable than scrolls. In 1488, the first complete printed press version of the Hebrew Bible was produced.[38]

New Testament

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, c. 1619 painting by Valentin de Boulogne

During the rise of Christianity in the first century CE, new scriptures were written in Koine Greek. Christians called these new scriptures the "New Testament", and began referring to the Septuagint as the "Old Testament".[39] The New Testament has been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work.[40][41] Most early Christian copyists were not trained scribes.[42] Many copies of the gospels and Paul's letters were made by individual Christians over a relatively short period of time very soon after the originals were written.[43] There is evidence in the Synoptic Gospels, in the writings of the early church fathers, from Marcion, and in the Didache that Christian documents were in circulation before the end of the first century.[44][45] Paul's letters were circulated during his lifetime, and his death is thought to have occurred before 68 during Nero's reign.[46][47] Early Christians transported these writings around the Empire, translating them into Old Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, and Latin, among other languages.[48]

Bart Ehrman explains how these multiple texts later became grouped by scholars into categories:

during the early centuries of the church, Christian texts were copied in whatever location they were written or taken to. Since texts were copied locally, it is no surprise that different localities developed different kinds of textual tradition. That is to say, the manuscripts in Rome had many of the same errors, because they were for the most part "in-house" documents, copied from one another; they were not influenced much by manuscripts being copied in Palestine; and those in Palestine took on their own characteristics, which were not the same as those found in a place like Alexandria, Egypt. Moreover, in the early centuries of the church, some locales had better scribes than others. Modern scholars have come to recognize that the scribes in Alexandria – which was a major intellectual center in the ancient world – were particularly scrupulous, even in these early centuries, and that there, in Alexandria, a very pure form of the text of the early Christian writings was preserved, decade after decade, by dedicated and relatively skilled Christian scribes.[49]

These differing histories produced what modern scholars refer to as recognizable "text types". The four most commonly recognized are Alexandrian, Western, Caesarean, and Byzantine.[50]

The Rylands fragment P52 verso is the oldest existing fragment of New Testament papyrus.[51] It contains phrases from the 18th chapter of the Gospel of John.

The list of books included in the Catholic Bible was established as canon by the Council of Rome in 382, followed by those of Hippo in 393 and Carthage in 397. Between 385 and 405 CE, the early Christian church translated its canon into Vulgar Latin (the common Latin spoken by ordinary people), a translation known as the Vulgate.[52] Since then, Catholic Christians have held ecumenical councils to standardize their biblical canon. The Council of Trent (1545–63), held by the Catholic Church in response to the Protestant Reformation, authorized the Vulgate as its official Latin translation of the Bible.[53] A number of biblical canons have since evolved. Christian biblical canons range from the 73 books of the Catholic Church canon, and the 66-book canon of most Protestant denominations, to the 81 books of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church canon, among others.[54] Judaism has long accepted a single authoritative text, whereas Christianity has never had an official version, instead having many different manuscript traditions.[55]

Variants

All biblical texts were treated with reverence and care by those that copied them, yet there are transmission errors, called variants, in all biblical manuscripts.[56][57] A variant is any deviation between two texts. Textual critic Daniel B. Wallace explains that "Each deviation counts as one variant, regardless of how many MSS [manuscripts] attest to it."[58] Hebrew scholar Emanuel Tov says the term is not evaluative; it is a recognition that the paths of development of different texts have separated.[59]

Medieval handwritten manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were considered extremely precise: the most authoritative documents from which to copy other texts.[60] Even so, David Carr asserts that Hebrew texts still contain some variants.[61] The majority of all variants are accidental, such as spelling errors, but some changes were intentional.[62] In the Hebrew text, "memory variants" are generally accidental differences evidenced by such things as the shift in word order found in 1 Chronicles 17:24 and 2 Samuel 10:9 and 13. Variants also include the substitution of lexical equivalents, semantic and grammar differences, and larger scale shifts in order, with some major revisions of the Masoretic texts that must have been intentional.[63]

Intentional changes in New Testament texts were made to improve grammar, eliminate discrepancies, harmonize parallel passages, combine and simplify multiple variant readings into one, and for theological reasons.[62][64] Bruce K. Waltke observes that one variant for every ten words was noted in the recent critical edition of the Hebrew Bible, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, leaving 90% of the Hebrew text without variation. The fourth edition of the United Bible Society's Greek New Testament notes variants affecting about 500 out of 6900 words, or about 7% of the text.[65]

Further information: Textual variants in the Hebrew Bible and Textual variants in the New Testament

Content and themes

Themes

Further information: Ethics in the Bible, Jewish ethics, and Christian ethics

Creation of Light, by Gustave Doré.

The narratives, laws, wisdom sayings, parables, and unique genres of the Bible provide opportunity for discussion on most topics of concern to human beings: The role of women,[66]: 203  sex,[67] children, marriage,[68] neighbors,[69]: 24  friends, the nature of authority and the sharing of power,[70]: 45–48  animals, trees and nature,[71]: xi  money and economics,[72]: 77  work, relationships,[73] sorrow and despair and the nature of joy, among others.[74] Philosopher and ethicist Jaco Gericke adds: "The meaning of good and evil, the nature of right and wrong, criteria for moral discernment, valid sources of morality, the origin and acquisition of moral beliefs, the ontological status of moral norms, moral authority, cultural pluralism, [as well as] axiological and aesthetic assumptions about the nature of value and beauty. These are all implicit in the texts."[75]

However, discerning the themes of some biblical texts can be problematic.[76] Much of the Bible is in narrative form and in general, biblical narrative refrains from any kind of direct instruction, and in some texts the author's intent is not easy to decipher.[77] It is left to the reader to determine good and bad, right and wrong, and the path to understanding and practice is rarely straightforward.[78] God is sometimes portrayed as having a role in the plot, but more often there is little about God's reaction to events, and no mention at all of approval or disapproval of what the characters have done or failed to do.[79] The writer makes no comment, and the reader is left to infer what they will.[79] Jewish philosophers Shalom Carmy and David Schatz explain that the Bible "often juxtaposes contradictory ideas, without explanation or apology".[80]

The Hebrew Bible contains assumptions about the nature of knowledge, belief, truth, interpretation, understanding and cognitive processes.[81] Ethicist Michael V. Fox writes that the primary axiom of the book of Proverbs is that "the exercise of the human mind is the necessary and sufficient condition of right and successful behavior in all reaches of life".[82] The Bible teaches the nature of valid arguments, the nature and power of language, and its relation to reality.[75] According to Mittleman, the Bible provides patterns of moral reasoning that focus on conduct and character.[83][84]

