Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium

The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (often abbreviated to ODB) is a three volume book by the Oxford University Press. It contains comprehensive information in English on topics relating to the Byzantine Empire. It was edited by the late Dr. Alexander Kazhdan, one of the foremost authorities on Byzantium of the 20th century, and was first published in 1991. Dr. Kazhdan was a professor at Princeton University who became a Senior Research Associate at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC before his death. He contributed to many of the articles in the Dictionary always signing his initials A.K. at the end of the article to indicate his contribution.

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Byzanz unter Eirene und Konstantin VI (780-802)

Ralph-Johannes Lilie, Byzanz unter Eirene und Konstantin VI  (780-802). Mit einem Kapitel über Leon IV  (775-780) von Ilse Rochow,  Berliner Byzantinistische, vol. 2, Peter Lang, Frankfurt/M., Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Wien, 1996,  XXVI, 435 pp.

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Theodori Studitae Epistulae

Georgios Fatouros, Theodori Studitae Epistulae: Pars 1: Prolegomena et textum (epp. 1-70) continens. Pars 2: Textum (epp. 71-560) et indices continens, Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae – 31/1, Walter de Gruyter & Co, 1992.

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Theodoros Studites (759-826) – zwischen Dogma und Pragma

Thomas Pratsch, Theodoros Studites (759-826) – zwischen Dogma und Pragma, Berliner Byzantinistische, vol. 4, Peter Lang,  Frankfurt/M., Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Wien, 1998, XXXIII, 352 pp.

 

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Theodoros Studites (759-826) war einerseits ein außerordentlich erfolgreicher Abt: Vorsteher des Studiosklosters in Konstantinopel, Begründer der «studitischen Kongregation» und Reformator des byzantinischen Mönchtums mit erstaunlichen organisatorischen Fähigkeiten und von enormer schriftstellerischer Produktivität. Andererseits verbrachte er annähernd fünfzehn Jahre seines Lebens fern von seinem Kloster in der Verbannung als Folge mehrerer unversöhnlicher Auseinandersetzungen, die er mit den jeweiligen Patriarchen und Kaisern führte. Wie kam es zu diesen Auseinandersetzungen? Welchen inneren Zusammenhang weisen sie auf? Worauf gründen sich Theodoros’ hohes Ansehen und letztlich seine spätere Berühmtheit? Ohne damit sämtliche Facetten seiner schillernden Persönlichkeit beleuchten zu können, versucht das Buch, diesen und anderen Fragen nachzugehen.

Encyclopedia of Christian Theology

 

Jean-Yves LACOSTE, Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, Routledge, 2004, 1928 pp.

 

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The classic Dictionnaire Critique de Théologie (Nouvelle Edition), is now accessible to a wide English-speaking readership in need of an authoritative, incisive, and up-to-date ecumenical reference to this enduring field of study.

This monumental set covers over 500 events, doctrines, individuals, theories, and schools of thought that comprise the study of the Christian religion across all of its denominations. The 250 contributors–all carefully selected specialists at the world’s leading centers for religious scholarship–analyze both the essential building blocks of theology as well as its most complex aspects and concerns, making this work an invaluable resource for laypersons as well as university-level students and scholars at the highest levels.

Ancient Greek Scholarship

Eleanor Dickey, Ancient Greek Scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises. From Their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period, Oxford University Press, 2007, 368 pp.

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Ancient greek sholarship constitutes a precious resource for classicists, but one that is underutilized because graduate students and even mature scholars lack familiarity with its conventions. The peculiarities of scholarly Greek and the lack of translations or scholarly aids often discourages readers from exploiting the large body of commentaries, scholia, lexica, and grammatical treatises that have been preserved on papyrus and via the manuscript tradition. Now, for the first time, there is an introduction to such scholarship that will enable students and scholars unfamiliar with this material to use it in their work. Ancient Greek Scholarship includes detailed discussion of the individual ancient authors on whose works scholia, commentaries, or single-author lexica exist, together with explanations of the probable sources of that scholarship and the ways it is now used, as well as descriptions of extant grammatical works and general lexica. These discussions, and the annotated bibliography of more than 1200 works, also include evaluations of the different texts of each work and of a variety of electronic resources.

