Welcome to this special ninth issue of eGorgias where we are celebrating the release of the long awaited Bedjan-Brock six-volume edition of The Homilies of Jacob of Serug. To celebrate this momentous publication, we are offering Jacob of Serug's works on sale for 20% off the list price. Read below a detailed account of the saga of making this publication, written by Gorgias President George Kiraz. We want to thank all of those who supported this project by subscribing to purchase the set. We also would like to thank the Gorgias technical staff, especially Greg, for their tremendous efforts in producing the volumes. Scroll below to read this very interesting tale. In addition, Gorgiasians have chosen Sebastian Brock as the Gorgias Enthusiast of the Month of July. Read below what Brock has to say about Gorgias Press. With ATLA behind us, Gorgias is getting ready for SBL international in Edinburgh where Jeffrey Velkomer will be representing the press. Stop by our booth for special savings. Also, Gene Fojtik our ATLA conference rep. talks about his experience in the exhibit and the librarians response to Gorgias books.
- Recent Releases
- Forthcoming Books
- Special Sale: Homilies of Jacob of Sarug by P. Bedjan & Sebastian Brock (eds.)
- Gorgias Enthusiast of the Month for June: Sebastian Brock
- Conferences
For a complete list of our recent releases click here.  | Homilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug / Homiliae Selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis, Edited by Paul Bedjan-Sebastian Brock
By Jacob of Sarug
ISBN 1-59333-327-7, Hardback, $1200
| Jacob of Sarug is one of the most celebrated poets of Eastern Christianity and the Syriac tradition. The Gorgias Press edition, edited by Sebastian P. Brock, contains over 100,000 lines of poetry based on Bedjan’s 1905 edition. |
|  | Al-Tabari's Annals of the Apostles and Kings: A Critical Edition
By Abu Ja`far Mohammad ibn Jarir Al-Tabari
ISBN 1-59333-299-8, Hardback, $1350
| This work covers the history of the world form the earliest period of the patriarchs, prophets, and rules down to July 915. It includes the histories of the Sasanian period, the Prohet Muhammad and the first four caliphs, the Umaiyads, and the Abbasids. |
|  | The Letters of John of Dalyatha
By Mary Hansbury
ISBN 1-59333-341-2, Paperback, $38
| John of Dalyatha outlines the itinerary of those who are baptized: purification, sanctification through silence, tears, wonder, divine light; union through contemplation, praise, assistance of the angels- leading to the vision of God. |
|  | Syriac-English-French-Arabic Dictionary
By Louis S.J. Costaz
ISBN 2-7214-2235-9, Hardback, $65
| Aimed at the student in mind, Costaz’s Syriac-French-English-Arabic dictionary provides for each Syriac gloss its meaning in French, English, and Arabic. Under each root lemma, all the derivatives of the root are given, with their morphological data. The entries are typeset nicely so one can easily find the meaning in either French, English or Arabic. The dictionary also contains a mini dictionary of proper names. |
|  | Christianity in Iraq
By Suha Rassam
ISBN 0-85244-633-0, Paperback, $35
| This book provides a detailed historical account of Christianity's establishment in Iraq, as well as exploring the ancient heritage of the Churches of Iraq. |
|  | American Orthodoxy and Parish Congregationalism
By Nicholas Ferencz
ISBN 1-59333-195-9, Hardback, $75
| The Orthodox Church has doctrinally and historically required all church authority to be exercised primarily by the hierarchy. In America, however, the laity alone usually exercise authority over parish property. This book explores this anomaly and how it happened. |
|  | The Syriac-Speaking People [Suryaniler]
By Melih Duygulu
ISBN 0-00000-030-X, Hardback w/ CD, $45
| Referred to by many enthusiasts of the Syriac tradition as the best compilation of Syriac music, This limited supply 2 CD and booklet set is an excellent introduction to Syriac tradition, through the lenses of both religion and culture. |
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The Widmanstadt-Moses of Mardin Editio Princes of The Syriac Gospels of 1555 By Widmanstadius-Moses of Mardin
A facsimile reprint of the first edition of the Syriac New Testament, published by J. A. Widmanstadius and Moses of Mardin in 1555. This limited collector edition is custom bound in leather, with long lasting high-quality acid-neutral paper.
ISBN 1-59333-999-2, Hardback, $450 An Introduction to Syriac Studies By Sebastian Brock
Primarily intended as a handbook for the student embarking on the field of Syriac studies, this Introduction should also prove a very useful resource for scholars working in adjacent fields who need to make use of Syriac materials.
ISBN 1-59333-349-8, Paperback, $28 The Bible in the Syriac Tradition (English Version) By Sebastian Brock
This is an introduction to the Syriac versions of the Bible, with chapters on the manuscript tradition, the main editions, commentaries, and various aspects of the ways the Bible was interpreted and used in the Syriac literary and liturgical tradition.