In the biblical metaphysic, humans have free will, but it is a relative and restricted freedom.[85] Beach says that Christian voluntarism points to the will as the core of the self, and that within human nature, "the core of who we are is defined by what we love".[86] Natural law is in the Wisdom literature, the Prophets, Romans 1, Acts 17, and the book of Amos (Amos 1:3–2:5), where nations other than Israel are held accountable for their ethical decisions even though they don't know the Hebrew god.[87] Political theorist Michael Walzer finds politics in the Hebrew Bible in covenant, law, and prophecy, which constitute an early form of almost democratic political ethics.[88] Key elements in biblical criminal justice begin with the belief in God as the source of justice and the judge of all, including those administering justice on earth.[89]

Carmy and Schatz say the Bible "depicts the character of God, presents an account of creation, posits a metaphysics of divine providence and divine intervention, suggests a basis for morality, discusses many features of human nature, and frequently poses the notorious conundrum of how God can allow evil."[90]

Hebrew Bible

Further information: Hebrew Bible and Development of the Hebrew Bible canonTanakh

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Torah (Instruction)

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Nevi'im (Prophets)

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Ketuvim (Writings)

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The authoritative Hebrew Bible is taken from the masoretic text (called the Leningrad Codex) which dates from 1008. The Hebrew Bible can therefore sometimes be referred to as the Masoretic Text.[91]

The Hebrew Bible is also known by the name Tanakh (Hebrew: תנ"ך‎). This reflects the threefold division of the Hebrew scriptures, Torah ("Teaching"), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings") by using the first letters of each word.[92] It is not until the Babylonian Talmud (c. 550 BCE) that a listing of the contents of these three divisions of scripture are found.[93]

The Tanakh was mainly written in Biblical Hebrew, with some small portions (Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 2:4–7:28)[94] written in Biblical Aramaic, a language which had become the lingua franca for much of the Semitic world.[95]

Torah

Main article: Torah

See also: Oral Torah

A Torah scroll recovered from Glockengasse Synagogue in Cologne.

The Torah (תּוֹרָה) is also known as the "Five Books of Moses" or the Pentateuch, meaning "five scroll-cases".[96] Traditionally these books were considered to have been dictated to Moses by God himself.[97][98] Since the 17th century, scholars have viewed the original sources as being the product of multiple anonymous authors while also allowing the possibility that Moses first assembled the separate sources.[99][100] There are a variety of hypotheses regarding when and how the Torah was composed,[101] but there is a general consensus that it took its final form during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE),[102][103] or perhaps in the early Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).[104]

Samaritan Inscription containing portion of the Bible in nine lines of Hebrew text, currently housed in the British Museum

The Hebrew names of the books are derived from the first words in the respective texts. The Torah consists of the following five books:

Genesis, Beresheeth (בראשית)

Exodus, Shemot (שמות)

Leviticus, Vayikra (ויקרא)

Numbers, Bamidbar (במדבר)

Deuteronomy, Devarim (דברים)

The first eleven chapters of Genesis provide accounts of the creation (or ordering) of the world and the history of God's early relationship with humanity. The remaining thirty-nine chapters of Genesis provide an account of God's covenant with the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel) and Jacob's children, the "Children of Israel", especially Joseph. It tells of how God commanded Abraham to leave his family and home in the city of Ur, eventually to settle in the land of Canaan, and how the Children of Israel later moved to Egypt.

The remaining four books of the Torah tell the story of Moses, who lived hundreds of years after the patriarchs. He leads the Children of Israel from slavery in ancient Egypt to the renewal of their covenant with God at Mount Sinai and their wanderings in the desert until a new generation was ready to enter the land of Canaan. The Torah ends with the death of Moses.[105]

The commandments in the Torah provide the basis for Jewish religious law. Tradition states that there are 613 commandments (taryag mitzvot).

Nevi'im

Main article: Nevi'imBooks of Nevi'im Former Prophets

Joshua

Judges

Samuel

Kings

Latter Prophets (major)

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Ezekiel

Latter Prophets (Twelve minor)

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Jonah

Micah

Nahum

Habakkuk

Zephaniah

Haggai

Zechariah

Malachi

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Nevi'im (Hebrew: נְבִיאִים, romanized: Nəḇî'îm, "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim. It contains two sub-groups, the Former Prophets (Nevi'im Rishonim נביאים ראשונים, the narrative books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings) and the Latter Prophets (Nevi'im Aharonim נביאים אחרונים, the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets).

The Nevi'im tell a story of the rise of the Hebrew monarchy and its division into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, focusing on conflicts between the Israelites and other nations, and conflicts among Israelites, specifically, struggles between believers in "the LORD God"[106] (Yahweh) and believers in foreign gods,[c][d] and the criticism of unethical and unjust behaviour of Israelite elites and rulers;[e][f][g] in which prophets played a crucial and leading role. It ends with the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, followed by the conquest of the Kingdom of Judah by the neo-Babylonian Empire and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Former Prophets

The Former Prophets are the books Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. They contain narratives that begin immediately after the death of Moses with the divine appointment of Joshua as his successor, who then leads the people of Israel into the Promised Land, and end with the release from imprisonment of the last king of Judah. Treating Samuel and Kings as single books, they cover:

Joshua's conquest of the land of Canaan (in the Book of Joshua),

the struggle of the people to possess the land (in the Book of Judges),

the people's request to God to give them a king so that they can occupy the land in the face of their enemies (in the Books of Samuel)

the possession of the land under the divinely appointed kings of the House of David, ending in conquest and foreign exile (Books of Kings)

Latter Prophets

Further information: Major prophet

The Latter Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Twelve Minor Prophets, counted as a single book.

Hosea, Hoshea (הושע) denounces the worship of gods other than Yehovah, comparing Israel to a woman being unfaithful to her husband.

Joel, Yoel (יואל) includes a lament and a promise from God.

Amos, Amos (עמוס) speaks of social justice, providing a basis for natural law by applying it to unbelievers and believers alike.

Obadiah, Ovadyah (עבדיה) addresses the judgment of Edom and restoration of Israel.

Jonah, Yonah (יונה) tells of a reluctant redemption of Ninevah.

Micah, Mikhah (מיכה) reproaches unjust leaders, defends the rights of the poor, and looks forward to world peace.

Nahum, Nahum (נחום) speaks of the destruction of Nineveh.

Habakkuk, Havakuk (חבקוק) upholds trust in God over Babylon.

Zephaniah, Tsefanya (צפניה) pronounces coming of judgment, survival and triumph of remnant.

Haggai, Khagay (חגי) rebuild Second Temple.

Zechariah, Zekharyah (זכריה) God blesses those who repent and are pure.

Malachi, Malakhi (מלאכי) corrects lax religious and social behaviour.