This book not only introduces readers to ancient scholarship, but also teaches them how to read it. Here readers will find a detailed, step-by-step introduction to the language, a glossary of over 1500 grammatical terms, and a set of more than 200 passages for translation, each accompanied by commentary. The commentaries offer enough help to enable undergraduates with as little as two years of Greek to translate most passages with confidence; in addition, readers are given aids to handling the ancient numerical systems, understanding the references found in works of ancient scholarship, and using an apparatus criticus (including an extensive key to the abbreviations used in an apparatus). Half the passages are accompanied by a key, so that the book is equally suitable for those studying on their own and for classes with graded homework.

A Latin Dictionary

Charlton T. Lewis, A Latin Dictionary, Founded on Andrews’ edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary,  Revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten, Oxford, 1958 (first edition in 1879), 2034 pp.

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One of the classic works of lexicography, this is a revised edition of E.A. Andrew’s translation of Freund’s great Latin-German dictionary of the nineteenth century.

Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Edited by Lawrence H. Schiffman and James VanderKam, 2 vol., Oxford University Press, 2000, 1152 pp.

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Discovered in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd, the Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 800 manuscripts nearly one thousand years older than any other writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. Ever since, these mysterious documents have raised many questions. What do the scrolls tell us about the people who wrote them? What information do they have about early Christianity and Second Temple Judaism? How do they confirm or contradict what we thought we knew about the Bible?

Featuring 450 articles by an international community of scholars, the Encyclopedia is the definitive account of what we know about the Dead Sea Scrolls–their history, relevance, meaning, and the controversies that surround them. With contributions from 100 distinguished scholars representing diverse traditions and fields of learning, this volume offers the most comprehensive critical synthesis of current knowledge about the Dead Sea Scrolls. Along with viewing the works in their historical, archaeological, linguistic, and religious contexts, the archaeological evidence is explored and the methods used to date, document and preserve the manuscripts are explained.

With extensive cross-references, blind entries and an index, this definitive reference work provides authoritative answers and information for all readers.

New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin

Andrew  L. Sihler, New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford University Press, 1995, 686 pp.

 

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Like Carl Darling Buck’s Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1933), this book is an explanation of the similarities and differences between Greek and Latin morphology and lexicon through an account of their prehistory. It also aims to discuss the principal features of Indo-European linguistics. Greek and Latin are studied as a pair for cultural reasons only; as languages, they have little in common apart from their Indo-European heritage. Thus the only way to treat the historical bases for their development is to begin with Proto-Indo-European. The only way to make a reconstructed language like Proto-Indo-European intelligible and intellectually defensible is to present at least some of the basis for reconstructing its features and, in the process, to discuss reasoning and methodology of reconstruction (including a weighing of alternative reconstructions). The result is a compendious handbook of Indo-European phonology and morphology, and a vade mecum of Indo-European linguistics–the focus always remaining on Greek and Latin. The non-classical sources for historical discussion are mainly Vedic Sanskrit, Hittite, and Germanic, with occasional but crucial contributions from Old Irish, Avestan, Baltic, and Slavic.

Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism

HARMLESS, William, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism, Oxford University Press, 2004, 512 pp.

 

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In the fourth century, the deserts of Egypt became the nerve center of a radical new movement, what we now call monasticism. Groups of Christians-from illiterate peasants to learned intellectuals-moved out to the wastelands beyond the Nile Valley and, in the famous words of Saint Athanasius, made the desert a city. In so doing, they captured the imagination of the ancient world. They forged techniques of prayer and asceticism, of discipleship and spiritual direction, that have remained central to Christianity ever since. Seeking to map the soul’s long journey to God and plot out the subtle vagaries of the human heart, they created and inspired texts that became classics of Western spirituality. These Desert Christians were also brilliant storytellers, some of Christianity’s finest.
This book introduces the literature of early monasticism. It examines all the best-known works, including Athanasius’ Life of Antony , the Lives of Pachomius , and the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers . Later chapters focus on two pioneers of monastic theology: Evagrius Ponticus, the first great theoretician of Christian mysticism; and John Cassian, who brought Egyptian monasticism to the Latin West. Along the way, readers are introduced to path-breaking discoveries-to new texts and recent archeological finds-that have revolutionized contemporary scholarship on monastic origins. Included are fascinating snippets from papyri and from little-known Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic texts. Interspersed in each chapter are illustrations, maps, and diagrams that help readers sort through the key texts and the richly-textured world of early monasticism.
Geared to a wide audience and written in clear, jargon-free prose, Desert Christians offers the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to early monasticism.