Memory and identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures
Subtitle: rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran
By: by Sergey Minov
Contributors: Ephraem, Syrus, Saint, 303-373, supposed author
Series: Jerusalem studies in religion and culture -- volume 26; Jerusalem studies in religion and culture -- v. 26.
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2021
Place of publication: Leiden; Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 411
ISBN-13: 9789004445505; 9789004445512
Subjects: Early Christian literature; Syriac authors; History and criticism; Syriac literature; Mʻarat gaze
Other titles: Bible. Apocryphal books. Syriac.
Description: "In Memory and Identity in the Syriac Cave of Treasures: Rewriting the Bible in Sasanian Iran, Sergey Minov examines literary and socio-cultural aspects of the Syriac pseudepigraphic composition known as the Cave of Treasures, which offers a peculiar version of the Christian history of salvation. The book fills a lacuna in the history of Syriac Christian literary creativity by contextualising this unique work within the cultural and religious situation of Sasanian Mesopotamia towards the end of Late Antiquity. The author analyses the Cave's content and message from the perspective of identity theory and memory studies, while discussing its author's emphatically polemical stand vis-à-vis Judaism, the ambivalent way in which he deals with Iranian culture, and the promotion in this work of a distinctively Syriac-oriented vision of the biblical past"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: 1. Genre, date and provenance of CT; title: 2. Categorizing the Jewish "Other"; title: 3. Categorizing the Iranian "Other"; title: 4. Identifying the Syriac Christian "Self"; title: General conclusions; title: Bibliography; title: Index of Ancient Sources; title: Index of Names and Subjects.