ISBN 1-59333-300-5, Paperback, $28 Century Dictionary By William Dwight Whitney (ed)
The Century Dictionary and Cyclopaedia, edited by William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E. Smith, comprises thirteen volumes, including over 500,000 defined terms, two volumes of concise encyclopedic entries, and a world atlas. The Century Dictionary contains full, accurate, and clear definitions, and its many supporting quotations are chosen to illustrate, where helpful, the typical uses of a word or sense. Whitney, who is still regarded as the greatest American linguist of his time, gathered together a remarkable staff of general and specialist editors, which included many luminaries of American scholarship to compile this beautiful dictionary.
ISBN 1-59333-375-7, Hardback, $1000 Thomas Allom's Constantinople and the Scenery of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor By Mark Wilson
Allom traveled through Constantinople, Bursa, and the Aegean region making drawings. Allom’s scenic portraiture, paired with descriptive commentary by Robert Walsh, is a cultural, historical, and artistic treasure of great interest to contemporary travelers and readers.
ISBN 1-59333-139-8, Hardback, $150 Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I By David Gaunt
This pioneering historical investigation of the genocide of the Assyrian, Chaldean, and Syrian Christians of Upper Mesopotamia during World War I uses primary sources of Turkish, Russian, German, French, and Arabic origin, and oral histories by survivors and their descendants.
ISBN 1-59333-301-3, Paperback, $48 The Book of the Laws of Countries: Dialogue on Fate of Bardaisan of Edessa By H. J. W. Drijvers
The Book of the Laws of Countries (BLC) by Bardaisan of Edessa belongs to the most important writings of early Syriac literature. The text reflects the intellectual climate of northern Mesopotamia and in particular that of the city of Edessa, at the end of the second century and the first decades of the third century CE.
ISBN 1-59333-371-4, Hardback, $58 Nestorius Le Livre D'Heraclide By Paul Bedjan
A new Gorgias edition of Bedjan's Nestorius Le Livre D'Heraclide.
ISBN 1-59333-400-1, Hardback, $180 Typography of Syriac: A Historical Catalogue of Printing Type, 1537-1958 By J. F. Coakley
Syriac, a dialect of the ancient Aramaic language, has a remarkable Christian literature spanning a thousand years from the fourth to the thirteenth centuries, including important versions of the Bible. It is no wonder that this language has a long and rich printing history. The challenge of conveying the beautiful cursive Syriac script, in one or another of its three varieties, was taken up by many well-known type-designers in the letterpress era, from Robert Granjon in the sixteenth century to the Monotype and Linotype corporations in the twentieth, as well as by many lesser-known ones. This study records and abundantly illustrates no fewer than 129 different Syriac types, using archival documents, type-specimens, and the often scattered evidence of the print itself.
ISBN 1584561939, Hardback, $75
The Making of the Gorgias Reprinted Edition
By George A. Kiraz The making of these volumes was indeed a saga! The idea of reprinting the Homilies of Jacob of Sarug, originally edited by Bedjan in 1905-1910, was born not much later than the birth of Gorgias Press itself back in late 2001. Most of our reprints at the time were made from books belonging to my private library, a collection I started in my teenage years back in Bethlehem but grew year after year. There was one major problem in reprinting Jacob’s homilies: my library only held volume 1 (out of 5 volumes). As I have been searching unsuccessfully for a whole set of Bedjan’s edition for the past twenty years or so, there was no hope finding one in the antiquarian market. Library copies I had access to were so tightly bound that made it impossible to make use of them. The project was put on hold. Finally in April 2005, we managed to gather an entire set from three private collections: volume 1 from my collection, volumes 2 and 3 from David Taylor’s collection, and volumes 4 and 5 from Sebastian Brock’s collection (in addition to the reprinted material in volume 6 from Andreas Juckel’s collection). 
Here at the Press, we began working on the project in earnest as soon as Sebastian Brock left for Oxford with the original collection. The amount of work that went into preparing the text took quadruple times as long as we had originally anticipated. The Bedjan volumes are not that thick, until one realizes that they are printed on thin paper. Each volume was about 900 pages. The scanned images bled, a technical term indicating that one can see the text of the reverse side of a page. Typically one can set the parameters of a scanner to get rid of bleeding, but without access to the originals for a sufficient period of time, that was not possible. The bleeding had to be removed digitally using various techniques that the Gorgias staff innovatively came up with. Maintaining the original red headings would make printing prohibitively expensive and had also to be turned into lighter greyscale to be distinguished from the black text. The borders, most of which were broken, had to be removed from each single page. In most cases, one can develop automatic methods to remove borders, but as the borders in question were so close to the text, the entire thing had to be done manually, page by page. The usual speckles (dots introduced during scanning) were also removed, but our automatic techniques could not be used here either as this would also remove the Syriac diacritic points, many of which are fine in the Bedjan edition. This process too had to be done manually. Greg, one of our technical editors, spent months on this project. After one year of work, we were at the stage to run quality assurance on the volumes, ensuring that, after all the digital processing, the text is intact. However, we found out that about 50 pages throughout the volumes did not withstand all the digital manipulation, and required redigitization from the start. Dayroyo Mikael Öz of Oxford was kind enough to agree to rescan pages. In May 2006, exactly one year after the project began, the volumes went to press. Now all of the six volumes are available for purchase as a set, so if your library does not have a copy, inform them to take advantage of this special offer. Receive a 20% discount on Paul Bedjan and Sebastian Brock's Homilies of Mar Jacob of Sarug with coupon code 0706-GP-JOS. Click on the title to go to the full book page. The coupon is for single use only and cannot be combined with other discounts. Offer expires August 11, 2006. All sales are final.
