Storytelling, the Meaning of Life, and The Epic of Gilgamesh – Arthur A. Brown
Stories do not need to inform us of anything. They do inform us of things. From The Epic of Gilgamesh, for example, we know something of the people who lived in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the second and third millenniums BCE. We know they celebrated a king named Gilgamesh; we know they believed in many gods; we know they were self-conscious of their own cultivation of the natural world; and we know they were literate. These things we can fix — or establish definitely. But stories also remind us of things we cannot fix — of what it means to be human. They...
Read MoreTHE SENTENCES OF THE SYRIAC MENANDER (Third Century A. D.) T. BAARDA
“Menander “ the Sage said: …” These words introduce a collection of wisdom sayings written in the Syriac language. The purpose of the author in drawing up this anthology of maxims was to show his readers how they could best live in a world in which good and evil, misfortune and fortune are mingled in an unpredictable way. Passing through a world of this nature, people need to be provided with direction, and the author gives such guidance by means of various counsels. The work is often designated a florilegium, and this seems to be a fairly good name for the collection,...
Read MoreTHE WORDS OF AHIQAR “ Aramaic Proverbs and Precepts “
The text is preserved as the more recent writing on eleven sheets of palimpsest papyrus of the late fifth century B.C. recovered by German excavators from the debris of Elephantine, Upper Egypt, in the years 1906-7. The first four papyri, with a total of five columns, contain the story of Ahiqar, which is in the first person; the remaining seven, with a total of nine columns, contain Ahiqar’s sayings. The composition of the work may antedate the preserved copy by as much as a century. The action of the narrative centers about the court of the Assyrian kings Sennacherib ( 704-681) and...
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