Ketuvim

Hebrew text of Psalm 1:1–2

Main articles: Ketuvim and Poetic BooksBooks of the Ketuvim Three poetic books

Psalms

Proverbs

Job

Five Megillot (Scrolls)

Song of Songs

Ruth

Lamentations

Ecclesiastes

Esther

Other books

Daniel

Ezra–Nehemiah (Ezra

Nehemiah)

Chronicles

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Ketuvim or Kəṯûḇîm (in Biblical Hebrew: כְּתוּבִים "writings") is the third and final section of the Tanakh. The Ketuvim are believed to have been written under the inspiration of Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) but with one level less authority than that of prophecy.[107]

In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in a special two-column form emphasizing their internal parallelism, which was found early in the study of Hebrew poetry. "Stichs" are the lines that make up a verse "the parts of which lie parallel as to form and content".[108] Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת, which is also the Hebrew for "truth"). Hebrew cantillation is the manner of chanting ritual readings as they are written and notated in the Masoretic Text of the Bible. Psalms, Job and Proverbs form a group with a "special system" of accenting used only in these three books.[109]

The five scrolls

Further information: Five Megillot

Song of Songs (Das Hohelied Salomos), No. 11 by Egon Tschirch, 1923

The five relatively short books of Song of Songs, Book of Ruth, the Book of Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Book of Esther are collectively known as the Hamesh Megillot. These are the latest books collected and designated as "authoritative" in the Jewish canon even though they were not complete until the second century CE.[110]

Other books

The books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah[h] and Chronicles share a distinctive style that no other Hebrew literary text, biblical or extra-biblical, shares.[111] They were not written in the normal style of Hebrew of the post-exilic period. The authors of these books must have chosen to write in their own distinctive style for unknown reasons.[112]

Their narratives all openly describe relatively late events (i.e., the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion).

The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them.

Two of them (Daniel and Ezra) are the only books in the Tanakh with significant portions in Aramaic.

Book order

The following list presents the books of Ketuvim in the order they appear in most current printed editions.

Tehillim (Psalms) תְהִלִּים is an anthology of individual Hebrew religious hymns.

Mishlei (Book of Proverbs) מִשְלֵי is a "collection of collections" on values, moral behavior, the meaning of life and right conduct, and its basis in faith.

Iyyôbh (Book of Job) אִיּוֹב is about faith, without understanding or justifying suffering.

Shīr Hashshīrīm (Song of Songs) or (Song of Solomon) שִׁיר הַשִׁירִים (Passover) is poetry about love and sex.

Rūth (Book of Ruth) רוּת (Shābhû‘ôth) tells of the Moabite woman Ruth, who decides to follow the God of the Israelites, and remains loyal to her mother-in-law, who is then rewarded.

Eikhah (Lamentations) איכה (Ninth of Av) [Also called Kinnot in Hebrew.] is a collection of poetic laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE.

Qōheleth (Ecclesiastes) קהלת (Sukkôth) contains wisdom sayings disagreed over by scholars. Is it positive and life-affirming, or deeply pessimistic?

Estēr (Book of Esther) אֶסְתֵר (Pûrîm) tells of a Hebrew woman in Persia who becomes queen and thwarts a genocide of her people.

Dānî’ēl (Book of Daniel) דָּנִיֵּאל combines prophecy and eschatology (end times) in story of God saving Daniel just as He will save Israel.

‘Ezrā (Book of Ezra–Book of Nehemiah) עזרא tells of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile.

Divrei ha-Yamim (Chronicles) דברי הימים contains genealogy.

The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Batra 14b–15a) gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles.[113]

One of the large scale differences between the Babylonian and the Tiberian biblical traditions is the order of the books. Isaiah is placed after Ezekiel in the Babylonian, while Chronicles opens the Ketuvim in the Tiberian, and closes it in the Babylonian.[114]

The Ketuvim is the last of the three portions of the Tanakh to have been accepted as canonical. While the Torah may have been considered canon by Israel as early as the fifth century BCE and the Former and Latter Prophets were canonized by the second century BCE, the Ketuvim was not a fixed canon until the second century CE.[110]

Evidence suggests, however, that the people of Israel were adding what would become the Ketuvim to their holy literature shortly after the canonization of the prophets. As early as 132 BCE references suggest that the Ketuvim was starting to take shape, although it lacked a formal title.[115] Against Apion, the writing of Josephus in 95 CE, treated the text of the Hebrew Bible as a closed canon to which "... no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable..."[116] For an extended period after 95CE, the divine inspiration of Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes was often under scrutiny.[117]

The Isaiah scroll, which is a part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, contains almost the whole Book of Isaiah. It dates from the second century BCE.

Septuagint

Main articles: Septuagint and Jewish apocrypha

See also: Deuterocanonical books and Biblical apocrypha

Fragment of a Septuagint: A column of uncial book from 1 Esdras in the Codex Vaticanus c. 325–350 CE, the basis of Sir Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton's Greek edition and English translation.

The Septuagint ("the Translation of the Seventy", also called "the LXX"), is a Koine Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible begun in the late third century BCE.

As the work of translation progressed, the Septuagint expanded: the collection of prophetic writings had various hagiographical works incorporated into it. In addition, some newer books such as the Books of the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach were added. These are among the "apocryphal" books, (books whose authenticity is doubted). The inclusion of these texts, and the claim of some mistranslations, contributed to the Septuagint being seen as a "careless" translation and its eventual rejection as a valid Jewish scriptural text.[118][119][i]

The apocrypha are Jewish literature, mostly of the Second Temple period (c. 550 BCE – 70 CE); they originated in Israel, Syria, Egypt or Persia; were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and attempt to tell of biblical characters and themes.[121] Their provenance is obscure. One older theory of where they came from asserted that an "Alexandrian" canon had been accepted among the Greek-speaking Jews living there, but that theory has since been abandoned.[122] Indications are that they were not accepted when the rest of the Hebrew canon was.[122] It is clear the Apocrypha were used in New Testament times, but "they are never quoted as Scripture."[123] In modern Judaism, none of the apocryphal books are accepted as authentic and are therefore excluded from the canon. However, "the Ethiopian Jews, who are sometimes called Falashas, have an expanded canon, which includes some Apocryphal books".[124]

The contents page in a complete 80 book King James Bible, listing "The Books of the Old Testament", "The Books called Apocrypha", and "The Books of the New Testament".