Gorgiasians have chosen Sebastian Brock, co-editor of The Homilies of Jacob of Sarug as the Gorgias enthusiast of the month for July. Sebastian Brock needs no introduction. He has been a tremendous support to Gorgias Press both as a customer, author, and enthusiast. Gorgias president Goerge Kiraz first met Sebastian Brock in 1986 at the Symposium Syracum where George approached Sebastian about the possibility of studying Syriac at a graduate level. Sebastian told George about the newly established M.St. in Syriac Studies program at Oxford. Sebastian, who was already familiar with George’s work in Syriac, encouraged him to apply. Thus started the long term mentor-student relationship between Sebastian and George. It was through Sebastian's support and encouragement that George was able to complete his Concordance to the Syriac New Testament and following that The Comparative Edition of the Syriac Gospels. 
Image above: Party held by Sebastian Brock in 1991 to celebrate George’s graduation from the M.St. program. Shown in the picture: George (in black gown, and long hair!), George’s sister Theodora, an Ethiopian student, David Taylor (laughing away!), David’s wife Christine, Shafiq Abuzaid, Yakup Bilge, Sebastian Brock, and Helen Brock. When asked his opinion on the progress of Gorgias Press, Sebastian said: The Gorgias Press has revolutionised the facilities for information and research in the field of Syriac studies, both by its reprints of long unavailable basic tools, such as Hatch's Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts, and by its publication of new research. In this way it has quickly made itself indispensable and it is difficult now to think how we ever managed without it!  | The Wisdom of Isaac of Nineveh: A Bilingual Edition
By Sebastian Brock
ISBN 1-59333-335-8, Paperback, $24
| Here, in the inaugural volume of the Texts from Christian Late Antiquity (TeCLA) series, Gorgias Press is pleased to present Sebastian Brock’s masterful English translation of St. Issac’s writings accompanied for the first time by the Syriac text. |
|  | The Hidden Pearl: The Aramaic Heritage
By Sebastian Brock (et al.)
ISBN 1-931956-99-5, Hardback, $280
| An unprecedented book and album set on the Aramaic heritage, including three one hour documentary video tapes. Vol. I covers the ancient Aramaic heritage, vol. II is on the heirs of the heritage, & vol. III covers one of the witness communities today |
|  | An Introduction to Syriac Studies
By Sebastian Brock
ISBN 1-59333-349-8, Paperback, $28
| Primarily intended as a handbook for the student embarking on the field of Syriac studies, this Introduction should also prove a very useful resource for scholars working in adjacent fields who need to make use of Syriac materials. |
|  | The Bible in the Syriac Tradition (English Version)
By Sebastian Brock
ISBN 1-59333-300-5, Paperback, $28
| This is an introduction to the Syriac versions of the Bible, with chapters on the manuscript tradition, the main editions, commentaries, and various aspects of the ways the Bible was interpreted and used in the Syriac literary and liturgical tradition. |
|  | The Bible in the Syriac Tradition (Syriac Version)
By Sebastian Brock
ISBN 1-931956-15-4, Paperback, $35
| This is an introduction to the Syriac versions of the Bible, with chapters on the manuscript tradition, the main editions, commentaries, and various aspects of the ways the Bible was interpreted and used in the Syriac literary and liturgical tradition. |
|  | The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of St. Ephrem
By Sebastian Brock
ISBN 0-00000-021-X, Paperback, $29
| All but unknown outside the Syrian tradition, Ephrem's rich theology of symbol, asceticism, and prayer amply deserves to stand beside his more famous Greek contemporaries. |
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Gorgias Press at Conferences Gorgias Press will be exhibiting at the following conferences. Visit our book exhibit to recieve conference discount on all our books. Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) International Meeting
July 2-5, 2006 at New College, Edinburgh, Scotland Recontre Assyriologique Internationale (RAI) Annual Meeiting
July 17-21, 2006 in Munster, Germany ATLA's 60th annual conference
Gorgias Press was represented at the American Theological Library Association (ATLA) Annual meeting by Gene Fojtik. The conference was held in the Holiday Inn Mart Plaza adjacent to the famous Merchandise Mart with most of the attendees being librarians making plans for future acquisitions. As the crowds passed by Gorgias' table their eyes were dazzled by the new offerings on display. A few examples of the comments Gorgias received are: "Wow", "What lovely books", and "Thank you so much for being here." The positive feed back was often followed with assurances of future orders. Unlike other conferences where Gorgias presents, ATLA is not a venue for primarily selling books to attendees. It serves as an opportunity to lay out a feast of new publications before librarians who go away hungry to share what they have seen with their patrons. In this regard Gorgias' offering once again proved to be a success.
Gorgias Press
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Tel. +1 732-699-0343
Fax. +1 732-699-0342
Email: orders@gorgiaspress.com
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