Ancient Kinship

The volume "New Directions in Spiritual Kinship: Sacred Ties Across the Abrahamic Religions," edited by Todne Thomas, Asiya Malik and Rose Wellman, undertakes a comparative analysis of "spiritual kinship" (such as God-parenthood) in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. My chapter, "Kinship as Ethical Relation," starts by questioning the usefulness of spiritual kinship as a category for the understanding of Judaism and expands that critique into an alternate model that might be more useful for comparative purposes. I argue that the idea of "Spiritual Kinship" emerges precisely from an a set of Christian taxonomies that are often implicitly or explicitly anti-Jewish (kinship of the flesh vs. kinship of the spirit, the letter and the spirit of the law, etc.) which makes it unsuitable as an "Abrahamic" category. Moreover, the specific ways in which it is unsuitable for comparative purposes actually demonstrate the importance of this category for understanding of Christianity and of the anthropological kinship categories (affinal, consanguineal and fictive)  that were in large measure adapted from European Christian sources. Viewing kinship as a set of ethical relations, by contrast, does indeed allow for useful comparison across these religious divides and makes better sense of the ethnographic and textual data. Examples are brought from both modern and medieval Jewish life.

Мир «своих» и «чужих». По праву кровного родства: родовые структуры и брачные стратегии в прошлом и настоящем народов Евразии / The world of ‘Self’ and ‘Others’. By Right of Consanguinity: Clan structures and matrimonial strategies in past and present of Eurasian peoples

В этом выпуске мы предлагаем авторам и читателям рассмотреть проблему взаимоотношений между «своими» и «чужими» в рамках такого исследовательского направления как kinship studies.
Здесь, как ни в какой другой дисциплине, можно обнаружить нагляднейший и в то же время нетривиальный материал, который дает нам возможность изучать механизмы социального группирования и отчуждения / исключения. Различные системы родства и соответствующие им терминологии и иерархии могут показать внимательному наблюдателю как сходства, так и различия в стратегии и тактике интеграции / дифференциации сообществ, а метафоричность языка этих систем позволяет нам вернуться, возможно, на более высоком уровне обобщения, и к масштабу макро-анализа.

In this issue of “Tartaria Magna” we offer our authors and readers to consider a problem of interrelations between “insiders” and “outsiders” within kinship studies research trend. Here, as in no other scholarly discipline, one may come across most illustrative and, at the same time, unconventional research material giving us a chance to study mechanisms of social grouping and estrangement/exclusion. Various system of kinship and their relevant terminologies and hierarchies may expose to an attentive eye both similarities and differences in the strategy and tactics of community integration/differentiation. The metaphorical character of these systems allows us to return, perhaps, at a higher level of generalization, to macro-analysis.

Description and Date of MS:

This unique manuscript, in the Old Scots tongue, contains one of the largest redactions of the 'Life of and Martyrdom of St.Matthew'. There are a number of earlier manuscripts of his life from the 11th and 12th century written in the Old English or Latin, however most are much shorter accounts. The life is a first century account written contemporaneous to the events and personages who are named and appear therein.

Brief overview of account:

The account itself  draws out the apostolic sojourn of the Apostle and First Evangelist St. Matthew, who is the first gospel writer and first evangelist to leave the Asian continent (Asia Minor). The scene is set in Æthiopia in the royal and capital city of the time. A city which was located on expedition by the author in 2011 G.C. The focus of the text is to establish events that occurred in Æthiopia at the hand of the Apostle, including the conversion of the people and nobility, the establishment of the Æthiopian (Orthodox) Church, and finally the Martyrdom of the Apostle of Æthiopia himself.

Contents of book:

The Translator makes the first known translation of the Unique 14th century Old Scots text. He also edits the text and collates it, dividing the work into books, chapters &c. Explanatory, etymological and historical notes also accompany the text and translation. The original text appears on one page with the translation on the other. The volume also contains a full microfilm copy of the entire text in its manuscript form.       

This work is of the chiefest interest to the Old Scots language and literature, Early Judaeo-Christian and Apostolic history, Æthiopian studies and Geography and Archaeology, and ancient Ægyptian History and so on.

[ 'Life & Martyrdom of S. Matthew, the Apostle of Æthiopia: Translated, Edited & Collated from a significant Unique 14th Century Old Scots Manuscript in the Cambridge University Library, with explanatory and historical notes and exposition' Translated by Rev. Dn. Gabra 'AGZI'AABHIR JR (forthcoming)]