The rabbis also wanted to distinguish their tradition from the newly emerging tradition of Christianity.[a][j] Finally, the rabbis claimed a divine authority for the Hebrew language, in contrast to Aramaic or Greek – even though these languages were the lingua franca of Jews during this period (and Aramaic would eventually be given the status of a sacred language comparable to Hebrew).[k]

Incorporations from Theodotion

The Book of Daniel is preserved in the 12-chapter Masoretic Text and in two longer Greek versions, the original Septuagint version, c. 100 BCE, and the later Theodotion version from c. second century CE. Both Greek texts contain three additions to Daniel: The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children; the story of Susannah and the Elders; and the story of Bel and the Dragon. Theodotion's translation was so widely copied in the Early Christian church that its version of the Book of Daniel virtually superseded the Septuagint's. The priest Jerome, in his preface to Daniel (407 CE), records the rejection of the Septuagint version of that book in Christian usage: "I ... wish to emphasize to the reader the fact that it was not according to the Septuagint version but according to the version of Theodotion himself that the churches publicly read Daniel."[125] Jerome's preface also mentions that the Hexapla had notations in it, indicating several major differences in content between the Theodotion Daniel and the earlier versions in Greek and Hebrew.

Theodotion's Daniel is closer to the surviving Hebrew Masoretic Text version, the text which is the basis for most modern translations. Theodotion's Daniel is also the one embodied in the authorised edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587.[126]

Final form

Further information: Deuterocanonical books and Biblical apocrypha

Textual critics are now debating how to reconcile the earlier view of the Septuagint as 'careless' with content from the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, scrolls discovered at Wadi Murabba'at, Nahal Hever, and those discovered at Masada. These scrolls are 1000–1300 years older than the Leningrad text, dated to 1008 CE, which forms the basis of the Masoretic text.[127] The scrolls have confirmed much of the Masoretic text, but they have also differed from it, and many of those differences agree with the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch or the Greek Old Testament instead.[118]

Copies of some texts later declared apocryphal are also among the Qumran texts.[122] Ancient manuscripts of the book of Sirach, the "Psalms of Joshua", Tobit, and the Epistle of Jeremiah are now known to have existed in a Hebrew version.[128] The Septuagint version of some biblical books, such as the Book of Daniel and Book of Esther, are longer than those in the Jewish canon.[129] In the Septuagint, Jeremiah is shorter than in the Masoretic text, but a shortened Hebrew Jeremiah has been found at Qumran in cave 4.[118] The scrolls of Isaiah, Exodus, Jeremiah, Daniel and Samuel exhibit striking and important textual variants from the Masoretic text.[118] The Septuagint is now seen as a careful translation of a different Hebrew form or recension (revised addition of the text) of certain books, but debate on how best to characterize these varied texts is ongoing.[118]

Pseudepigraphal books

Main articles: Jewish apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

See also: Authorship of the Bible

Pseudepigrapha are works whose authorship is wrongly attributed. A written work can be pseudepigraphical and not be a forgery, as forgeries are intentionally deceptive. With pseudepigrapha, authorship has been mistransmitted for any one of a number of reasons.[130]

Apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works are not the same. Apocrypha includes all the writings claiming to be sacred that are outside the canon because they are not accepted as authentically being what they claim to be. For example, the Gospel of Barnabas claims to be written by Barnabas the companion of the Apostle Paul, but both its manuscripts date from the Middle Ages. Pseudepigrapha is a literary category of all writings whether they are canonical or apocryphal. They may or may not be authentic in every sense except a misunderstood authorship.[130]

The term "pseudepigrapha" is commonly used to describe numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical. (It also refers to books of the New Testament canon whose authorship is questioned.) The Old Testament pseudepigraphal works include the following:[131]

3 Maccabees

4 Maccabees

Assumption of Moses

Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)

Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch)

Hebrew Book of Enoch (3 Enoch) (also known as "The Revelation of Metatron" or "The Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest")

Book of Jubilees

Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch)

Letter of Aristeas (Letter to Philocrates regarding the translating of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek)

Life of Adam and Eve

Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah

Psalms of Solomon

Sibylline Oracles

Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch)

Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

Book of Enoch

Notable pseudepigraphal works include the Books of Enoch such as 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, which survives only in Old Slavonic, and 3 Enoch, surviving in Hebrew of the c. fifth century – c. sixth century CE. These are ancient Jewish religious works, traditionally ascribed to the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of the patriarch Noah. The fragment of Enoch found among the Qumran scrolls attest to it being an ancient work.[132] The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) are estimated to date from about 300 BCE, and the latest part (Book of Parables) was probably composed at the end of the first century BCE.[133]

Enoch is not part of the biblical canon used by most Jews, apart from Beta Israel. Most Christian denominations and traditions may accept the Books of Enoch as having some historical or theological interest or significance. Part of the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Epistle of Jude and the book of Hebrews (parts of the New Testament), but Christian denominations generally regard the Books of Enoch as non-canonical.[134] The exceptions to this view are the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.[132]

The Ethiopian Bible is not based on the Greek Bible, and the Ethiopian Church has a slightly different understanding of canon than other Christian traditions.[135] In Ethiopia, canon does not have the same degree of fixedness, (yet neither is it completely open).[135] Enoch has long been seen there as inspired scripture, but being scriptural and being canon are not always seen the same. The official Ethiopian canon has 81 books, but that number is reached in different ways with various lists of different books, and the book of Enoch is sometimes included and sometimes not.[135] Current evidence confirms Enoch as canonical in both Ethiopia and in Eritrea.[132]

Christian Bible

Main articles: Biblical canon and List of English Bible translations

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A Christian Bible is a set of books divided into the Old and New Testament that a Christian denomination has, at some point in their past or present, regarded as divinely inspired scripture by the holy spirit.[136] The Early Church primarily used the Septuagint, as it was written in Greek, the common tongue of the day, or they used the Targums among Aramaic speakers. Modern English translations of the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible are based on the Masoretic Text.[34] The Pauline epistles and the gospels were soon added, along with other writings, as the New Testament.[137]

Old Testament

Main article: Old Testament

Further information: Development of the Old Testament canon

The Old Testament has been important to the life of the Christian church from its earliest days. Bible scholar N.T. Wright says "Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures."[138] Wright adds that the earliest Christians searched those same Hebrew scriptures in their effort to understand the earthly life of Jesus. They regarded the "holy writings" of the Israelites as necessary and instructive for the Christian, as seen from Paul's words to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15), as pointing to the Messiah, and as having reached a climactic fulfillment in Jesus generating the "new covenant" prophesied by Jeremiah.[139]

The Protestant Old Testament of the twenty-first century has a 39-book canon – the number of books (although not the content) varies from the Jewish Tanakh only because of a different method of division. The term "Hebrew scriptures" is often used as being synonymous with the Protestant Old Testament, since the surviving scriptures in Hebrew include only those books.

