Gorgias Press
Founded in 2001 Gorgias Press is an independent academic publisher of books and journals related to history, languages, and religious studies, with specific areas of expertise in the Ancient Near East, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Classics, Early Christianity, Jewish Studies, Linguistics, and Syriac.
Gorgias [GOR-gee-us] Press was originally created by George and Christine Kiraz as a specialty press that could keep up with their research interests. With a background in computational linguistics, George Kiraz envisioned combining cutting-edge technology with humanities research. The new company would be completely online, with no physical storefront, and it would use automation and digital printing technology rather than traditional print runs. With these tools, the press could afford to publish rare and understudied topics that were previously considered unprofitable, and Gorgias soon became known for its pioneering work in language and linguistics, religion, and especially Syriac and Eastern Christianity.
Gorgias’ philosophy of “Publishing for the Sake of Knowledge” rather than profit, attracted a number of new authors, and the press’ areas of interest rapidly began to expand. Today, Gorgias Press publishes 50-60 new titles a year, including monographs, edited volumes, translations, and more, and Gorgias books can be found in academic collections all over the world.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 300
ISBN: 9781463246259
Pub Date: 30 Jun 2024
Description:
The book offers a comprehensive anthropological study of lived Christianity in Jerusalem’s Old City, with a special focus on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Church of the Anastasis. Based on in-depth ethnographic fieldwork, the study explores the experiences of the Rum Orthodox community, examining their internal dynamics and relationships with other Christian groups. Within the Church of the Anastasis, complex interplays emerge, as fragile legal agreements intermingle with ethnic and theological considerations, resulting in a complex reality of shared spaces and coexistence.
A materialist lens is employed to study these dynamics, suggesting that the material aspects of religious practices play a crucial role in shaping borders and influencing perceptions of similarities and differences across them. Outside the Church's confines, in the Old City of Jerusalem, lay Christians, especially the local Palestinian Orthodox, engage in 'border-crossing practices', which often deviate from the Orthodox Church's approved practice. These practices reflect the flexible strategies local Christians adopt in their everyday lives in Israel, challenging established norms and boundaries. By capturing these dynamics, the book provides valuable insights into shared sacred spaces and offers a significant contribution to debates in the anthropology of Christianity and its material culture.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 136
ISBN: 9781463245436
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2024
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
The dot is used for everything in Syriac from tense to gender, number, and pronunciation, and unsurprisingly represents one of the biggest obstacles to learning the language. In this Arabic-language edition of his book, Dr. Kiraz peels back the evolution of the dot layer by layer to explain each of its uses in detail and to show how it adopted the wide range of uses it has today.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 250
ISBN: 9781463242459
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Surath Kthob
Description:
This volume is part of a series of English translations of the Syriac Peshitta along with the Syriac text carried out by an international team of scholars. Skelton, Lollar, and Jurgens have translated the text, while Kiraz has prepared the Syriac text in the west Syriac script, fully vocalized and pointed. The translation and the Syriac text are presented on facing pages so that both can be studied together.
All readers are catered for: those wanting to read the text in English, those wanting to improve their grasp of Syriac by reading the original language along with a translation, and those wanting to focus on a fully vocalized Syriac text.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 250
ISBN: 9781463241704
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Modern Muslim World
Description:
Ottoman Architecture is the first modern history of Ottoman architecture written by Ottomans themselves, yet it is little known outside the field of late Ottoman studies. This magnificently-illustrated volume codifies the empire’s architectural history into a series of preliminary stages culminating in the efflorescence of the Ottoman classical tradition in the 16th century. At the same time, the text positions this imperial architectural legacy in relation to modernising projects in the late Ottoman Empire; in particular, the 'Ottoman architectural Renaissance' sponsored by Sultan Abdülaziz (r.
