CPA Project planned
Prof. Michael Sokoloff and Dr. Christa Müller-Kessler, have been awarded a grant: by, the German Israeli:Foundation for Scientific Research and Development for a project entitled "A Corpus of Christian Palestinian Aramaic Texts" :in the sum of 170,000DM. The project is to last from Jan, 1994 through 1996,
The purpose of the project is to prepare for publication critical text editions of the Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) palimpsest manuscripts. CPA was spoken, written, and employed as a liturgical language by a group of Christians calling themselves Melkites who lived in the Judean Desert, the vicinity of Jerusalem, Amman, and the Sinai Peninsula between the 3rd-13th cents. C.E.
It is nearly ninety years since the last major text editions were published.: During the last four decades much progress has taken place in research on Western Aramaic-which also includes Samaritan and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic-in the form of new critical editions of texts, grammars, and dictionaries. A desideratum now is the preparation of reliable. And up-to-date editions of the CPA texts.
Each volume to be produced will contain: 1. The CPA text; 2. a translation of the non-biblical texts; 3. a philological commentary; 4. a glossary; 5. a concordance for the biblical volumes; 6. photographs where necessary and available.
The following volumes are projected in the series (All page numbers are approximate):
1. The Remains of the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Old Testament Version from the Early Period (110 pages of text, 30 pages of commentary, 20 pages of glossary, 20 pages of concordance, 20 Plates).
2. The Christian Palestinian Aramaic New Testament Version from the Early Period. Part I: The Gospels (200 pages of text, 30 pages of commentary, 30 pages of concordance, 10 plates); Part II: The Epistles (250 pages of text, 30 pages glossary, 30 pages of concordance, 20 plates).
3. The Forty Martyrs of the Syrian Desert, Eulogios the Stone Cutter and Anastasia (85 pages of text, 85 pages of translation, 20 pages of commentary, 30 pages of glossary).
4. A Collection of the Lives of Saints, Homilies and Other Religious Texts (140 pages of text, 140 pages of translation, 40 pages of commentary, 20 pages glossary).
5. Cyril of Jerusalem in the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Version (65 pages of text, 65 pages of translation, 30 pages of commentary, 20 pages of glossary).
Peshitta Symposium
The Peshitta Institute has announced plans for a Peshitta Symposium, to be held in Leiden from August 19-21, 1993. The theme of the symposium will be "The Peshitta as a Translation" Announced presenters include Gideon Goldenberg, Y. Maori, Konrad Jenner, Donald Walters, P. G. Borbone, Jerome A. Lund, Jan Joosten, Piet Dirksen, F. Sepmeijer, J. C. De Moor, and A. van der Kooij.
Neofiti KWIC To Appear
The second major CAL publication, A Key Word in Context Concordance to Targum Neofiti I, by Stephen A. Kaufman and Michael Sokoloff, is in press and due for mid-autumn publication (1508 pp.; $125). Purchasers are entitled to receive an electronic copy of the complete text of Targum Neofiti prepared for this concordance, including marginalia. Also available to purchasers, but for an additional charge to help support the substantial programming effort involved, will be a lexically parsed form of the data and complete dictionary. Please order this book from the Johns Hopkins University Press, not from the CAL office.