However, the Roman Catholic Church recognizes 46 books as its Old Testament (45 if Jeremiah and Lamentations are counted as one),[140] and the Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize 6 additional books. These additions are also included in the Syriac versions of the Bible called the Peshitta and the Ethiopian Bible.[l][m][n]

Because the canon of Scripture is distinct for Jews, Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Protestants, the contents of each community's Apocrypha are unique, as is its usage of the term. For Jews, none of the apocryphal books are considered canonical. Catholics refer to this collection as "Deuterocanonical books" (second canon) and the Orthodox Church refers to them as "Anagignoskomena" (that which is read).[141] [o]

Books included in the Roman Catholic, Greek, and Slavonic Bibles are: Tobit, Judith, Greek Additions to Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah (also called the Baruch Chapter 6), the Greek Additions to Daniel, along with 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees.[142]

The Greek Orthodox Church, and the Slavonic churches (Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia) also add:[143]

3 Maccabees

1 Esdras (called 2 Esdras in the Slavonic canon)

Prayer of Manasseh

Psalm 151

2 Esdras (4 Ezra) and the Prayer of Manasseh are not in the Septuagint, and 2 Esdras does not exist in Greek, though it does exist in Latin. There is also 4 Maccabees which is only accepted as canonical in the Georgian Church. It is in an appendix to the Greek Orthodox Bible, and it is therefore sometimes included in collections of the Apocrypha.[144]

The Syriac Orthodox Church also includes:

Psalms 151–155

The Apocalypse of Baruch

The Letter of Baruch[145]

The Ethiopian Old Testament Canon uses Enoch and Jubilees (that only survived in Ge'ez), 1–3 Meqabyan, Greek Ezra and the Apocalypse of Ezra, and Psalm 151.[n][l]

The Revised Common Lectionary of the Lutheran Church, Moravian Church, Reformed Churches, Anglican Church and Methodist Church uses the apocryphal books liturgically, with alternative Old Testament readings available.[p] Therefore, editions of the Bible intended for use in the Lutheran Church and Anglican Church include the fourteen books of the Apocrypha, many of which are the deuterocanonical books accepted by the Catholic Church, plus 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which were in the Vulgate appendix.[147]

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches use most of the books of the Septuagint, while Protestant churches usually do not. After the Protestant Reformation, many Protestant Bibles began to follow the Jewish canon and exclude the additional texts, which came to be called apocryphal. The Apocrypha are included under a separate heading in the King James Version of the Bible, the basis for the Revised Standard Version.[148]The Orthodox Old Testament[149][q]Greek-based nameConventional English nameLawΓένεσιςGénesisGenesisἜξοδοςÉxodosExodusΛευϊτικόνLeuitikónLeviticusἈριθμοίArithmoíNumbersΔευτερονόμιονDeuteronómionDeuteronomyHistoryἸησοῦς NαυῆIêsous NauêJoshuaΚριταίKritaíJudgesῬούθRoúthRuthΒασιλειῶν Αʹ[r]I ReignsI SamuelΒασιλειῶν ΒʹII ReignsII SamuelΒασιλειῶν ΓʹIII ReignsI KingsΒασιλειῶν ΔʹIV ReignsII KingsΠαραλειπομένων ΑʹI Paralipomenon[s]I ChroniclesΠαραλειπομένων ΒʹII ParalipomenonII ChroniclesἜσδρας ΑʹI Esdras1 EsdrasἜσδρας ΒʹII EsdrasEzra–NehemiahΤωβίτ[t]TobitTobit or TobiasἸουδίθIoudithJudithἘσθήρEstherEsther with additionsΜακκαβαίων ΑʹI Makkabaioi1 MaccabeesΜακκαβαίων ΒʹII Makkabaioi2 MaccabeesΜακκαβαίων ΓʹIII Makkabaioi3 MaccabeesWisdomΨαλμοίPsalmsPsalmsΨαλμός ΡΝΑʹPsalm 151Psalm 151Προσευχὴ ΜανάσσηPrayer of ManassehPrayer of ManassehἸώβIōbJobΠαροιμίαιProverbsProverbsἘκκλησιαστήςEkklesiastesEcclesiastesἎσμα ἈσμάτωνSong of SongsSong of Solomon or CanticlesΣοφία ΣαλoμῶντοςWisdom of SolomonWisdomΣοφία Ἰησοῦ ΣειράχWisdom of Jesus the son of SeirachSirach or EcclesiasticusΨαλμοί ΣαλoμῶντοςPsalms of SolomonPsalms of Solomon[u]ProphetsΔώδεκαThe TwelveMinor ProphetsὩσηέ ΑʹI. OsëeHoseaἈμώς ΒʹII. AmōsAmosΜιχαίας ΓʹIII. MichaiasMicahἸωήλ ΔʹIV. IoëlJoelὈβδίου Εʹ[v]V. ObdiasObadiahἸωνᾶς Ϛ'VI. IonasJonahΝαούμ ΖʹVII. NaoumNahumἈμβακούμ ΗʹVIII. AmbakumHabakkukΣοφονίας ΘʹIX. SophoniasZephaniahἈγγαῖος ΙʹX. AngaiosHaggaiΖαχαρίας ΙΑʹXI. ZachariasZachariahἌγγελος ΙΒʹXII. MessengerMalachiἨσαΐαςHesaiasIsaiahἹερεμίαςHieremiasJeremiahΒαρούχBaruchBaruchΘρῆνοιLamentationsLamentationsἘπιστολή ΙερεμίουEpistle of JeremiahLetter of JeremiahἸεζεκιήλIezekiêlEzekielΔανιήλDaniêlDaniel with additions

The bible wont save you from my foot going up your ass

[nemrudking]

Rawê - Gîwergîs Selmo | Darên Bi tenê" { YouTube }

(الفلكلور والغناء الآشوري

– The folklore & Assyrian singing)

History

Tribal and Folkloric Period .

Music, is omnipresent in the village scene. A “Musician” is not necessarily a professional, and whoever can sing in any manner is considered a “singer”. Most of the time, music is learned by ear. The villagers lead a hard life, but whenever there is an opportunity, they love to make music or listen to it

Village music may be categorized, basically, into four groups: Local secular music not related to specific occasions; functional music; religious music; music adopted from other areas

Here are few types of tribal Assyrian Music that has survived to this day, especially in the Assyrian villages and towns of Northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northwest Iran and northeast Syria

Rawey: A mostly love songs with a story-tale structure, which may include themes about daily life, suffering and pain

Diwane: Sung in gatherings and meetings; lyrics cover aspects of life such as, working in the fields, persecution, suffering, religion

Lilyana: Wedding songs usually sung by women only, especially for the bride before leaving her home to get married. Also sung for the bridegroom the day before his wedding by his family and relatives

Dowlah and Zornah: These are two traditional music instruments, literally meaning a drum and wind-pipe (or flute). They are played together, either with or without singing in many ceremonies such as weddings, welcoming and funerals (however, for funerals played for unmarried men, they are accompanied by singing)

