Two excellent blogs

Note to self:
Two excellent blogs that I need to put into my reading rotation...

https://thehiddenpearl.org/tag/syriac/
http://www.qadishat.com/

and a Maronite website to read through :
http://www.beith-morounoye.org/prayers/index2.html

The Myth of the Pagan Origins of Christmas

"... the December 25th pagan feast of the “'Birth of the Unconquered Sun'… was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance of Roman Christians." 

The most detailed study of this is by Thomas Schmidt at Yale. As a scholar of ancient Greek he takes into account pre-Christian writers. Look in Academia.edu and Vigiliae Christianae
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/myth-pagan-origins-christmas 

Hippolytus in 202-211 AD set the date for the birth of Jesus on December 25, because he thought Jesus was conceived 9 months earlier on the Passover, the day in which he also thought the world was created (5500 years earlier), the Vernal Equinox March 25. Clement of Alexandria (193-215 AD) quoted various anonymous sources about the birth of Jesus and roughly agrees with Hippolytus, claiming that Jesus was born in late fall to early winter. Clement’s sources clearly seem to believe that Jesus was conceived on the Passover and was born roughly 9 months later; in fact the only difference between them and Hippolytus is that they differed on when the Passover actually occurred.

-by Tom Schmidt “Sol Invictus evidently not a precursor to Christmas” Chronicon Blog, December 21, 2010. (http://chronicon.net/blog/christmas/sol-invictus- evidently-not- a-precursor- to-christmas)

The following is from "Calculating Christmas” Touchstone Magazine, by William J. Tighe, Associate Professor of History, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania:

As things actually happened, Aurelian, who ruled from 270 until his assassination in 275, was hostile to Christianity and appears to have promoted the establishment of the festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” as a device to unify the various pagan cults of the Roman Empire around a commemoration of the annual “rebirth” of the sun.

...the early Church followed [the Gospel of] John rather than the Synoptics, and thus believed that Christ’s death would have taken place on 14 Nisan, according to the Jewish lunar calendar. Greek Christians seem to have wanted to find a date equivalent to 14 Nisan in their own solar calendar... they chose the 14th day of Artemision [equivalent to April 6th on the Roman calendar]. In contrast, second-century Latin Christians in Rome and North Africa... concluded that he died on Friday, 25 March 29. So in the East we have April 6th, in the West, March 25th.

At this point, we have to introduce a belief that seems to have been widespread in Judaism at the time of Christ, but which, as it is nowhere taught in the Bible, has completely fallen from the awareness of Christians. The idea is that of the “integral age” of the great Jewish prophets: the idea that the prophets of Israel died on the same dates as their birth or conception.

The early Christians applied this idea to Jesus, so that March 25th and April 6th were not only the supposed dates of Christ’s death, but of his conception or birth as well...

What is the length of pregnancy? Nine months. Add nine months to March 25th and you get December 25th; add it to April 6th and you get January 6th. December 25th is Christmas, and January 6th is Epiphany.

Christmas (December 25th) is a feast of Western Christian origin. In Constantinople it appears to have been introduced in 379 or 380. From a sermon of St. John Chrysostom, at the time a renowned ascetic and preacher in his native Antioch, it appears that the feast was first celebrated there on 25 December 386. From these centers it spread throughout the Christian East, being adopted in Alexandria around 432 and in Jerusalem a century or more later.

Thus, December 25th as the date of the Christ’s birth appears to owe nothing whatsoever to pagan influences upon the practice of the Church during or after Constantine’s time.

Justin Sinaites at Abilene Christian University

Archimandrite Justin Sinaites, the librarian at the ancient Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai returned to Texas to speak at the inaugural event Center for the Study of Ancient Religious Texts (CSART). Read more at the CSART website...

More photos of Fr. Justin and the event can be viewed on Facebook

Outsiders or Insiders? The Changing Fortunes of Syrian Christians

Christian Sahner

Tuesday, November 29, 2016
5:00pm
Bizzell Memorial Library, Community Room (LL118)
View Course Flyer [PDF]

Dr. Christian Sahner is a historian of the Middle East and a Research Fellow at St John’s College, University of Cambridge. His work deals with the transition from late antiquity to the early Islamic period, relations between Muslims and non-Muslims (especially Christians and Zoroastrians), and the history of Syria. Born in New York City, he received an AB in Art and Archaeology from Princeton University, an M.Phil in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph.D. in History also from Princeton. He is the author of Among the Ruins: Syria Past and Present (Oxford/Hurst, 2014), a blend of history and memoir from his time in the Levant. He is currently at work on a second book which explores the little known Christian martyrs of the early Islamic period. It examines episodes of conversion, apostasy, and blasphemy as a way of understanding how an Islamic society first arose amidst the predominantly Christian population of the Middle East and Spain in the early centuries after the Arab conquests.

