The Holy Tongue & how it Changed the Course of History


Book Description

The author retraces the main stages of the Hebrew language and demonstrate how they are directly linked to the development of Jewish philosophy in the various periods and to the changes to which the Jewish people were subjected in the course of its eventful history.




Speech and Society in Turbulent Times


Book Description

This book explores the underlying philosophies and values that inform the speech rules that a government or community institutes.




“I Have Always Loved the Holy Tongue”


Book Description

Fusing high scholarship with high drama, Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg uncover a secret and extraordinary aspect of a legendary Renaissance scholar’s already celebrated achievement. The French Protestant Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) is known to us through his pedantic namesake in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. But in this book, the real Casaubon emerges as a genuine literary hero, an intrepid explorer in the world of books. With a flair for storytelling reminiscent of Umberto Eco, Grafton and Weinberg follow Casaubon as he unearths the lost continent of Hebrew learning—and adds this ancient lore to the well-known Renaissance revival of Latin and Greek. The mystery begins with Mark Pattison’s nineteenth-century biography of Casaubon. Here we encounter the Protestant Casaubon embroiled in intellectual quarrels with the Italian and Catholic orator Cesare Baronio. Setting out to understand the nature of this imbroglio, Grafton and Weinberg discover Casaubon’s knowledge of Hebrew. Close reading and sedulous inquiry were Casaubon’s tools in recapturing the lost learning of the ancients—and these are the tools that serve Grafton and Weinberg as they pore through pre-1600 books in Hebrew, and through Casaubon’s own manuscript notebooks. Their search takes them from Oxford to Cambridge, from Dublin to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as they reveal how the scholar discovered the learning of the Hebrews—and at what cost.







“I have always loved the Holy Tongue”


Book Description

“[An] extraordinary book.” —New Republic Fusing high scholarship with high drama, Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg uncover a secret and extraordinary aspect of a legendary Renaissance scholar’s already celebrated achievement. The French Protestant Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) is known to us through his pedantic namesake in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. But in this book, the real Casaubon emerges as a genuine literary hero, an intrepid explorer in the world of books. With a flair for storytelling reminiscent of Umberto Eco, Grafton and Weinberg follow Casaubon as he unearths the lost continent of Hebrew learning—and adds this ancient lore to the well-known Renaissance revival of Latin and Greek. The mystery begins with Mark Pattison’s nineteenth-century biography of Casaubon. Here we encounter the Protestant Casaubon embroiled in intellectual quarrels with the Italian and Catholic orator Cesare Baronio. Setting out to understand the nature of this imbroglio, Grafton and Weinberg discover Casaubon’s knowledge of Hebrew. Close reading and sedulous inquiry were Casaubon’s tools in recapturing the lost learning of the ancients—and these are the tools that serve Grafton and Weinberg as they pore through pre-1600 books in Hebrew, and through Casaubon’s own manuscript notebooks. Their search takes them from Oxford to Cambridge, from Dublin to Cambridge, Massachusetts, as they reveal how the scholar discovered the learning of the Hebrews—and at what cost.




Language and Cultural Change


Book Description

It is common wisdom that language is culturally embedded. Cultural change is often accompanied by a change in idiom, in language or in ideas about language. No period serves as a better example of the formative influence of language on culture than the Renaissance. With the advent of humanism new modes of speaking and writing arose. But not only did classical Latin become the paradigm of clear and elegant writing, it also gave rise to new ideas about language and the teaching of it. Some scholars have argued that the cultural paradigm shift from scholasticism to humanism was causally determined by the rediscovery, study and emulation of the classical language, for learning a new language opens up new possibilities for exploring and describing one's perceptions, thoughts and beliefs. However, the vernacular traditions too rose to prominence and vied with Latin for cultural prestige. This volume, number XXIV in the series Groningen Studies in Cultural Change, offers the papers presented at a workshop on language and cultural change held in Groningen in February 2004. Ten specialists explore the multifarious ways in which language contributed to the shaping of Renaissance culture. They discuss themes such as the relationship between medieval and classical Latin, between Latin and the vernacular, between humanist and scholastic conceptions of language and grammar, translation from Latin into the vernacular, Jewish ideas about different kinds of Hebrew, and shifting ideas on the power and limits of language in the articulation of truth and divine wisdom. There are essays on major thinkers such as Nicholas of Cusa and Leonardo Bruni, but also on less well-known figures and texts. The volume as a whole hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of the highly complex interplay between language and culture in the transition period between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.







The Biblical Gospel


Book Description

This book explores the only sure solution to the ongoing problems of our world-the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ. A variety of viewpoints are presented from our religious, political, and economic spectrums, but only the absolute truth of the gospel of Christ has the message that ultimately answers the most pressing questions and serious concerns of the human soul. The book is concerned with encouraging and helping church leaders bring spiritual renewal to their people through the biblical gospel. Chapter one explains what the gospel is and the importance of the Bible and shows how a limited number of biblical figures were used by the Lord to bring spiritual renewal to their people. Chapter two describes the profound transformation that the proclamation of the gospel had upon sixteenth-century England. The pernicious dangers of our current postmodern culture are examined in chapter three, along with the only effective solution-the proclamation and reception of the biblical gospel. Chapter four proposes a model for growth and transformation in Christ through the renewal of the clergy and laity. The book concludes that mankind's only hope for eternal security and truth is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ, as presented through the pages of the Bible. The book illustrates that regardless of time, place, or nationality, the gospel declaration alone has the power to change human beings from lives of sin and rebellion against God and one another to lives filled with love and devotion to Jesus Christ and others. This book is designed to draw significant attention and interest to the churches' obligation and critical calling by God to present the Holy Scriptures in a loving and truthful way to congregations that will bring lasting change to the body of Christ. Only the gospel has the ability to renew and transform people from a life of sin and rebellion against God to a life of love, devotion, and service to Christ. Lives start to change and people begin to think, live, and act more like Christ. The promises and truths of the gospel bring to the believer eternal security, lasting peace, and unspeakable joy. What an extraordinary additive to everyday living! The faithful pastor is entrusted with God's Word to preach and teach absolute truth, which upon reception by the people brings repentance, forgiveness, salvation, and freedom. Ministers who are obedient to the gospel bring tremendous blessing and hope to their flocks. God's people are transformed and renewed and the kingdom of God is extended into a world desperately needing love and truth.







The Unknown History of Jewish Women Through the Ages


Book Description

The Unknown History of Jewish Women—On Learning and Illiteracy: On Slavery and Liberty is a comprehensive study on the history of Jewish women, which discusses their absence from the Jewish Hebrew library of the "People of the Book" and interprets their social condition in relation to their imposed ignorance and exclusion from public literacy. The book begins with a chapter on communal education for Jewish boys, which was compulsory and free of charge for the first ten years in all traditional Jewish communities. The discussion continues with the striking absence of any communal Jewish education for girls until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the implications of this fact for twentieth-century immigration to Israel (1949-1959) The following chapters discuss the social, cultural and legal contexts of this reality of female illiteracy in the Jewish community—a community that placed a supreme value on male education. The discussion focuses on the patriarchal order and the postulations, rules, norms, sanctions and mythologies that, in antiquity and the Middle Ages, laid the religious foundations of this discriminatory reality.