Tambura: Another tribal music instrument, a string instrument with long neck, originated in ancient Assyria, discovered being depicted on carving from South Iraq from UR to Akkad and Ashur. Albert Rouel Tamraz is a famous Assyrian Singer from Iraq who played this instrument and sung many beautiful folkloric songs accompanied by hand-drum (tabla)

It was in the Assyrian homeland north of Mosul that people started to write the modern Syriac vernacular more than two hundred years before the earliest British missionaries, although the earliest records of the Syriac language date from 5th century BC Achaemenid Assyria. The earliest dated text is a poem written in 1591. This makes early Neo-Syriac literature a contemporary of Jewish Neo-Aramaic literature from roughly the same region, dating back to the late 16th century

The Neo-Syriac literature which existed before the arrival of British and American missionaries consisted mainly of poetry. This poetry can be divided into three categories: stanzaic Hymns, dispute poems, and drinking songs. Of these three categories, only the hymns, which in Neo-Syriac are termed duriky; and which can be seen as the equivalent of the Classical Syriac madrase, can usually be traced back to individual authors.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org

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ZMIRYATA-D RAWE

Professor Fabrizio Pennacchietti

University of Turin

Over the last few years, amongst the Aramaic-speaking minorities of the Near East and the countries of Diaspora, an impressive movement of intellectual rebirth has been making its presence felt. In Eastern Neo-Aramaic or Neo-Syriac (Sureth)-the mother tongue of both Christians and Jews of the region extending from the basin of the Botan-Su, a tributary of the Tigris in Turkish Mesopotamia, down to the western bank of Lake Urmia in Iran- the literary activity of the “Assyrians” and the “Chaldeans” of Iran and of American Diaspora deserves note. However, it is above all in Iraq where the Neo-Aramaic cultural reawakening has begun to assume microscopic dimensions

What is disheartening is the fact that only an insignificant minority can still read and write the so-called Nestorian alphabet. However, Neo-Aramaic, as a spoken language, continues to maintain a noteworthy vitality, especially among the Assyrians

Still in this regard, it must be observed that the intense immigration of the Aramaic-speaking population of the Persian Azerbaijan, after the tragic events of World War I extensively influenced the dialects spoken by the Kurdistan Assyrians who in turn became the victims of drastic displacement. Their descendants, in particular those living in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Basrah, have generally opted for a dialect similar to that of Urmia except for the absence of its typical “Vocal Harmony” or “Synharmonism” . Conversely, the Assyrians of Urmia have willingly adopted the picturesque folklore of the Assyrians of Kurdistan in the form of sane variegated festive costumes, and particular dance steps, not unlike those used by the Kurds

Unfortunately, the disappearance of the dialects of Kurdistan Assyrians is tied up closely with the disappearance of the more authentic contents of Nestorian folklore, like the love songs, the wedding hymns, and the war songs that since time immemorial have been handed down from one generation to the next among the mountain Christians. It is a well-known fact that only Kurdistan Nestorian population groups and above all those who enjoyed equal status with the Moslem Kurds- i.e., the ashiret or warlike tribes originally of the Turkish vilayet of Hakkari- have known how to keep their own fo1k1.ore intact from Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish or Persian influences

This heritage, on the way to extinction, merits being gathered and studied, but presently it is rather difficult to find reliable informants. The younger generation treats it all with indifference, as if it were old-fashioned, while among the old people, only a few know how to explain the sense of an old song or how to give the location of this or that place-name in an ancestral territory that no one has had access or reason to revisit since World War I

Over thirty years ago, the well-known French [Kurdologist], Thomas Bois, voiced the impression that no one among the Assyrians knew how to sing a love song in his mother tongue any more. On looking further back into the past, we can see that research conditions were even less favorable than at the present time. The insecure nature of communication routes, along with the suspicious nature of the Nestorians, made the task of gathering their oral traditions quite a risky undertaking. The few Westerners who ventured into their inaccessible mountain fastnesses either visited them hurriedly, or, as was the case with some American and English missionaries, were moved to do so almost always because of religious motives

The fact remains that whatever meager evidence of popular Assyrian poetry that we have, has never been gathered on the spot in genuine Nestorians surroundings, but rather in marginal areas or even in far distant localities

In 1869, in Damascus, the Semitist and Kurdologist Albert Socin chanced to meet a poverty-stricken Nestorian basket-weaver, a certain Isho by name, son of Dustu from the village of Talana, one of the villages of the Ge1u tribe. Like most of his fellow tribesmen who lived in the poorest and highest territory of the inaccessible mountain Massif that extends form the high basin of the Great lab down to the borders of Iran, the basket-weaver had left his village after 13th September, the Feast of the Cross, and would not return there until the beginning of the following May, after the springtime thaw, and after having wandered all over the Near east. Iso, who other than the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Gelu knew only Kurdish, very willingly dictated two stories to Socin, as well as 16 extremely brief poetic pieces each, composed of a verse made up of three septenary monorhymes

This kind of verse form was already known: it had already been noted in learned Neo-Aramaic poetry about 1600. New, instead, seemed the “literary” form of these tiny compositions with crystal-clear images of mountain life, like rapid sketches, that relayed an amorous message, or described an action born of melancholy, pride, passion, peevishness or good-willed derision

The following year, 1870, Albert Socin visited the Chaldean villages of the plain land at the foot of the mountains to the Northwest of Mosul: Telkef, Alqosh, Dehok and Qasafirr. Here, his curiosity still earnest due to his Damascus encounter, the German orient list expressly asked if re could hear sane popular poetry recited. In the mar Yaqo convent of the French Dominican fathers at Qasafirr, Socin’s crave was quenched to his great surprise by the blind rhapsodist who had just finished dictating to him a penitential sermon by the poet Toma Singari. The blind cantor, believing him to be a priest, held as roost unbecoming Socin’s interest in the kind of poetry best regarded as somewhat immoderate. Socin, incidentally, was never to know that the old cantor was no other than Dawid Kora of Nuhadra (who died at Mosul in 1889), of whom numerous religious hymns and enchanting verse fables have been published. “Blind David” was the most famous Neo-Aramaic poet of his day