1861–1876). Moreover, as has been argued in other research, architecture is a prism through which the authors offer a larger analysis of modernity in the Ottoman Empire; an analysis where built heritage serves 'as an index for various stages in the transformation of the Ottoman state and civilization'.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 152
ISBN: 9781463245610
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Persian Martyr Acts in Syriac: Text and Translation
Description:
This volume brings together the texts and translations for three Syriac martyr acts, set in Sasanian Persia during the reign of Shapur II (309-379 CE). These texts offer compelling witness to the challenges of a community’s need to honor memory and experience, and evidence towards the formation and sustenance of Christian identity in the midst of Persian society and culture.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 495
ISBN: 9781463245634
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Texts and Studies (Third Series)
Description:
A study of the citations from the synoptic gospels that occur in the works of Origen that have survived in Greek. The citations, lemmata, adaptations and allusions have been collected and citations and lemmata compared against a selection of known manuscripts representing major text types including the so-called Caesarean text type.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 400
ISBN: 9781463207465
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Description:
This monograph examines the political and ideological roles of King’s Sons during the 18th Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Drawing on textual and material data, Lorenz contributes a new understanding of heir status during this period, and further analyzes the relationship between the mythos of divine kingship and the symbol of divine/royal child.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 284
ISBN: 9781463245795
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Judaism in Context
Description:
Male circumcision is one of the oldest and most widespread rituals, it has been practiced for millennia across many parts of the world. Yet this prevalence and long history do not make circumcision self-evident: it has also long been a topic of reflection, discussion, and controversy and continues to be so today. As the cases in this volume show, already in Antiquity, Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians clashed over male circumcision.
Then as now, concerns about identity, ritual, health, masculinity, and sexuality were a factor in these disputes. Very little is known about actual circumcision practices in the ancient world. Apart from depictions in art, the relation of which to daily practice is difficult to ascertain, we have historical access mainly through texts that reveal how the practice was discursively constructed, and that relate circumcision to wider cultural practices and ideas. This book therefore mainly discusses references to circumcision in literary sources, and the way these relate to other known cultural practices and ideas. These sources date from biblical times and Antiquity and their interpretations in medieval Jewish texts and recent scholarship.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 431
ISBN: 9781463245412
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies
Description:
A Festschrift for Rifaat Ebied celebrating a lifetime of work in the field of Semitic Studies, in particular Syriac, Christian Arabic, and Mandaic.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 169
ISBN: 9781463246174
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Journal of Language Relationship
Format: Hardback
Pages: 257
ISBN: 9781463245870
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Gorgias Islamic Studies
Description:
Over the past half century, China has accomplished a great deal in the study of Islam, and established a certain academic system for its study. This book offers a history of contemporary Islamic research in China, analyzing the interdisciplinary research emerging from this system, from its background to the people involved, mechanisms, and their publications, scientific conferences, reference works and historical materials, and the branches of research: history, religion, philosophy, politics, and culture.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 242
ISBN: 9781463244835
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Description:
The structure of the Book of Numbers and its division into textual units has long been of interest to scholars, and various theories have been put forward based on criteria such as time, location or theme. The present volume offers a syntactic-hierarchical analysis of the Book of Numbers, giving priority to syntax and secondary priority to participants and their roles.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 445
ISBN: 9781463245832
Pub Date: 31 May 2024
Series: Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages
Description:
This volume of essays honors Edward M. Cook, Ordinary Professor of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at The Catholic University of America. Cook is a leading figure in the vibrant and far-reaching field of Aramaic studies, and the essays reflect his range of interests, with lexical, linguistic, and literary analyses of dialects from the earliest inscriptions to the modern day.
Key Word in Context Concordance to the Syriac New Testament
Volume 6 (Appendices II)
Format: Hardback
Pages: 515
ISBN: 9781463246013
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2024
Series: Surath Kthob
Description:
The first comprehensive keyword-in-context concordance to the Syriac New Testament in six large volumes. It unlocks the treasure trove of the Syriac New Testament Peshitta readings and helps the reader to dive into the heart of this ancient Christian text, exploring its linguistic nuances, contextual meanings, and spiritual depths.
The Syriac Peshiṭta New Testament
A Reader's Edition
Format: Paperback
Pages: 550
ISBN: 9781463246051
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2024
Series: Gorgias Handbooks
Description:
This is the first Syriac reader for the New Testament. It guides the reader through the Syriac New Testament Peshitta, glossing the uncommon words and parsing difficult word forms.