The Chronography of George Synkellos

The Chronography of George Synkellos
Author: Geōrgios (Synkellos)
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 638
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780199241903

In the early ninth century, George Synkellos, a monk of Constantinople set out to compose (in Greek) a universal chronicle beginning with the creation of the universe. Synkellos' death prevented him from seeing this ambitious project through to completion, and it fell to a fellow monk, Theophanes Confessor, to complete the narrative from the reign of the emperor Dicoletian up until his own day. The purpose of the chronicle, as Synkellos states on several occasions, was to confirm the orthodox dating of the incarnation of Christ at the completion of the 5500th year from the creation of the universe. In the course of demonstrating this point, Synkellos cites extensively from numerous histories and chronicles from Egypt and the Ancient Near East, some of which are unattested elsewhere. Since the author comments at length on his authorities and predecessors, his work is also a rich resource of information about the origins and development of early Christian chronography. Despite its recognized importance, the chronicle has never been translated into a modern language. The English translation provided here, together with introduction and notes, promises to make this influential and wide-ranging history more accessible to Byzantinists, students of ancient historiography,and specialists in biblical chronology, early Judaism, Egypt, and the Ancient Near East.

The Chronographia of George the Synkellos and Theophanes

The Chronographia of George the Synkellos and Theophanes
Author: Jesse W. Torgerson
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 476
Release: 2022-07-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004516859

The ninth-century Chronographia of George the Synkellos and Theophanes is the most influential historical text ever written in medieval Constantinople. Yet modern historians have never explained its popularity and power. This interdisciplinary study draws on new manuscript evidence to finally animate the Chronographia’s promise to show attentive readers the present meaning of the past. Begun by one of the Roman emperor’s most trusted and powerful officials in order to justify a failed revolt, the project became a shockingly ambitious re-writing of time itself—a synthesis of contemporary history, philosophy, and religious practice into a politicized retelling of the human story. Even through radical upheavals of the Byzantine political landscape, the Chronographia’s unique historical vision again and again compelled new readers to chase after the elusive Ends of Time.

Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World

Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World
Author: Ralph W. Mathisen
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780754668145

One of the most significant transformations of the Roman world between the fourth and seventh centuries C.E. was the integration and impact of barbarian peoples into the social, cultural, religious and political Mediterranean world. This was the theme of the 2005 Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The selection of conferences papers published here remind us that the transformation of the Roman world took place in a Roman context and that Romanitas always was the touchstone against which social, intellectual, and political developments were measured.

Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Traditions

Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Traditions
Author: Michael Anthony Knibb
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 469
Release: 2009
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004167250

This volume brings together twenty-one essays by Michael Knibb on the Book of Enoch and on other Early Jewish texts and traditions, which were originally published in a wide range of journals, Festschriften, conference proceedings and thematic collections. A number of the essays are concerned with the issues raised by the complex textual history and literary genesis of 1 Enoch, but the majority are concerned with the interpretation of specific texts or with themes such as messianism. The essays illustrate some of the dominant concerns of Michael Knibb's work, particularly the importance of the idea of exile; the way in which older texts regarded as authoritative were reinterpreted in later writings; and the connections between the apocalyptic writings and the sapiential literature.

The Apocryphal Adam and Eve in Medieval Europe

The Apocryphal Adam and Eve in Medieval Europe
Author: Brian Murdoch
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2009-04-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191569801

What happened to Adam and Eve after their expulsion from paradise? Where the biblical narrative fell silent apocryphal writings took up this intriguing question, notably including the Early Christian Latin text, the Life of Adam and Eve. This account describes the (failed) attempt of the couple to return to paradise by fasting whilst immersed in a river, and explores how they coped with new experiences such as childbirth and death. Brian Murdoch guides the reader through the many variant versions of the Life, demonstrating how it was also adapted into most western and some eastern European languages in the Middle Ages and beyond, constantly developing and changing along the way. The study considers this development of the apocryphal texts whilst presenting a fascinating insight into the flourishing medieval tradition of Adam and Eve. A tradition that the Reformation would largely curtail, stories from the Life were celebrated in European prose, verse and drama in many different languages from Irish to Russian.