Socin’s collection of popular poetry was a rather full one, and was published under the title of Fellihilieder, “Songs of the Fellihi”, that is, of Christian villagers of the plainland, as the Moslems of the nearby city of Mosul call them. How could these songs be defined? Socin liked to call them Schnadahupfl, as if they had something in common with the songs Bavarian peasants sang to accompany the rhythms of group dancers. However, the German scholar did not lose sight of the fact that these verses had not originated on the plainland. Disguised by the local dialect, in fact, too many expressions and words of Kurdish derivation appeared, far more familiar to Nestorian mountain folk than to Cl1aldean villagers who, unlike the Assyrians, fell under the influence of Arabic. Fran this re deduced that they really reflected the folklore of the people of the highlands, in particular the Assyrians of high Kurdistan, “die das Hochgebirge bewohnenden Aramaer” , which were reminiscent of the recitations by the basket-weaver of Gelu, whom he had net in Damascus the year before. Furtherroore, this tradition must have been extremely old, for at the time of his visit it had already lost much of its original meaning, both among the Nestorians of Persia and Jacobites of Tur ‘ Abdin, in Turkish high Mesopotamia

A journey, which I made at Eastertime, 1972, through the province (qada’) of ‘Amadiya about fifty kilometers northeast of Dehok, allowed me the opportunity of establishing that oo1y a small part of the compositions collected by Socin more than a century ago were, in fact, destined for the dance. In the Nestorian village of Bebede, a few kilometers west of ‘Amadiya, I happened to be invited to a wedding reception (xlula), at which I was able to listen to the execution of love songs, called zmiryata-d rawe, which corresponded exactly to those collected by Socin

They belonged to a song form we can describe as amoebaean. While on the threshing floor, the young men and the girls, linked hand in large dance circles, followed the obsessive rhythm of a drum “dahula” and a fife “zurna” , the older guests, gathered together in the diwanxana around the wedding couple, formed two groups and, in turns, started to sing a verselet with a strangely archaic tune. The melodic beat was repeated three times and embraced each line as well as the first accented word of the following line, which means that each word was pronounced twice. It had a modal tune, achieved by means of using chromatics at small intervals, executed with a surprising speed. You had the impression that the width between the highest note and the lowest never exceeded the interval our major sixth would make, even if the most important part of this tune appeared to be limited within the span of a major fourth

Once the stornello was finished, those present showed their appreciation as to the choice of the theme and its execution by singing out a series of stressed (o)’s that finished up on a series of high and extremely sharp (iii)’s. At this point, the second group of singers started the stornello that they considered as being more appropriate to go with the preceding one, and in the end, waited for the applause of the bystanders. This give-and-take continued for hours, with short intervals here and there for something to eat, and to drink a sort of local grappa (eau-de-vie)

In effect, in Socin’s collection the zmiryata-d rawe constitute the major type document. However, besides these stornelli, one can find extracts of songs of a different nature and of wider validity: fragments of a warlike song about the brave ‘Awdiso, and portions of qassityata, verse tales, which are singable in co-ordination with dancing

Upon my return to Baghdad, I looked about for someone who could recite me some songs like the ones I had heard at Bebede. After various fruitless attempts amongst Assyrian city-dwellers -but, unfortunately, they had been city-dwellers for too long – I turned to those of more recent arrival from the district of Barwari Bala, a little more to the North of ‘Amadiya. It was in this way that I realized that the district (nahiya) of Barwari Bala and part of the neighboring districts represents the last strip of Kurdistan territory still populated by autochthonous Nestorians. These are the sons and grandsons of those who, abandoned the area at the end of 1914, and returned by 1920

I finally chose as my informant one of the few survivors of the tragic exodus of 1914: Gewargis, son of Bukko, son of Muse. Born about 1897 at ‘Ehnune/Kani Masi (“the Spring of Fish”), the main village in the Barwari Bala district, Gewargis had lived there with various interruptions until a little after the outbreak of Kurdish-Arab hostilities on 11 November 1961

This austere and strong, venerable old man, dictated to me only these zmiryata-d rawe that he held becoming for a man of his age and reputation. Alas, the number we know of such rawe is terribly limited

Notes

Those who would like to expand their reading on this particular subject are invited to consult my original article “Zmiryata-D rawe

Stornelli degli Aramei Kurdistani”, published in Italian with full notes and comments in Scritti in onore di Guiliano Bonfante, pp. 639-663, Brescia (Italy), Paideia Editrice, 1976

Concerning the word Rawe, which recurs several times in my original text, I had written that, unfortunately, its etymology eluded me. After further investigation, however, I have been able to determine its derivation once and for all. The word Rawe canes from Arabic Rawiy ( ), indicating “the letter which remains the same throughout the entire poem and binds the verses together, so as to form one whole ( ) to bind fast”, cf. W. Wright, “A Grammar of the Arabic Language”, vol. II, Cambridge, At the University Press, 1967. Section 194, p. 352

‘Therefore, banda-d rawe means, a monorhyme strophe and zmiryata-d rawe means monorhyme songs

As for the Italian word stornello, also found, several times in the original article, there is this to say: this kind of poem, ” a short (usually three-lined) popular Italian verse form” (See Chambers’ 1Wentieth Century Dictionary), is known by this Italian name even in English, and so I have chosen to retain it here

Published in “JOURNAL OF ASSYRIAN ACADEMIC SOCIETY 1985-1986 .

[mr-culper]

Honestly, I don’t know where this tradition came from, but in Christianity, regardless of denomination, it is customary to address a priests calling him “father”. Abba, for example. This is an Aramaic word with the same meaning. In the Middle East, that's what abbots of monasteries were called in ancient times, and now that's what it is customary to call the ascetic writers of the Middle Eastern geography — Abba Dorotheus, for example. This saint's name is Dorotheus, but this “abba” means “father”. From this word came the well-known English “abbot”.

In Middle Eastern Christian churches, a priest or monk is addressed by saying “abūnā” (أَبُونَا). “Ab” (أَبٌ) is Arabic for “father”, this “ū” that is heard is the harf “wāw” (ﻭ), which marks the nominative case. Usually this is done through vowel marks, diacritical marks, but due to the fact that “father” in Arabic is a two-harf word, everything works a little differently when words are inflected; in such situations, another harf is added.

Harf is a unit of Arabic writing. This is something between a letter and a syllable. Every harf consists of two components: consonant and vowel mark. In writing, only consonants are usually written. Vowel marks are used in the Quran, poetry and educational literature. The Arabic alphabet consists of harfs, not letters (in the European sense of the word). In “abūnā” this “nā” (نا) that is heard at the end is a fused pronoun for the first person plural, meaning “our”. So, “abūnā” is translated as “our father.” In Arabic it is written together, in one graphic word — أبونا. But there are two semantic words here. It's important to keep in mind, learning Arabic.  

— Tea & Rum. Ep. 5.

That's an excerpt from the fifth episode of the Tea & Rum podcast. I have no idea why I post it here, but let it be. I just truly like to tell about Arabic. That's such a beautiful language.