Online Resources for Learning and Practicing

LEARNING

DARIUS Online learning Platform, Steve Caruso
Well designed online modules for Classical Syriac/Aramaic
http://darius.rogueleaf.com/

Lessons for Surayt/Turoyo dialect, Freie Universität Berlin
http://surayt.com/

Biblical Aramaic
Online PDFs of "Introductory Lessons in Aramaic" by Eric D. Reymond, Yale/UMich
http://www.introlessonsinaramaic.com/

Beith Souryoyé Morounoyé
Series of PDF documents, Maronite
http://www.beith-morounoye.org/syriac/index1.html

Elementary Western Syriac letter and word descriptions.Little to no grammar instruction.
http://www.syriacstudies.com/category/learn-syriac/

DIGITIZED MANUSCRIPTS & MODERN PRAYER SOURCES

Digitized Manuscripts online
https://www.vhmml.org/readingRoom/

Online Syriac verse and English translation
https://thehiddenpearl.org/

Sh'heemo, Daily prayers of the week, PDFs
http://www.soc-wus.org/worship/prayer.htm

Maronite daily prayers
http://www.maronitefaith.com/maronite-library/

Includes prayers, verse, and explanation of liturgical terms
by anonymous
http://www.qadishat.com/

Online modern Prayer book, Malankara Syriac Orthodox use
https://sites.google.com/site/syrianorthodox/praying-the-shimo

"Symeon the Stylite and Syrian Monasticism" lecture at University of Oklahoma

The University of Oklahoma Department of Classics and Letters Lecture Series

Dina Boero (Princeton), Tuesday October 25
Boero holds a MA and PhD in Classics from the University of Southern California. Her research focuses saints and their cults in the late antique Near East, integrating literary, codicological, and archaeological sources. Her current book project, The Anatomy of a Cult, traces the history of Symeon the Stylite the Elder’s (d. 459) cult in the fifth and sixth centuries and by identifying the various transformations of veneration to Symeon, takes a step towards clarifying the origins of Syrian monasticism.

Jack Tannous "Christians, Muslims, and the End of the Ancient World"

The University of Oklahoma Department of Classics and Letters Lecture Series


Jack Tannous, Monday, October 3
Tannouse's research and teaching focuses on the Syriac-speaking Christian communities of the Near East in in the Late Antique and early medieval period, as well as other aspects of Eastern Christian Studies and translation. Tannouse edited and translated the Syriac letters of George, Bishop of the Arab Tribes (d. 724)

vHMML's new online Lectorium

From the vHMML website:

The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library is happy to announce the launch of the vHMML Reading Room, which provides access to complete digitized manuscripts and improved cataloging. 

You can find vHMML Reading Room here: https://www.vhmml.org/readingRoom/

Full access to Reading Room requires a one-time, no-cost, registration. Once your registration has been approved, you'll be able to use Reading Room freely. On the Reading Room landing page you'll see information about which collections have already been uploaded; for others you'll need to use our legacy catalog or consult the list of uncataloged collections accessible from the Reading Room landing page.

Syrian Christianity: From Jesus to Refugees

The University of Oklahoma Department of Classics and Letters Lecture Series

Monday, September 19
"The Apostle Thomas and the Origins of Syrian Christianity"
Charles Stang, Harvard

Charles Stang's research and teaching focus on the history and theology of Christianity in late antiquity. His most recent book, Our Divine Double (Harvard University Press) traces the rise of the ancient idea that each person has a divine counterpart, twin, or alter-ego, and the eventual eclipse of this idea with the rise of Christian conciliar orthodoxy.

For More information contact Dr. Scott Johnson, OU


Full semester program below...

Major update on Syriaca.org

Introduction from the website: The Syriac Reference Portal is a digital project for the study of Syriac literature, culture, and history.

Today, a number of heritage communities around the world have linguistic, religious or cultural identities with roots in Syriac language and culture.

Syriaca.org exists to document and preserve these Syriac cultural heritages.



The online tools published by Syriaca.org are intended for use by a wide audience including researchers and students, members of Syriac heritage communities and the interested general public. In order to meet the diverse needs of users, the design of Syriaca.org is inherently collaborative and fluid.

Taste and See: Syriaca.Org

The primary function of Syriaca.org is to be a reference hub for digitally linking research findings. Syriaca.org's publications compile and classify core data for the study of Syriac sources, offer the scholarly community digital tools for freely disseminating that data, and facilitate further research through the creation of shared digital tools and infrastructure.

vHMML Syriac paleography

Hill Museum & Manuscript Library's vHMML SCHOOL offers lessons in paleography, codicology, and transcription. FOLIO provides annotated manuscript pages for study and practice in transcription.

https://www.vhmml.org/school

Learn Turoyo Aramaic

Surayt (also known as Turoyo) is a Neo-Aramaic language, traditionally spoken by the Syriac/Aramean/Assyrian Christians in different countries in the Middle East and today by a diaspora in Europe. Surayt is a continuation of the ancient Aramaic language – famous as the language of Jesus – with a distinguished cultural and linguistic history over a period of more than 3,000 years.

Surayt has been classified as ‘severely endangered’ because of the emigration or expulsion of its speakers from their native areas over the last 50 years. The Aramaic-Online project was launched in 2014 to develop an online course (Surayt.com) and new language learning materials in Turoyo Aramaic.

Start learning Turoyo Aramaic http://surayt.com 

• EU Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Programme
• Freie Universität Berlin
• University of Bergen
• University of Cambridge
• Leipzig University
• St Ephrem Syriac Orthodox Monastery, Netherlands