Greek East and Latin West

Greek East and Latin West
Author: Andrew Louth
Publisher: St Vladimir's Seminary Press
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2007
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780881413205

"This volume gives an account of the Church in the period from the end of the Sixth Ecumenical Synod in 681 to the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Although "Greek East" and "Latin West" are becoming distinct entities during this expanse of time, the author treats them in parallel, observing the points at which their destinies coincide or conflict. The author notes developments within the whole of the Church rather than striving simply, or even primarily, to explain the eventual schism between Eastern and Western Christendom. Coveriing events both unique to each part (the Iconoclastic controversy in the East and the rise of the Carolingian Empire in the West) and common to each part (monastic reform, renaissance, and mission) the author skillfully portrays two Christian civilizations that share much in common yet become increasingly incomprehensible to one another. Despite curious synchronisms between East and West, the author demonstrates how two paths diverged from a once common route, and how eventually Byzantine Orthodoxy defined the Greek East over and against the Latin West in theological, religious, cultural, and political terms." -- Provided by publisher.

The Oxford History of Historical Writing

The Oxford History of Historical Writing
Author: Daniel R. Woolf
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 671
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199236429

A collection of essays from leading historians which explores the ways in which history was written in Europe and Asia between 400 and 1400.

From Rome to Constantinople

From Rome to Constantinople
Author: Hagit Amirav
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
Total Pages: 450
Release: 2007
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9789042919716

Collection of articles arranged in 5 subsections: Historiography and rhetoric, Christianity in its social context, art and representation, Byzantium and the workings of the empire, and late antiquity in retrospect.

Time: Sense, Space, Structure

Time: Sense, Space, Structure
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2016-05-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004312315

The essays in this volume explore the nature of time, our God-given medium of ascent, known, as Augustine puts it, through the ordered study of the “liberal disciplines that carry the mind to the divine (disciplinae liberales intellectum efferunt ad divina)”: grammar and dialectic, for example, to promote thinking; geometry and astronomy to grasp the dimensions of our reality; music, an invisible substance like time itself, as an exemplary bridge to the unseen substance of thoughts, ideas, and the nature of God (theology). This ascending course of study rests on procedure, progress, and attainment — on before, following, and afterwards — whose goal is an ascending erudition that lets us finally contemplate, as Augustine says in De ordine, our invisible medium — time — within time itself: time is immaterial, but experienced as substantial. The essays here look at projects that chronicle time “from the beginning,” that clarify ideas of creation “in time” and “simultaneous times,” and the interrelationships between measured time and eternity, including “no-time.” Essays also examine time as revealed in social and political contexts, as told by clocks, as notated in music and embodied in memorializing stone. In the final essays of this volume, time is understood as the subject and medium of consciousness. As Adrian Bardon says, “time is not so much a ‘what’ as a ‘how’”: a solution to “organizing experience and modeling events.” Contributors are (in order within the volume) Jesse W. Torgerson, Ken A. Grant, Danielle B. Joyner, Nancy van Deusen, Peter Casarella, Aaron Canty, Jordan Kirk, Vera von der Osten-Sacken, Gerhard Jaritz, Jason Aleksander, Sara E. Melzer, Mark Howard, Andrew Eschelbacher, Hans J. Rindisbacher, James F. Knapp, Peggy A. Knapp, Raymond Knapp, Michael Cole, Ike Kamphof and Leonard Michael Koff.

Historical Genesis

Historical Genesis
Author: Richard James Fischer
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2008
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780761838067

The beginning chapters of Genesis come alive with characters, places, and events almost totally unknown outside of the Bible itself except when illuminated by the fascinating history of the ancient Near East. Did a man we call Adam actually exist? Was someone known to us as Noah warned of a cataclysmic flood and instructed to build an ark? Could the Tower of Babel incident actually have happened? The reader will gain a new appreciation for the historical integrity of Genesis 2-11, and marvel at the evidence that the persons, places, and events depicted, though long misunderstood, could be real.