[forgotteneilionora]

Name Meanings

A

aine (irish) -- radiance, brilliance, the name of the ancient goddess of love, fertility

aisling (irish) -- dream, vision

alaric (anglicized gothic) -- ruler of all

aleksander (polish/slovene/estonian/norwegian/danish) baltic form of alexander: defender of man

alistair (anglicized scottish) -- scottish gaelic form of alexander, meaning defender of man

amira (arabic or hebrew) -- commander/princess or treetop

aoife (irish) -- beauty

aria (persian or english) -- noble or song/melody

arthur (welsh or latin) -- bear king or honorable/respectful

B

bartholomew (anglicized greek-ized aramaic) -- son of talmai (talmai: furrowed)

brigit (irish) -- exalted one, the name of the ancient goddess of fire, poetry, wisdom

C

caoimhe (irish) -- dear, beloved, gentle

cassandra (anglicized greek) -- excelling/shining one

cassimir (anglicized slavic) -- to destroy peace/world

cecily (anglicized latin) -- blind

ciara (irish) -- black lady

cillian (irish) -- old church

cormac (irish) -- chariot/wagon defilement/corrupton son

D

domhnall (irish) -- form of donald: ruler of the world

E

eabha (irish-ized hebrew) -- irish form of eve: to breathe, to live

edmund (english) -- rich protector/protection

eilionora (anglicised irish + old french) hybridization of eileen + alienor. eileen, irishized greek helen: torch/corposant, moon; old french occitan meaning 'the other aenor' aenor is of unknown meaning

eithne (irish) -- kernel/grain, fire

eoin (irish-ized hebrew) irish form of john: yahweh is gracious

F

fiadh (irish) -- little deer, deer, wild, wild creature, respect

finnegan (irish) -- from a dimunitive of fionn: white, blessed

fiona (irish) -- white, blessed lady

G

garbhan (irish) -- little rough one

godfrey (anglicized old german) -- peace of god

guinevere (french-ized welsh) -- white phantom

I

isolda (latinized welsh or germanic) -- ice battle

K

kale (irish) -- affectionate, calm, fair, ocean, pure, sea, slender, tide; black

L

laoise (irish) -- possibly derived from the roots in lugh: brightness, dark, oath; possibly irish-ized form of latin lucia: light or of ludgwig: famous in battle

M

marian (anglicized latinized greek-ized egyptian) -- dimunutive of mary: (little) sea of bitterness, rebelliousness, wished for child, beloved, star of the sea

P

padraig (irish) -- irish form of the latin patricius: nobleman

percival (anglicized welsh or french) -- hard spears or pierce the valley

R

rian (irish) -- little king

roderick (germanized visigothic) -- famous ruler

roisin (irish) -- little rose, irish form of (little) rose: famous kind, the flower

ronan (irish) -- little seal

S

saoirse (irish) -- freedom

sebastian (latinized greek) -- venerable, august, exalted, to increase

sonya (russian-ized greek) -- russian form of sophia: wisdom/knowledge

sorcha (irish) -- radiant, bright

T

tristan (french-ized scottish/pictish) -- child of tears, noise/tumult

V

valentina (russian-ized latin) -- strong, vigorous, healthy

[versegpt]

#ContextMatters: Proper Biblical Interpretation

Interpreting Bible verses or Scriptures properly involves several key steps to ensure that we understand the text within its intended context and meaning. Here are some guidelines to help with this process:

1. Contextual Reading

Immediate Context: Read the verses before and after the specific verse to understand its immediate context. This helps to avoid misinterpretation by isolating a verse from its surrounding text.

Book Context: Consider the overall message and purpose of the book in which the verse is found. Each book of the Bible has a specific audience, purpose, and historical setting.

Biblical Context: Look at how the verse fits into the entire narrative of the Bible. Consider how it aligns with the overall themes and doctrines of Scripture.

2. Historical and Cultural Context

Historical Setting: Understand the historical period in which the text was written. This includes knowing about the political, social, and economic conditions of the time.

Cultural Background: Consider the cultural norms and practices that influenced the writing. This can provide insight into why certain actions or phrases were used.

3. Literary Genre

Genre Identification: Determine the literary genre of the passage (e.g., historical narrative, poetry, prophecy, epistle). Different genres have different interpretive rules.

Literary Devices: Identify and understand any literary devices used, such as metaphors, similes, parables, or hyperbole.

4. Language and Translation

Original Languages: Whenever possible, look at the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek words and their meanings. Use lexicons or concordances to understand the original language better.

Multiple Translations: Compare different Bible translations to see how various translators have rendered the text. This can help to clarify meaning and highlight nuances.

5. Theological Consistency

Scripture Interprets Scripture: Use clear and well-understood passages of Scripture to help interpret more difficult or obscure passages. The Bible is internally consistent, so one part can illuminate another.

Doctrinal Alignment: Ensure that the interpretation aligns with the core doctrines of the Christian faith. Be wary of interpretations that contradict fundamental beliefs.

6. Consultation with Scholarly Resources

Commentaries: Read reputable biblical commentaries for insights from scholars who have studied the text in depth.

Study Bibles: Use study Bibles that provide notes and explanations for difficult passages.

7. Prayer and Spiritual Discernment

Prayer: Seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in understanding and applying Scripture. Prayerfully consider how the text applies to your life.

Spiritual Insight: Be open to the conviction and teaching of the Holy Spirit as you read and meditate on the Scriptures.

8. Application to Life

Personal Application: Reflect on how the verse applies to your own life and faith journey. Ask how it challenges, encourages, or instructs you personally.

Communal Application: Consider how the verse applies to the broader Christian community and how it can guide collective faith practices.

Example: Interpreting Philippians 4:13

"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." (ESV)

Immediate Context: Paul is writing about contentment in all circumstances, whether in plenty or in need (Philippians 4:10-12).

Book Context: The book of Philippians is a letter from Paul to the church in Philippi, encouraging them to live joyfully in Christ despite suffering.

Biblical Context: This verse highlights reliance on Christ’s strength, a common theme in Paul’s writings.

Historical and Cultural Context: Paul wrote this letter from prison, emphasizing that his strength comes from Christ even in dire circumstances.

Literary Genre: This is part of an epistle, a letter with both doctrinal teaching and practical instruction.

Language and Translation: The Greek word for "strengthens" (ἐνδυναμοῦντί, endynamounti) conveys the idea of being empowered or made strong.

Theological Consistency: The verse underscores the doctrine of God's provision and empowerment for believers.

Scholarly Resources: Commentaries on Philippians often discuss Paul’s theme of joy and contentment in Christ.

Prayer and Spiritual Discernment: Pray for understanding of how Christ strengthens us in our personal trials.

Application: Reflect on how we rely on Christ’s strength in our own challenges, encouraging us to trust in His power and provision.

By following these steps, we can better understand and apply the Scriptures in a way that is faithful to their intended meaning and impactful in our lives.